Deep down, the US, with its space, its technological refinement, its bluff good conscience, even in those spaces which it opens up for simulation, is the only remaining primitive society.

Baudrillard is turning a familiar hierarchy upside down: the most technologically advanced society can, at a deeper level, remain “primitive.” He suggests that the United States’ vast spaces, technical sophistication, and self-assured moral innocence (“bluff good conscience”) do not dispel archaic patterns; rather, they provide an ideal terrain for them to persist under modern forms. The reference to “spaces … for simulation” points to his broader theory that American reality is organized through images, models, and staged experiences—yet this very hypermodernity can function like a new tribalism, sustained by mythic self-narratives and ritualized consumption. The provocation is meant to unsettle the idea that progress equals maturity.