Communications and Media

The Remainder  is the  fifteenth chapter of Jean Baudrillards book Simulacra and Simulation. The chapter primarily talks about the concept of  the remainder, the concept in general, and how it is related to society. Practically half of the article is about the many definitions of the word  remainder. --explaining the concept in various different ways and analogies. The author first introduces the concept of remainder surprisingly by a universally accepted truth and claims it to be false.  When everything is taken away nothing is left.  (Baudrillard).

The writer then moves on to the main argument of the article that the concept of remainder theoretically does not exist and that it is only  through subtraction of the remainder that reality is founded and gathers strength.  (Baudrillard). In other words, the author is saying that we owe a lot of things to the effect that the remainder have on our lives. A series of explanations of what the remainder is and its qualities follow.

First, the remainder has no binary opposition like most concepts which has leftright, majorityminority, crazynormal etc. The remainder stands alone and it something that is both positive and negative but its negative side that gives it, as it were, the force of reality.  As a point of comparison the remainder is then likened to a mirror because the remainder can be defined as the remainder of the remainder, hence we would not know which is which. Nobody can tell which is the real remainder or if there is even any  real  remainder.

Next, the author then introduces society into the concept of remainder. The author asks how can we tell if the residue of the social is the nonsocialized, or the other way around. The earlier definitions suggests that we really cant tell which is the byproduct and which is the original.

The authors theory can be summarized in the following passage   When the system has absorbed everything...when nothing remains, the entire sum turns to the remainder and become the remainder.  (Baudrillard). Like all paradoxes, it does not make sense at first glance but it is actually telling the truth-- a system would be meaningless if everything else, including those that are insignificant are added to it, the system itself becomes the remainder because of all the insignificant elements added to it.

In a social comparison to further explain his arguments, the author resolves into citing a column entitled  Society  wherein the topics are usually about people who are not socialized the minorities like immigrants, women, delinquents, etc. This column is entitled as such and is very socially relevant and yet the topic are about people who are not supposed to be significant in society. It works by the efforts of these nonsocialized people to be accepted into society. This drives the social system and when this process stops, society itself becomes the residue or the remainder.

In a sense, the definition of the remainder contradicts its own existence because the remainder seems to be everywhere.  There is no longer even a remainder due to the fact that the  remainder is everywhere. (Baudrillard).

The whole article can be a little tricky to read and might be daunting for some first time readers but just look at it this way the author claims that the remainder does not exist because what is being added does not hold meaning. Would you rather accept that a mediocre remainder exists because of all the senseless addition or would you just forget the whole thing altogether