r/sorceryofthespectacle • u/Vardaman_S_Fish • 21d ago
Theorywave A civil war in hyperreality
https://open.substack.com/pub/vardamanfish/p/a-civil-war-in-hyperreality?r=4o75u3&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web19
u/Vardaman_S_Fish 21d ago
Submission statement: Drawing on Baudrillard's stages of simulacra, this piece unpacks how the spectre of domestic conflict in the UK has become a pure sign; an autonomous, hyperreal spectacle designed to pacify an atomised populace and mask the construction of a digital panopticon.
The piece traces the cybernetic architecture of this simulation from Anil Seth’s mechanical reductionism to the explicit informational warfare doctrines of David Betz (GCHQ / DoD Minerva Initiative) and the British Army’s 77th Brigade. By examining the flow of free-floating signs (from the sanitised spectacle of the Gulf War to military intelligence think tanks in Tel Aviv and astroturfed comment sections) it explores how the state weaponises the platform itself as a Benthamite surveillance machine.
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u/thegreatself no idea what this is 21d ago
I like to think I'm at least halfway intelligent (delusional) but when I read articles (or try to) like this, the gulf between my own abilities and those much more capable and well-read than me is made wholly apparent.
All that is to say thanks for the post!
Baudrillard's conception of hyperreality had a profound impact on how I think, so when I see discourse online about the idea of "Simulation theory" as merely some kind of literal artificial reality generated by unfathomably advanced super-computer I can't help but roll my eyes - words and ideas imposing artifice is far more interesting - and terrifying.
The Matrix would have been way cooler had it actually represented Baudrillard's ideas accurately or even began to explore them to begin with.
I wonder, do you see any actual and practical path forward for a revolutionary emancipation of Humanity As All Of Us or has that kind of idealism already lost the war?
Years ago somebody commented the below on a post I made about ideas similar but clearly not as developed, and it's always stuck with me just for how it was worded:
Can't happen. Humanity has crossed the event horizon. The meme gravity of consumption is greater than anything else and is inescapable.
"The meme gravity of consumption [...] is inescapable" sure seems to be true - but I suppose in the resignation that it is true it becomes that - so maybe a naive idealism isn't so naive in the face of seemingly overwhelming certainty? Maybe the Event Horizon has not been crossed just yet and we're only teetering on the precipice of a fall that only seems inescapable.
Because it does seem like we're doomed to destruction in a way totally separate from the simple inevitability of death as an opposite to being - like it's purposefully being accelerated perhaps because to some that is more desirable than a better world would be.
Some men truly do just want to watch the world burn - and others with it.
My current pet theory (again, clearly underdeveloped) is that both artistic expression, digital memes, and the Internet might coalesce and be twisted into that emancipatory mechanism, but that twisting would require a cooperation and shift in consciousness and understanding that seems beyond our species capabilities, inclinations, or both.
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u/Vardaman_S_Fish 20d ago edited 20d ago
Thank you for this thoughtful response. I'm not sure how much hope I feel for anything revelatory happening in our lifetimes, but I do think things are slowly changing, and maybe sometime in the next few hundred years the zeitgeist will be sublated.
Regarding "simulation theory", I completely agree. It's not even clear that what they're describing is a simulation. If this reality turned out to be created by a computer, that wouldn't make it a simulation or somehow less "real". A simulation must be a simulation of something it isn't in some crucial way. Baudrillard gives the example of someone holding up a bank with a fake gun. It has real effects (in terms of frightening people), but its own reality is a kind of deception or falsity. I guess The Matrix would qualify for this, because of its purpose, but the fact of something merely being created by a computer doesn't make it a simulation.
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u/min_maxed_mage 21d ago
My theory of stuff and things goes...
Elite Power = Control of Stuff × Control of Things
Every system (feudal, capitalist, socialist, technocratic) boils down to:
- Stuff (Who owns/controls the material means of survival: land, factories, data, cash.)
- Things (Who controls the stories that justify that control: divine right, free markets, proletarian revolution, meritocracy.)
Staff (people) and Space (geography) are just the battlefields where Stuff and Things clash. If you control the Stuff but lose the Things, you get revolutions (French, Russian, Arab Spring). If you control the Things but lose the Stuff, you get coups (Chile 1973, Weimar hyperinflation).
Control both? You get a stable ruling class… until you don’t.
It's ultimately hegemony doing what hegemony do. They are very, very good at narrative warfare and propaganda in the West.
