Barthes defines myth as a type of speech. A tree is a tree, he says, but a tree as expressed by Minou Drouet is a tree which is laden with a type of social usage which is added to pure matter. Does this conception of a myth as a type of speech that adds to pure matter bear any connection to Walter Benjamin's idea of aura?
Two examples Barthes uses to describe myth are that of the clause "my name is lion" and the image of a black French soldier. These myths seem to be something more like metaphor, or something symbolizing something else in a conscious way. Is myth a conscious representation or can it be also an unconscious significance?
Myth is speech stolen and restored. Only the speech which is restored is no longer quite that which was stolen; when it was brought back it was not put exactly in its place. This brings me back to T.S. Elliot article and the question of where the talent lies in the artist or the medium. This process of stealing and restoring occurs in the mind of a person, let’s say an artist. Is the artist then responsible for the new placement of the restored speech/ the making of something new, or is it the medium and its ability to be a myth as there are formal limits but no substantial one so then everything can be a myth?
If everything could be a myth then two things such as writing and a picture that is used as an example in the article can both be endowed with the same signifying function to the point that a semiologist is entitled to treat them in the same way. How is value attributed then, is it based on how much or how little is restored from the stolen speech?
Saussure distinguishes "language" from "speech" and affirms that "language is not complete in any speaker; it exists perfectly only within a collectivity." He contrasts language with speech, which Silverman describes as "accidental," "personal," or stylistic. Could the difference between language and speech then be compared to the difference between art as it relates to art history and art created by individual sporadic gestures? If language did not exist would speech then lose any and all of its aesthetics? Would art if art history did not exist?
Barthes states that there are no eternal myths, and that human history alone "rules the life and the death of mythical language." What does this suggest about the "Most Wanted Painting?" Is there, according to Barthe, any way for there to exist a "most wanted painting," and for how long?
Kaja Silverman writes, "[I]t is only by means of linguistic signs that other signs become meaningful...photographic signs are shown to depend upon the mediation of the linguistic 'copy' which surrounds them, and to be indecipherable or at least unreliable without it" (5). This reminds me of a discussion we were having in another class about Lacan's "screen" and the socialized nature of vision. We see something through a filter of cultural signs; how we see an object depends on how our culture has deciphered it. A photograph is supposed to be a record of reality. If it has to be defined by culturally based linguistics, how can we trust it? Does reality become different in various cultures based on the terms used to describe it?
Barthes writes, "Our literature is characterized by the pitiless divorce which the literary institution maintains between the producer of the text and its user, between its owner and customer, between its author and its reader. This reader is thereby plunged into a kind of idleness" (4). This reminds me of Benjamin's description of the novel as an empty, isolating experience. Both Barthes and Benjamin suggest the decline of the more intimate forms of writing and storytelling. It's interesting to think of this in relation to the factory scenario we discussed the other day. The growing rift between author and reader and between reader and text seems to mirror the separation of factory worker and product. Is there a direct relationship? In what other ways has the factory model penetrated the literary and artistic worlds?
According to Barthes, he explains the myth of the bourgeoios as, "Myth does not deny things, on the contrary, its function is to talk about them; simply, it purifies them, it makes them innocent, it gives them a natural and eternal justification, it gives them a clarity which is not that of an explanation but that of a statement of fact...In passing from history to nature, myth acts economically; it abolishes the complexity of human acts, it gives them the simplicity of essences, it does away with all dialectics, with any going back beyond what is immediately visible, it organizes a world which is without contradictions because it is without depth...things appear to mean something by themselves." (143)
After reading this passage, I was reminded of Benjamin's argument about the storyteller vs the novel/mass culture. In terms of the myth being something easily readable and isolated, could there be a connection between Barthe's "myth" and Benjamin's criticism of the novel? Is Barthe writing negatively about the myth of today?
Barthes challenges the naturalness of cultural texts and practices by approaching mass-culture from a semiological standpoint and investigating how things function as signs, their connotations and denotations. His underlying theme is that what we accept as being natural is in fact an illusory reality constructed in order to mask the real structures obtaining power in society, that is, the bourgeois. Could this be connected with Brenkman's take on the media as well as our reading on the heritage project, in that all three address a socially constructed reality which is passed off as natural?
