When Barthes writes on page 132 of Mythologies that “…it is very rare that (language) imposes at the outset a full meaning which is impossible to distort”, continuing with the existence of a “halo of virtualities where other possible means are flowing”, Professor Chun’s example of Spam comes to my mind (15 Sept. 08). It seems that Spam, a myth in itself as Barthes defines one, imposed a meaning when it surfaced in the media. Perhaps a too hilarious example to illustrate the uber serious ideas of Barthes, the Monty Python sketch nonetheless captures spam serving as a reference to nothing in particular. Repeated over and over, the word refers rather to the feeling of nonsense and amusement than to any more tangible thing.
Meanings that might have been “floating”, to use Barthes word, included that which computer-users and internet-junkies picked up on: the swapping of Monty Python’s idea of ‘spam’ for one of mere flotsam and jetsam. Myth thus invaded one meaning, and carried it away bodily, just as Barthes predicted.
To me, this concept of the variability of myth (built by language) captures the power (or lack thereof) of human construct and man’s own agency in life. If in fact, as Barthes suggests, most myths are surrounded by distortions waiting to be noted, what can one say a myth such as culture truly represents? Myth, it seems to me, cripples an individual’s agency and lets choices of meaning be determined by the masses.
Saussure stresses the difference between synchrony and diachrony. Viewing language in a synchronic, or cross-sectional, method holds more importance to the modern linguist in the eyes of Saussure. The static model of language allows one to examine signs in a sea of difference. The evolution of a word, Saussure claims, holds little importance because the collective dictionary instilled in a community doesn't relate those specific roots to the current signifier.
I guess I was slightly confused, though, when he says that "the word depit in French used to mean 'scorn'; but that does not prevent it nowadays having a quite different meaning" (95) He then simply states that "eymology and synchronic value are two separate things" (95). I would have liked him to elaborate on this point because it seemed to be a semi-grey area between the etymology and the synchronic. What if the history of these words remains in the consciousness of the few? What if an author plays off of this origin (in whatever way that may be)?
I am finding the historical agendas and preoccupations of these texts to be useful as an entry point into understanding the author’s relationship to the world. In case that statement is too oppressively vague to mean anything, let me offer an example: it is difficult for me not to understand the tone of “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” say, as a great optimism against the darkening tide in Europe, especially for a Jewish thinker abroad in 1937. But, I am having trouble making sense of Barthes’ preoccupation with bourgeois culture. How much of this can be attributed to its 1957 publication date and explained away as a critique of conformity, and to what extent are their other motives behind it? On Page 155, Barthes writes that “the very end of myths is to immobilize the world: they must suggest and mimic a universal order which has fixation once and for all the hierarchy of possessions,” taking a jab at the dominant entrenched bourgeois ideology. It is not clear, however, what he wants to supercede it, or who the revolutionary oppressed are in 1957 France? Is this a cryptic call for the civil rights movement that will later come to the U.S. (I am totally ignorant of the history of French civil rights), or is this an instance of me imposing history on this text?
On a totally different note, and in the spirit of responding to each other, I’m confused about your conclusion, Isabel. While I agree that Barthes suggests those in power have myth as a weapon in their arsenal, the oppressed (and here let’s just say Monty Python fall into this category) still have the power to dissolve myth, or even create new ones, as in the example of the Spam skit. This ability strikes me as a certain kind of agency and also as a certain weapon against determination of meaning. You read Barthes differently, and I’m curious to hear more about your interpretation.
One of the things I found confusing in Barthes was his classification of language-objects according to their resistance to myth. He says, “…the more the language-object resists at first, the greater its final prostitution; whoever here resists completely yields completely” (132-3) If this is true, and if by yielding completely something, of course, yields completely, is there no way to actually fend off myth other than finding a comfortable middle-ground, which arguably wouldn’t work anyway? He answers this later, half contradicting himself, by saying that myth is the only way to fight myth. Not only does that violate the first rule, but it ends up making a myth anyway, albeit an artificial one. Elaborating on this example alone isn’t to say I didn’t find a lot of the things he said confusing, but it was a prominent thought. On that note, I’d like to say that I was dismayed whenever he said “of course” or “obviously” when in fact I was not able to readily reach the same conclusion.
