Mouffe writes that the creation of a collective identity "us" is dependent upon a concept of "them", and that there will thus always be the possibility that this "us/them" relationship will become antagonistic, and therefore political. Is this acceptance of the inevitability of antagonism necessary for admitting the political nature of the "us/them" relationship, or is the idea that this would even be possible the very example of liberalisms failure that she's talking about? Mouffe refers to the idea of the multiplication of allegiances and therefore division of passions as the only way to an "agonistic pluralism". If this is the case, wouldn't the disappearance of the fight against Communism, leading to the multiplication of identities based on religion, ethnicity, region, and the loss of democracy's enemy be a advantage for the development of this pluralism?
The Mouffe article seemed contradictive with the idea of us and them. The article discussed the idea of domesticating hostility as a means to defuse the potential antagonism inherent in human relations thus putting a stop to the potential for violence that exists in the construction of “us and them”. However it is necessary to keep tension between complete equivalence and preserving all difference. Furthermore the idea of making discrimination in a way that is compatible with pluralist democracy. How is it possible to discuss equality as a means to get rid of hostility but keep discrimination in the picture? It would be ideal according to the article to create an “us and them” rather than an “us differentiating from them” and further down the reading the “them/other” is mentioned as a counterpart, what is the difference between the word other and counterpart? If there is no difference then the “us differentiating from them” is still in existence and where does that leave us?
1. Mouffe writes, "These foreigners are portrayed as endangering national identity and sovereignty by various political movements which are doing their best to produce new collective identities and to re-create a political frontier by means of a nationalist and xenophobic discourse" (105). After reading this, it's hard not to think about the immigration issues in the U.S. right now. In the wake of September 11, the government tried to fight terrorism by building a strong support base and national identity. Has the government been intolerant toward illegal immigrants because they're seen as a threat to this? Because immigrants are foreigners, has their presence been thought to undermine attempts at forging a national identity?
2. (My apologies; I accidentally posted this question for the Barthes reading last week. This question relates to the Barthes article we read for today's class). 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?
Barthes compares "connotation" with "function." Within art, what kinds of connotations would effect our experience of a certain work? Does the "function" Barthes refers to pertain solely to the artist's intent or all functions that may arise in a viewer's mind?
Mouffee asks "How can we fight the tendency towards exclusion?" How does the idea of exclusion relate to the art world? Can the cover of the Museum of Modern Art's Cubism and Abstract Art catalogue be seen as exclusionary by virtue of the fact that it excludes works that do not relate to certain art movements?
1. Mouffe states that "identity cannot, therefore, belong to one person alone, and no one belongs to a single identity." Does this mean that taking a political stance based on identity is useless since so identity is not singularly communal and not unique?
2. Barthes writes that readerly texts "can be read, but not written" and writerly texts are opposite in that they aim to "make the reader no longer a consumer, but a producer of the text." Barthes continues to say that a readerly text is a "classic text" and that the writerly text is something rarely found in bookstores. What then is the writerly text? Aren't classic texts that we read in high school and junior high classic because we bring our own interpretations and because they shed new light on history or situations that are still applicable today? Why wouldn't these "classic" texts be considered writerly?
It is interesting to see the pluralism of literature and writing described by Barthes in conjunction with the pluralism being discussed by Mouffee. Both texts bring to light the importance of recognizing the exterior in order to recognize the interior or some aspect of the self and it's structure. Both recognize the impact of the outside on understanding the self, whether it is a referring to a narrative structure, connotation, or a set of political ideals. Mouffee's discussion of identifying the self through identifying the presence of the author recalls Lacanian imagery of looking and seeing. It is critical when he recognizes the difference between "liberal logic" and "democratic logic" which sometimes I feel is taken to be very much the same. It reminds me of a piece by Tania Bruguera that took place at Our Literal Speed and the discussion that was held afterwards. Do we need to be deceived in order to see truth and differences? Was the friction that took place there what Mouffee describes as "the constitution of collective identities around clearly differentiated positions?" Or were the plants seen as enemies, people that would be excluded from the process out of convenience?