The idea of the myth seems to have a particular relationship to the media and advertising. As stated in the Brenkman, advertisements produce knowledge, but this knowledge is always produced from something already known that acts as a guarantee for the truth in the ad itself. Could one assert that ads are utilised to create contemporary cultural myth, which in turn leads us to construct a view of ourselves in relation to the world around us?
Silverman explains diachronic linguistics as coming into being "by virtue of speaking," believing that "It is in speaking that all change is found. Each change is launched by a certain number of individuals before it is accepted for general use." If this is true, and this explains how modern slang terms such as "hipster," "deck," and "scenester" come into being, then how is it that we assimilate these terms into our speech? Does the mere existing within a certain cultural framework provide us with all the tools with which to understand almost unheard and unused slang terms seamlessly into our speech without required contemplation? In Barthes writes "A tree is a tree. Yes of course. But a tree as expressed by Minou Drouet is no longer quite a tree, it is a tree which is decorated, adapted to a certain kind of consumption. If the tree is "decorated" and "adapted" from its original form, then is it not that the tree has simply become mythical and that the new tree is the myth, not the former tree? If a tree is a tree, then how can it be myth, can't it only be mythical?
I'm really hooked on Saussure's apparent severing of the relationship between signifier and signified: "The idea of sister is not linked by any inner relatinoship to the succession of sounds s-o-r which serves as its signifier..." why would a symbol for something stick if it didnt satisfy some innate psychological connection, similar to the concerns of synchronic linguistics, even if we dont have the words to describe what that connection is? this is sort of a design principle thing... and then about Barthes...this same idea sort of connects to his description of myth: the metaphor is what makes it work. Hilary's question about the conscious and unconscious significances makes me think about the conscious and unconscious connections we make with language. ie. the mutable nature of the meaning of a symbol...like use of the word "gay" and the way it has been historically used to mean anything from happy to homosexual to a derogatory adjective. what conscious and unconscious power does word choice (or, better yet, "symbol choice" or "metaphor choice") have?
Small third question (that is completely undeveloped, but i would like to write it down somewhere and why not here): speech is an entity larger than the individual, as saussure writes "language is not complete in any speaker; it exists perfectly only within a collectivity". isnt this sort of what we were looking for in the ideal public sphere? i'm not sure i understand the connection between the two quite yet, but how does this world of symbols relate to a sort of legacy of the collective...and what does it leave out?
Kaja Silverman and Roland Barthes both look to Ferdinand de Saussure in his theory of semiology. Both focus on the signifier and the signified and Barthes continues this exploration by dividing the myth into two semiological systems: the language-object and the metalanguage. I'm still having trouble differentiating between the systems in terms of the form and content. Where does the sign fit in? I realize we are supposed to come up with more insightful questions, but I was very confused by this reading.
There is mention of how "photographic signs are shown to depend upon the mediation of the linguistic 'copy' which surrounds them , and to be indecipherable or at least unreliable without it." Silverman then goes on to use the example of the film student to explain how we sometimes argue about whether the film should stress image or sound. Does the shot really require the dialogue? In art that one sees at a gallery or museum, can we just view the signifier without talking about what is signified? Of course the answer is no, but when we do illicit this speech--the myth--I, like Erica, am curious if the speaker plays the part of the storyteller or the novel.
Saussure says how changes are introduced into language through speech “Each change is launched by a certain number of individuals before it is accepted for general use.” Who are these individuals? Who decides to accept them as the general use? If speech and language is more social than political (Barthes), is it entirely on the bourgeois to make these choices?
“Speech has an individual and localized existence. It is characterized by certain “accidental” features, like personal intonation or style, which have no place within the more stable and normative language system” (Kaja Silverman) Barthes contradicts this by saying ‘its human history which converts reality into speech (=myth)’. If speech is based on reality, can it be ‘accidental’?
1) Silverman notes a central difference between "language and speech," in that "language exists perfectly only within a collectivity," while "speech...has an individual and localized existence." If these definitions are accepted along with Barthe's definition of "myth" to be "a type of speech," than is myth to represent a private experience? Though, if so, then a conflict arises, since for a myth to survive and exist, it is to belong and rely to the many, and not the individual.