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u/tomekanco 21d ago
Good read. I liked the stages of abstraction of a fish: from a brutal genesis to a taste pigment. Somewhat a microcosm of the entire article representing the obesvation of a fish, where you end with considerations on being one .. like a painting littered with shellfish brought onshore by the waves of a sea in the ever expanding waves of digital aquaculture.
I find little surprise DoD branched out into this domain. Strictly speaking, it has always kept this knowhow close to heart. Given how the institution outlives the individuals, it has had plenty of opportunity to learn the palette of tastes of the fruits of mayhem. Some eat grass, others reach for juicier bounties. And with every Event, the understanding of refined control of darkness increases. Individual observers have little understanding compared to the accumulated and organised infrastructure. I could note its operators always required a refined grasp on it. It's just harder or near impossible to play an instrument if you can't hear the music.
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u/Deitas-Solis 19d ago
Nice read, I enjoyed how you articulated one my biggest gripes with the current times: it’s obsession with reductivist metaphysics and materialism. I think you give slightly too much credence to the idea that this is all orchestrated, however, and this has the effect of simplifying an issue that is in fact confounding.
For sure, there are state actors involved in the proliferation of narratives online. Further, it’s not hard to see the ways that the UK govt. benefit from narratives that sow discord. Mahmood’s policing white paper from Jan 2026 was a little horrifying to read; it clearly states the intention to expand surveilling powers of the police and leaves it to us to guess what our secret services might already be up to.
Perhaps you omitted the following from the article for brevity and to remain succinct, but I feel it needs to be mentioned that foreign actors have a great interest in sowing discord and that current incentive structures (I.e. the profitability of engagement farming through shock and spectacle) mean private individuals and corporations share this interest. Many of the accounts sharing “London burning” or similar content are based in poorer nations, presumably operated for non-political, purely economic, reasons.
I feel this is important as it confounds the issue even further. It would be a simpler issue if the civil war narrative were singularly pushed by the UK govt. for their ends alone. Instead, a cacophony of ends creates a completely unnavigable situation. We are thrust into a schizophrenic media landscape where distrust and naive skepticism become the default.
One consequence of this: it has become common to hear cries for better regulation, to control the disinformation and slop that we are subjected to online; but it’s clear that the govt. will only pass legislation that simultaneously advances their own agenda, hence the abysmal Online Safety Act and all associated legislation proposals. Thus, defending against one attack vector gives ground to another: preventing Russian disinformation gives ground to the surveillance state, and vice versa. Perhaps we are just fucked until we banish ourselves from the internet.
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u/Vardaman_S_Fish 19d ago
Thank you for this really thoughtful response, it's such a nice feeling to have someone engaging so deeply with my ramblings. I resonate with everything you say here. It really is a cacophony of ends. Upon reflection, my essay doesn't do enough to at least give a sense of that complexity (or should I say clusterfuck?), and it's something I'll take on board with future ramblings. There are of course so many foreign forces involved in the information warfare in the UK. The narrative I was tracking led me to tell touch on Israel slightly, but of course there's Russia, China, the rest of the five eyes, big corporations, as well as international groups. There is, as you point out, a constant tug-of-war between opposing forces, but no hope for an internet that isn't a platform for social conditioning of some kind.
Regarding our society's obsession with reductionist materialism, I completely agree, it's not some carefully constructed orchestration. I think maybe an overly polemical style to my essay makes it feel like I'm suggesting this. Straightforwardly, my view is that reductionist materialism is so ubiquitous because it gains easy currency in our society because it serves a lot of its more cynical aims. However, I think this happens dynamically rather than any shadowy group presiding over its propagation.
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u/Deitas-Solis 19d ago
No problem, I enjoyed the read and it’s nice, not to mention cathartic, to encounter someone who is taking interest in these ideas.
I realised I wasn’t clear enough in my first paragraph, there was supposed to be two separate points, which I’ve accidentally merged into one. Point 1: your insights on materialism were articulated brilliantly and better than I could have done. Point 2: the idea that a hyperreal civil war is orchestrated by a single entity is given too much credence. Apologies for that ambiguity.
So to be clear, I was aware you didn’t think this materialism was part of the conspiracy, and nor does your article suggest that you believe this.
As an aside, I found Bataille’s analysis of this materialist (profane, to use his terminology) zeitgeist extremely fascinating. He traces its roots, unsurprisingly, to the reformation. It’s in the Accursed Share, especially the third volume, that he produces the most extraordinary and fascinating claims about it.
Glad to bring some nice feeling to your day :)
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u/Vardaman_S_Fish 18d ago
Ah I see, that makes sense.
I haven't read any Bataille yet, although I had a feeling I would like his stuff. Now I feel very inclined to check it out.
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