introduce the further possibility that the lineage of the copy should not be automatically esteemed. The term simulacrum identifies symbolic constructs/representational modes that forego the demands of Platonic mimesis by making no claims to a domain beyond interpretive mediation. The simulating action that produces linguistic signs and visual artifacts need not ascribe value or ethics to the endeavor to mirror truth. Simulacra implicate style because the putative abandonment of any attempt to retrieve the “true referent” would seem to empty the signifier of content, leaving only a formal appearance that does not engage with the ideal but offers only an imitation of bona fide act of engagement. Simulacra could potentially mean anything.
When cultures embrace simulacra as valid linguistic signs, they reorder the value system that would determine which language practices matter. In contexts in which simulacra circulate, no premium is placed on the attempted act to re-present reality and the referent is not given priority over the signifier that would represent it. The speech that heads back to truth is not preferred to the one that spins. Rather, all representational endeavors are equally regarded no matter what direction they take. Baudrillard maintains that a problem of translation arises when people fail to see the difference between the evaluative equity implicated by the production of simulacra and the order of evaluation imposed by the conventional work of distinguishing categorical differences between the true, the false, the real, the imaginary. Further, because simulacra look like genuine signs of truth, they can fool us. They will feign the requisite work of mimicking a higher order but offer a mere appearance, a thin surface rather than a core essence.
Baudrillard advises caution: Through the power of simulacra, we risk privileging artificiality over reality. We live at a cultural moment that has been influenced by the lessons of postmodernism and that embraces hyperreality as a component part of any communicative context. He argues that we are in danger of preferring representations that are pure contrivances, relying upon them as points of reference informing conceptions of what has value and significance. Letting go of the ability to make truth claims threatens to render systems of interpretation “weightless” (Simulations 10).
The GOP’s fear about the nation’s “soul” veering away from truth could be characterized as expressing a similar concern. On the other hand, to many of us watching the impeachment spectacle, the endeavor to punish the President for an illicit speech act enacted the very problem of pretense that GOP leaders claimed to fear, leaving us once again spinning in textuality.
The Reality and the Charade
I have been arguing that GOP arguments about the need to trust in the absolute authority of the law conflated a culturally produced social practice with a transcendent order that presumably oversees and guides how human beings respond to representations of ideas and events. On one level, such arguments remain persuasive because the idea that all should abide by the law is, after all, critically significant to the functioning of democratic life. Perjury is a serious offense and should be punished. We need to be able to count upon the idea that testimony given in a legal setting should be as faithful to the truth as possible. Further, the rule of law, in general, should be sacrosanct if we care about preventing despotism.
But when the concepts of governance and obedience were incorporated into public arguments in 1998, the idea that the law’s authority should absolutely and resolutely govern both the production of speech and audience reception not only failed to persuade a majority, the dedicated support for this way of perceiving issues cost the Republican party five seats in the House during the 1998 mid-term elections. As noted by political scientist Gary Jacobson, it was “only the second [time] since the Civil War that a president’s party has increased its share of seats in a mid-term election” (21).12 Many perceived pro-impeachment arguments to be empty, overwrought, “just” rhetoric, mere pretense, and hence dismissible.
As debates circulated in 1998 about the significance of Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky, GOP leaders had to convince audiences that they were sincerely raising a question about whether Clinton should be impeached. To appear to conduct a genuine inquiry, lawmakers gathered to talk things over, but because views about what was at issue were sharply divided along party lines, precisely how to organize discussion in the proceedings became bogged down in controversy itself. Congressional leaders endeavored to devise terms to name interpretive procedures that presumably would keep the question of impeachment open rather than rationalize a predetermined verdict. A language was needed that could clearly describe interpretive practices that truly enacted inquiry. Presumably, during the October meetings that took up the question of how to stage an impeachment inquiry, House members would be able to skirt the problem of simulacra by proposing deliberative procedures that would establish something akin to “best practices.” (Or, to put this in the language of mimesis, any speaker’s description of how to evaluate the meaning and significance of the evidence to impeach would correspond to that speaker’s actual conception of how representational processes work to facilitate a genuine inquiry within a legal proceeding.)
Debates in 1998, however, demonstrated precisely the inverse—that languages about procedures did not neutrally transmit uncontroversial depictions of evaluative practices. Once the House Judiciary Committee voted (21–16) to pursue an inquiry into the question of impeachment (Oct. 5, 1998), the House as a whole met to address the question of whether to approve the Judiciary Committee findings. Disagreements followed as Congressional leaders found themselves not only arguing about how to regard Clinton’s speech acts, but also about how to determine a method for exploring the question of whether criminality had made an appearance.
Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) opened that judiciary committee meeting with a statement that attempted to set parameters:
We have another ideal here: to attain justice through the rule of law. . . . And so here today, having received the referral and 17 cartons of supportive material from the Independent Counsel, the question asks itself: Shall we look further or shall we look away? I respectfully suggest we must look further by voting for this resolution and thus commencing an inquiry into whether or not the president has committed impeachable acts. We don’t make any judgments. We don’t make any charges. We simply begin a search for the truth.13
On the face of it, this statement might sound reasonable, if not rudimentary. If objectivity is obtainable, then we all might agree that the October meetings were, indeed, quite directly about establishing procedures and not about determining who was engaged in this historic event just for show. Hyde’s opening statement attempted to avoid that thicket of ambiguity by clearly describing the situation at hand. Ostensibly, facts about the alleged crime had been collected and were available for review. At least sixty thousand pages of evidence had been produced by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr to demonstrate that a crime had been committed. The evidence, meanwhile, was treated as a re-presentation of a “fact-finding” mission, delivered in narrative form, presumably neutral, presumably reasonable and hence devoid of any language uses that would persuade audiences to adopt a particular view of what the facts meant. When considering whether they were compelled to look at that evidence in the first place, Congressmen advocating an inquiry responded: Of course. How could a responsible inquiry move ahead but by taking a look at the evidence collected?
We might, then, expect few to disagree with the seemingly reasonable response from U.S. Rep Tom Delay (R-TX) about why legislators should always take a look at the possibility that a political leader has engaged in criminal activity: “Closing our eyes to allegations of wrongdoing by voting no or by limiting the scope or time constitutes a breach of our responsibilities as members of this house.”14
When proposing to take an objective look at the facts, both Hyde and Delay invoked what might be described as a scientific model of deliberation that envisions inquiry as objective and guided by an empiricist process in which a search for facts is made possible because “facts speak for themselves.” This version of realist discourse implicates style in that it maintains that forms of representation should facilitate the endeavor to both engage responsible deliberatory practices and signal one’s true intentions to others. The words we use to