Mouffee states the prime task of democratic politics is to mobilize passions and give them a democratic outlet. Democracy also needs consensus – it needs the majority to agree to its truth or its rightness. Barthes then describes texts as readerly or classic texts if they are dead and without the flexibility for interpretation. Who decides these texts to be classic texts? Barthes seems to describe texts in the same way Mouffee describes democratic politics. They can either mobilize passions or not. What consensus decides if a text mobilizes passions? Later in Barthes’ essay, he states we must, “arrange all the meanings of a text around the hearth of denotation.” In this, he is claiming there is an element of all texts that can be the subject of pure denotation – meaning they are fact, and not to be interpreted. He asserts that any interpretive meaning then circles around the core, truthful meaning. Can a text be purely interpretation? Does all art need to have some root in reality in order to offer any opportunities for interpretation?
Mouffe's premises at the beginning of the article are questionable. She assumes that all of politics is a fight between different identities that can't be resolved (which I would probably agree with), but then goes on to say that because of the fall of communism, liberal democracy had a need to find another enemy (internal) and turned it's focus on immigrants differentiated by ethnic origin and religion. I don't really see how it's the fall of communism that caused this focus on the new enemy - it doesn't seem like communism had to fall for the new enemy to be the focus.
Mouffe is against liberal rationalism and thinks it leaves out passion (whatever passion means). She thinks if we replace it with agonism it will create a vehicle for the discussion among groups that allows focus on identity and passion. She says there can only be identity when it is constructed as a difference. Does everything have to have an other in order to be defined?
Barthes writes about the "writerly text" and the "readerly text", comparing them with regards to being products or productions. how does this relate to something like Ebner's or Stella's work? he discusses how "writerly texts" cannot exist...I am thinking of it in the sense that it is the action, it is a textual verb instead of a noun. How does this change or inform the perception of a work that is highly process based? From Mouffe's article, I am interested in discussing her interpretations of identity as only part (or "not part") of a grouping. also, she discusses the notion of "consecutive outside" as an implication that it is impossible to completely separate the interior from the exterior--one cannot exist without the other. combining this with Lauren's connection to illegal immigration into the US...are illegal immigrants necessary for Americans to know what it means to be an American? I feel like there is all kinds of tension generated when you then bring this discussion to mixed-race people; a situation where you can literally not separate the "interior" and the "exterior". What then, does it mean to be a child of an American and an illegal?
Mouffe writes that a political identity is grounded in antagonism, the translation of the other into an enemy. In a way without enemies, there can be no politics. On this reading, does any us/them division, when one identity appears to block another, have the potential to become politicized? Her position is that people must dare to have passionately different opinions, for this is the best building block for democracy, in oppostion to the stranglehold of consensus thinking. Can art contribute and do justice to her intentions, particularly when their activities overtly involve the political domain? (Examples- planning new urban neighbourhoods, conducting social projects, organizing encounters).
Andrew- S/Z is Roland Barthes's structuralist analysis of "Sarrasine", a short story by Honoré de Balzac. Barthes methodically moves through the text of the story, denoting where and how different codes of meaning function in order to explore and demystify the link between a sign and its meaning. The title S/Z refers to the clash between the ‘S’ of ‘Sarrasine,’ the male protagonist of the work, and the ‘Z’ of ‘La Zambinella,’ the castrato with whom Sarrasine falls in love. Sarrasine is an artist who, functioning under the assumption that all beauty is feminine, regards La Zambinella as the epitome of beauty. Sarrasine’s Pygmalion-like sculpted image of the “female” La Zambinella accordingly represents the “complete woman.” Connotation becomes a central concern. Barthes writes that both scientific discourse and ideology have taken aim at connotation, seeking to eliminate its ambiguity and to force all discourse into precise denotative habits. He then states that "connotation must therefore be rescued from double contestation and kept as the namable, computable trace of a certain plural of the text". Could this be related to the plurality asserted by Mouffe as necessary in politics?
