The reply precesses the question, trapping the speaker in his own interrogation

Evidence

Impossible now to pose the famous question: “From what position do you speak?” - “How do you know?” “From where do you get your power?” without hearing the immediate response: “But it is of you (from you) that I speak” - meaning, it is you who are speaking, you who know, you who are the power. Gigantic circumvolution, circumlocution of the spoken word, which is equal to a blackmail with no end, to a deterrence that cannot be appealed of the subject presumed to speak, leaving him without a reply, because to the question that he poses one ineluctably replies: but you are the answer, or: your question is already an answer, etc. - the whole strangulatory sophistication of intercepting speech, of the forced confession in the guise of freedom of expression, of trapping the subject in his own interrogation, of the precession of the reply to the question (all the violence of interpretation lies there, as well as that of the conscious or unconscious management of the “spoken word” [parole]). — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 152

Categorization

• DEFINE: This is Baudrillard’s clearest early definition of the precession of simulacra applied to discourse itself — the reply comes before the question, so every question already contains its answer.
• XREF: Connects to Jameson’s later treatment of the postmodern subject who can no longer take a critical position outside the system — interlocution mirrors that positional collapse. — connects to: Facing relentless interrogation of one’s beliefs can compel reciprocal questioning — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 868

Broader Connections

• Facing relentless interrogation of one’s beliefs can compel reciprocal questioning #expands (0.75) — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 868