2) Barthes writes that everything has the potential to become a myth. However, there are limits to what is considered a myth. As Barthes states, "Mythical speech is made of a material which has already been worked on so as to make it suitable for communication." Then, is Barthes attempting to conclude that there is a time prerequisite needed for something to evolve into a myth? And when and by whom must it successfully be endowed with meaning to be considered appropriately, a myth, a message?
In Barthes' S/Z article, he mentions that semiologists "contest the hierarchy of denoted and connotated language." Saussure may not privilege one of those over the other, but his semiotics seem to privilege language over speech. I understand that language is a larger, more encompassing manifestation of speech, but to me speech can be equally as powerful. I think that there is importance in having a rich vocabulary (richer language in Saussure's eyes?) and its ability to give you more tools for expression. But if I think of the factory worker, or the undereducated, speech is the tool they must use for assembly. Speech is learned first. How does this change their relationship? Secondly, in the "Myth Today" article, Barthes describes the mythologist's dilemma. How does this relate to the idea of the artist as the mythologist, artist as a shaman, the artist as a storyteller, or the artist as an outsider?
In reference to Silverman, I am curious as to how visual imagery can be integrated into her definition of semiotics. She focuses on the linguistic understanding of words and the way that we interpret various sounds. How then, are images related to our linguistic understanding of those sounds, and is it possible to alter auditory understanding by changing the images affiliated with them?
In reference to Barthes, I am interesting in his concept of symbols and how they are created. How are symbols that transcend cultures (like roses, for example) different than ones that are particular to an individual locality? In the part where he claims that semiologists must equally treat written and visual images, how does that differ among various understandings of objects and words between global cultures?
Barthes describes myth as being shallow in that it "organizes a world without contradictions because it is without depth, a world wide open and wallowing in the evident, it establishes blissful clarity" things appear to mean something by themselves." Does this mean that myths exist on their own? Or doesn't a myth need to have further context in order to get the whole meaning and reasoning behind the myth?
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Barthes defines myth as a type of speech. A tree is a tree, he says, but a tree as expressed by Minou Drouet is a tree which is laden with a type of social usage which is added to pure matter. Does this conception of a myth as a type of speech that adds to pure matter bear any connection to Walter Benjamin's idea of aura?
Two examples Barthes uses to describe myth are that of the clause "my name is lion" and the image of a black French soldier. These myths seem to be something more like metaphor, or something symbolizing something else in a conscious way. Is myth a conscious representation or can it be also an unconscious significance?
Myth is speech stolen and restored. Only the speech which is restored is no longer quite that which was stolen; when it was brought back it was not put exactly in its place. This brings me back to T.S. Elliot article and the question of where the talent lies in the artist or the medium. This process of stealing and restoring occurs in the mind of a person, let’s say an artist. Is the artist then responsible for the new placement of the restored speech/ the making of something new, or is it the medium and its ability to be a myth as there are formal limits but no substantial one so then everything can be a myth?
If everything could be a myth then two things such as writing and a picture that is used as an example in the article can both be endowed with the same signifying function to the point that a semiologist is entitled to treat them in the same way. How is value attributed then, is it based on how much or how little is restored from the stolen speech?
Saussure distinguishes "language" from "speech" and affirms that "language is not complete in any speaker; it exists perfectly only within a collectivity." He contrasts language with speech, which Silverman describes as "accidental," "personal," or stylistic. Could the difference between language and speech then be compared to the difference between art as it relates to art history and art created by individual sporadic gestures? If language did not exist would speech then lose any and all of its aesthetics? Would art if art history did not exist?
Barthes states that there are no eternal myths, and that human history alone "rules the life and the death of mythical language." What does this suggest about the "Most Wanted Painting?" Is there, according to Barthe, any way for there to exist a "most wanted painting," and for how long?