I was fascinated with Barthes' notion of the writerly versus the readerly texts. Although written in 1974, in his account of the writerly text as a "perpetual present upon which no consequent language can be superimposed...ourselves writing," he seems to be describing the very act that has taken over modern American culture is so consumed with today - blogging. If writerly and readerly texts are separated by the operation of interpretation, then what are we to make of pop culture critiques which often comment on blogs, home-made videos, etc? Is it truly possible to manufacture a readerly text based on readerly texts? Do authors like Chuck Klosterman produce writerly texts that just so happen to be published, or are these actually readerly?
Mouffe states that, "Identity cannot, therefore, belong to one person alone, and no one belongs to a single identity. We might go further, and argue that not only are there no 'natural' and 'original' identities, since every identity is the result of a constituting process." This, I believe, goes back to the idea of aesthetics and the Eagleton article. Is Mouffe implying that we are unable to organically acquire our own personal preferences? Would he agree with me that since we create our own identity--our own political--from those that surround us, that that is the way our aesthetics preferences are shaped as well?
This is going off of what Danny wrote about in the Barhtes article. Does the "function" of the artist's intent work the same way as denotation? And are we, the viewer, left to come up with our own connotations, since connotations are more subjective. Does the artist intend to have his or her work mean just one thing or have one purpose?
"Identity cannot, therefore, belong to one person alone, and no one belongs to a single identity... this process itself must be seen as one of permanent hybridization and nomadization... [Identity is] the result of a multitude of interactions that take place inside a space whose the outlines are not clearly defined." (p.110)
We define ourselves by what we are not as opposed to what we are, but how does this reflect upon the identities and genres within art? Is there even a feasible way to identify anything without using any kind of negative associations?
So, let's be completely honest; I have no idea what Barthes is talking about. There was no context for that article to begin with, and I understand that he's referring to text and the way we perceive it, but other than that, I think I missed something that would allow me to understand what on earth he's referring to. Please explain.
When Mouffe refers to the crux of Democracy as its demise, does he mean that in order for a true democracy to exist, there needs to be opposition? Does Democracy need a varied collection of opposing points of view in order to see the eventual outcome better? Is he implying that if everybody agrees, there will be no opposing perspective, and therefore no debate or need for resolution?
1) Barthes notes the significance and necessity of transforming the reader from a "consumer" to "a producer of the text," meaning the reader must be a major factor in what and how a writer writes. The author, according to Barthes, must give ample substance (codes) for the reader to interpret/dissect. How, then does the same policy apply to the relationship formed between artist and viewer/spectator? Should the artist be mandated to make his work interpretable? To continue, Barthes argues for the freedom of the reader. But what about the freedom of the writer?
2) Mouffe begins her essay by declaring, "Today's democracies are...confronted with a great challenge." That challenge, according to her, lies in the creation of a collective identity which distinguishes between an "us" and a "them," two groups, inevitably and eventually broken down into an antagonism involving "friend and enemy." And according to Mouffe, a pluralistic democracy can not survive without this inherent hostility between variant groups (based on aspects such as ethnicity and/or religion). However, Mouffe does not offer any practical means by which a democratic society can appropriately function while preserving all differences. How is such an arrangement possible? She goes on to conclude that a democracy is stabilized because of these conflicts which make equivalence a goal, though "there is no point of equilibrium where final harmony could be attained." Is Mouffe then inferring that democratic societies progress in futile hopes? That through deception, our society exists?
15 comments:
Mouffe writes that the creation of a collective identity "us" is dependent upon a concept of "them", and that there will thus always be the possibility that this "us/them" relationship will become antagonistic, and therefore political. Is this acceptance of the inevitability of antagonism necessary for admitting the political nature of the "us/them" relationship, or is the idea that this would even be possible the very example of liberalisms failure that she's talking about?
Mouffe refers to the idea of the multiplication of allegiances and therefore division of passions as the only way to an "agonistic pluralism". If this is the case, wouldn't the disappearance of the fight against Communism, leading to the multiplication of identities based on religion, ethnicity, region, and the loss of democracy's enemy be a advantage for the development of this pluralism?
