Walter Benjamin And Eco's Influence On American Culture

Walter Benjamin and Umberto Eco both present their views on imitation and authenticity in their respective works “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” and “Travels in Hyperreality,” providing distinctive philosophies on the effects of reproductive technology on society. What are Benjamin’s views of authenticity? How does Eco take the “absolute fake” to be the hallmark of American civilization? Finally, does the “absolute fake” or inauthenticity pose a greater threat to today’s society? Benjamin’s theories concerning authenticity revolve primarily around what he describes as the “aura” of a work of art, essentially the idea the an original work of art is uniquely present in a spatial-temporal existence. For Benjamin, the requirements for authenticity are far more than just being a
Eco’s entire argument is based on the idea that American society is obsessed with hyperreality and the recreation of “authentic” works of art or events in ways that make them better than they could possibly have been originally. Thus, what we are creating is not merely an imitation, but rather an imitation that aims to be so hyperrealistic that with “… the reproduction … you will no longer feel any need for the original.” (19). We have lost our sense of history and now our goal is to create such a complete sensory overload in all forms of art that we can no longer appreciate the truly authentic pieces, regarding them as “dreary” and unable to capture our attention (31). Even the small portion of historical information that we still commonly reference is “sensationalistic,” and “truth is mixed with legend …” making it nearly impossible to fully grasp the true reality on which the realer-than-real representations have been based