Kaja Silverman writes, "[I]t is only by means of linguistic signs that other signs become meaningful...photographic signs are shown to depend upon the mediation of the linguistic 'copy' which surrounds them, and to be indecipherable or at least unreliable without it" (5). This reminds me of a discussion we were having in another class about Lacan's "screen" and the socialized nature of vision. We see something through a filter of cultural signs; how we see an object depends on how our culture has deciphered it. A photograph is supposed to be a record of reality. If it has to be defined by culturally based linguistics, how can we trust it? Does reality become different in various cultures based on the terms used to describe it?
Barthes writes, "Our literature is characterized by the pitiless divorce which the literary institution maintains between the producer of the text and its user, between its owner and customer, between its author and its reader. This reader is thereby plunged into a kind of idleness" (4). This reminds me of Benjamin's description of the novel as an empty, isolating experience. Both Barthes and Benjamin suggest the decline of the more intimate forms of writing and storytelling. It's interesting to think of this in relation to the factory scenario we discussed the other day. The growing rift between author and reader and between reader and text seems to mirror the separation of factory worker and product. Is there a direct relationship? In what other ways has the factory model penetrated the literary and artistic worlds?
According to Barthes, he explains the myth of the bourgeoios as, "Myth does not deny things, on the contrary, its function is to talk about them; simply, it purifies them, it makes them innocent, it gives them a natural and eternal justification, it gives them a clarity which is not that of an explanation but that of a statement of fact...In passing from history to nature, myth acts economically; it abolishes the complexity of human acts, it gives them the simplicity of essences, it does away with all dialectics, with any going back beyond what is immediately visible, it organizes a world which is without contradictions because it is without depth...things appear to mean something by themselves." (143)
After reading this passage, I was reminded of Benjamin's argument about the storyteller vs the novel/mass culture. In terms of the myth being something easily readable and isolated, could there be a connection between Barthe's "myth" and Benjamin's criticism of the novel? Is Barthe writing negatively about the myth of today?
Barthes challenges the naturalness of cultural texts and practices by approaching mass-culture from a semiological standpoint and investigating how things function as signs, their connotations and denotations. His underlying theme is that what we accept as being natural is in fact an illusory reality constructed in order to mask the real structures obtaining power in society, that is, the bourgeois. Could this be connected with Brenkman's take on the media as well as our reading on the heritage project, in that all three address a socially constructed reality which is passed off as natural?
The idea of the myth seems to have a particular relationship to the media and advertising. As stated in the Brenkman, advertisements produce knowledge, but this knowledge is always produced from something already known that acts as a guarantee for the truth in the ad itself. Could one assert that ads are utilised to create contemporary cultural myth, which in turn leads us to construct a view of ourselves in relation to the world around us?
Silverman explains diachronic linguistics as coming into being "by virtue of speaking," believing that "It is in speaking that all change is found. Each change is launched by a certain number of individuals before it is accepted for general use." If this is true, and this explains how modern slang terms such as "hipster," "deck," and "scenester" come into being, then how is it that we assimilate these terms into our speech? Does the mere existing within a certain cultural framework provide us with all the tools with which to understand almost unheard and unused slang terms seamlessly into our speech without required contemplation?
In Barthes writes "A tree is a tree. Yes of course. But a tree as expressed by Minou Drouet is no longer quite a tree, it is a tree which is decorated, adapted to a certain kind of consumption. If the tree is "decorated" and "adapted" from its original form, then is it not that the tree has simply become mythical and that the new tree is the myth, not the former tree? If a tree is a tree, then how can it be myth, can't it only be mythical?
I'm really hooked on Saussure's apparent severing of the relationship between signifier and signified: "The idea of sister is not linked by any inner relatinoship to the succession of sounds s-o-r which serves as its signifier..." why would a symbol for something stick if it didnt satisfy some innate psychological connection, similar to the concerns of synchronic linguistics, even if we dont have the words to describe what that connection is? this is sort of a design principle thing...
and then about Barthes...this same idea sort of connects to his description of myth: the metaphor is what makes it work. Hilary's question about the conscious and unconscious significances makes me think about the conscious and unconscious connections we make with language. ie. the mutable nature of the meaning of a symbol...like use of the word "gay" and the way it has been historically used to mean anything from happy to homosexual to a derogatory adjective. what conscious and unconscious power does word choice (or, better yet, "symbol choice" or "metaphor choice") have?
