Power cannot punish simulation because law itself is only a second-order simulacrum

Evidence

It is necessary to see in this impossibility of isolating the process of simulation the weight of an order that cannot see and conceive of anything but the real, because it cannot function anywhere else. The simulation of an offense, if it is established as such, will either be punished less severely (because it has no “consequences”) or punished as an offense against the judicial system (for example if one sets in motion a police operation “for nothing”) - but never as simulation since it is precisely as such that no equivalence with the real is possible, and hence no repression either. The challenge of simulation is never admitted by power. How can the simulation of virtue be punished? However, as such it is as serious as the simulation of crime. Parody renders submission and transgression equivalent, and that is the most serious crime, because it cancels out the difference upon which the law is based. The established order can do nothing against it, because the law is a simulacrum of the second order, whereas simulation is of the third order, beyond true and false, beyond equivalences, beyond rational distinctions upon which the whole of the social and power depend. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 78

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the crucial hierarchy: second-order simulacra (law, equivalence, true/false) vs third-order simulation beyond true and false — the theoretical core of the chapter.
• XREF: Directly contrasts with Jameson’s reading of late capitalism; also dovetails with the ‘parody renders submission and transgression equivalent’ critique that echoes the chapter’s opening on Watergate. — connects to: Only simulacra exist; reality itself is a second-order simulation — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 184; Simulation threatens power more than real transgression by attacking the reality principle itself — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 74; Mystified arbitrary power becomes immune to legal restraint — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 628 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Only simulacra exist; reality itself is a second-order simulation #corroborates (0.90) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 184
• Simulation threatens power more than real transgression by attacking the reality principle itself #expands (0.85) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 74
• A simulated God leaves the entire system a weightless self-referential simulacrum #corroborates (0.85) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 18
• Mystified arbitrary power becomes immune to legal restraint #expands (0.80) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 628
• Simulation governs deterrence better than actual catastrophe does #corroborates (0.80) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 190