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When Barthes writes on page 132 of Mythologies that “…it is very rare that (language) imposes at the outset a full meaning which is impossible to distort”, continuing with the existence of a “halo of virtualities where other possible means are flowing”, Professor Chun’s example of Spam comes to my mind (15 Sept. 08). It seems that Spam, a myth in itself as Barthes defines one, imposed a meaning when it surfaced in the media. Perhaps a too hilarious example to illustrate the uber serious ideas of Barthes, the Monty Python sketch nonetheless captures spam serving as a reference to nothing in particular. Repeated over and over, the word refers rather to the feeling of nonsense and amusement than to any more tangible thing.
Meanings that might have been “floating”, to use Barthes word, included that which computer-users and internet-junkies picked up on: the swapping of Monty Python’s idea of ‘spam’ for one of mere flotsam and jetsam. Myth thus invaded one meaning, and carried it away bodily, just as Barthes predicted.
To me, this concept of the variability of myth (built by language) captures the power (or lack thereof) of human construct and man’s own agency in life. If in fact, as Barthes suggests, most myths are surrounded by distortions waiting to be noted, what can one say a myth such as culture truly represents? Myth, it seems to me, cripples an individual’s agency and lets choices of meaning be determined by the masses.
Saussure stresses the difference between synchrony and diachrony. Viewing language in a synchronic, or cross-sectional, method holds more importance to the modern linguist in the eyes of Saussure. The static model of language allows one to examine signs in a sea of difference. The evolution of a word, Saussure claims, holds little importance because the collective dictionary instilled in a community doesn't relate those specific roots to the current signifier.
I guess I was slightly confused, though, when he says that "the word depit in French used to mean 'scorn'; but that does not prevent it nowadays having a quite different meaning" (95) He then simply states that "eymology and synchronic value are two separate things" (95). I would have liked him to elaborate on this point because it seemed to be a semi-grey area between the etymology and the synchronic. What if the history of these words remains in the consciousness of the few? What if an author plays off of this origin (in whatever way that may be)?
I am finding the historical agendas and preoccupations of these texts to be useful as an entry point into understanding the author’s relationship to the world. In case that statement is too oppressively vague to mean anything, let me offer an example: it is difficult for me not to understand the tone of “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” say, as a great optimism against the darkening tide in Europe, especially for a Jewish thinker abroad in 1937. But, I am having trouble making sense of Barthes’ preoccupation with bourgeois culture. How much of this can be attributed to its 1957 publication date and explained away as a critique of conformity, and to what extent are their other motives behind it? On Page 155, Barthes writes that “the very end of myths is to immobilize the world: they must suggest and mimic a universal order which has fixation once and for all the hierarchy of possessions,” taking a jab at the dominant entrenched bourgeois ideology. It is not clear, however, what he wants to supercede it, or who the revolutionary oppressed are in 1957 France? Is this a cryptic call for the civil rights movement that will later come to the U.S. (I am totally ignorant of the history of French civil rights), or is this an instance of me imposing history on this text?
On a totally different note, and in the spirit of responding to each other, I’m confused about your conclusion, Isabel. While I agree that Barthes suggests those in power have myth as a weapon in their arsenal, the oppressed (and here let’s just say Monty Python fall into this category) still have the power to dissolve myth, or even create new ones, as in the example of the Spam skit. This ability strikes me as a certain kind of agency and also as a certain weapon against determination of meaning. You read Barthes differently, and I’m curious to hear more about your interpretation.
One of the things I found confusing in Barthes was his classification of language-objects according to their resistance to myth. He says, “…the more the language-object resists at first, the greater its final prostitution; whoever here resists completely yields completely” (132-3) If this is true, and if by yielding completely something, of course, yields completely, is there no way to actually fend off myth other than finding a comfortable middle-ground, which arguably wouldn’t work anyway? He answers this later, half contradicting himself, by saying that myth is the only way to fight myth. Not only does that violate the first rule, but it ends up making a myth anyway, albeit an artificial one.
Elaborating on this example alone isn’t to say I didn’t find a lot of the things he said confusing, but it was a prominent thought. On that note, I’d like to say that I was dismayed whenever he said “of course” or “obviously” when in fact I was not able to readily reach the same conclusion.
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