Small third question (that is completely undeveloped, but i would like to write it down somewhere and why not here): speech is an entity larger than the individual, as saussure writes "language is not complete in any speaker; it exists perfectly only within a collectivity". isnt this sort of what we were looking for in the ideal public sphere? i'm not sure i understand the connection between the two quite yet, but how does this world of symbols relate to a sort of legacy of the collective...and what does it leave out?
Kaja Silverman and Roland Barthes both look to Ferdinand de Saussure in his theory of semiology. Both focus on the signifier and the signified and Barthes continues this exploration by dividing the myth into two semiological systems: the language-object and the metalanguage. I'm still having trouble differentiating between the systems in terms of the form and content. Where does the sign fit in? I realize we are supposed to come up with more insightful questions, but I was very confused by this reading.
There is mention of how "photographic signs are shown to depend upon the mediation of the linguistic 'copy' which surrounds them , and to be indecipherable or at least unreliable without it." Silverman then goes on to use the example of the film student to explain how we sometimes argue about whether the film should stress image or sound. Does the shot really require the dialogue? In art that one sees at a gallery or museum, can we just view the signifier without talking about what is signified? Of course the answer is no, but when we do illicit this speech--the myth--I, like Erica, am curious if the speaker plays the part of the storyteller or the novel.
Saussure says how changes are introduced into language through speech “Each change is launched by a certain number of individuals before it is accepted for general use.” Who are these individuals? Who decides to accept them as the general use? If speech and language is more social than political (Barthes), is it entirely on the bourgeois to make these choices?
“Speech has an individual and localized existence. It is characterized by certain “accidental” features, like personal intonation or style, which have no place within the more stable and normative language system” (Kaja Silverman) Barthes contradicts this by saying ‘its human history which converts reality into speech (=myth)’. If speech is based on reality, can it be ‘accidental’?
1)
Silverman notes a central difference between "language and speech," in that "language exists perfectly only within a collectivity," while "speech...has an individual and localized existence." If these definitions are accepted along with Barthe's definition of "myth" to be "a type of speech," than is myth to represent a private experience? Though, if so, then a conflict arises, since for a myth to survive and exist, it is to belong and rely to the many, and not the individual.
2)
Barthes writes that everything has the potential to become a myth. However, there are limits to what is considered a myth. As Barthes states, "Mythical speech is made of a material which has already been worked on so as to make it suitable for communication." Then, is Barthes attempting to conclude that there is a time prerequisite needed for something to evolve into a myth? And when and by whom must it successfully be endowed with meaning to be considered appropriately, a myth, a message?
In Barthes' S/Z article, he mentions that semiologists "contest the hierarchy of denoted and connotated language." Saussure may not privilege one of those over the other, but his semiotics seem to privilege language over speech. I understand that language is a larger, more encompassing manifestation of speech, but to me speech can be equally as powerful. I think that there is importance in having a rich vocabulary (richer language in Saussure's eyes?) and its ability to give you more tools for expression. But if I think of the factory worker, or the undereducated, speech is the tool they must use for assembly. Speech is learned first. How does this change their relationship?
Secondly, in the "Myth Today" article, Barthes describes the mythologist's dilemma. How does this relate to the idea of the artist as the mythologist, artist as a shaman, the artist as a storyteller, or the artist as an outsider?
In reference to Silverman, I am curious as to how visual imagery can be integrated into her definition of semiotics. She focuses on the linguistic understanding of words and the way that we interpret various sounds. How then, are images related to our linguistic understanding of those sounds, and is it possible to alter auditory understanding by changing the images affiliated with them?
In reference to Barthes, I am interesting in his concept of symbols and how they are created. How are symbols that transcend cultures (like roses, for example) different than ones that are particular to an individual locality?
In the part where he claims that semiologists must equally treat written and visual images, how does that differ among various understandings of objects and words between global cultures?
Barthes describes myth as being shallow in that it "organizes a world without contradictions because it is without depth, a world wide open and wallowing in the evident, it establishes blissful clarity" things appear to mean something by themselves." Does this mean that myths exist on their own? Or doesn't a myth need to have further context in order to get the whole meaning and reasoning behind the myth?
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