The Mouffe article seemed contradictive with the idea of us and them. The article discussed the idea of domesticating hostility as a means to defuse the potential antagonism inherent in human relations thus putting a stop to the potential for violence that exists in the construction of “us and them”. However it is necessary to keep tension between complete equivalence and preserving all difference. Furthermore the idea of making discrimination in a way that is compatible with pluralist democracy. How is it possible to discuss equality as a means to get rid of hostility but keep discrimination in the picture? It would be ideal according to the article to create an “us and them” rather than an “us differentiating from them” and further down the reading the “them/other” is mentioned as a counterpart, what is the difference between the word other and counterpart? If there is no difference then the “us differentiating from them” is still in existence and where does that leave us?
1. Mouffe writes, "These foreigners are portrayed as endangering national identity and sovereignty by various political movements which are doing their best to produce new collective identities and to re-create a political frontier by means of a nationalist and xenophobic discourse" (105). After reading this, it's hard not to think about the immigration issues in the U.S. right now. In the wake of September 11, the government tried to fight terrorism by building a strong support base and national identity. Has the government been intolerant toward illegal immigrants because they're seen as a threat to this? Because immigrants are foreigners, has their presence been thought to undermine attempts at forging a national identity?
2. (My apologies; I accidentally posted this question for the Barthes reading last week. This question relates to the Barthes article we read for today's class). 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?
Barthes compares "connotation" with "function." Within art, what kinds of connotations would effect our experience of a certain work? Does the "function" Barthes refers to pertain solely to the artist's intent or all functions that may arise in a viewer's mind?
Mouffee asks "How can we fight the tendency towards exclusion?" How does the idea of exclusion relate to the art world? Can the cover of the Museum of Modern Art's Cubism and Abstract Art catalogue be seen as exclusionary by virtue of the fact that it excludes works that do not relate to certain art movements?
Carmen's questions:
1. Mouffe states that "identity cannot, therefore, belong to one person alone, and no one belongs to a single identity." Does this mean that taking a political stance based on identity is useless since so identity is not singularly communal and not unique?
2. Barthes writes that readerly texts "can be read, but not written" and writerly texts are opposite in that they aim to "make the reader no longer a consumer, but a producer of the text." Barthes continues to say that a readerly text is a "classic text" and that the writerly text is something rarely found in bookstores. What then is the writerly text? Aren't classic texts that we read in high school and junior high classic because we bring our own interpretations and because they shed new light on history or situations that are still applicable today? Why wouldn't these "classic" texts be considered writerly?
It is interesting to see the pluralism of literature and writing described by Barthes in conjunction with the pluralism being discussed by Mouffee. Both texts bring to light the importance of recognizing the exterior in order to recognize the interior or some aspect of the self and it's structure. Both recognize the impact of the outside on understanding the self, whether it is a referring to a narrative structure, connotation, or a set of political ideals.
Mouffee's discussion of identifying the self through identifying the presence of the author recalls Lacanian imagery of looking and seeing. It is critical when he recognizes the difference between "liberal logic" and "democratic logic" which sometimes I feel is taken to be very much the same. It reminds me of a piece by Tania Bruguera that took place at Our Literal Speed and the discussion that was held afterwards. Do we need to be deceived in order to see truth and differences? Was the friction that took place there what Mouffee describes as "the constitution of collective identities around clearly differentiated positions?" Or were the plants seen as enemies, people that would be excluded from the process out of convenience?
Mouffee states the prime task of democratic politics is to mobilize passions and give them a democratic outlet. Democracy also needs consensus – it needs the majority to agree to its truth or its rightness. Barthes then describes texts as readerly or classic texts if they are dead and without the flexibility for interpretation. Who decides these texts to be classic texts? Barthes seems to describe texts in the same way Mouffee describes democratic politics. They can either mobilize passions or not. What consensus decides if a text mobilizes passions?
Later in Barthes’ essay, he states we must, “arrange all the meanings of a text around the hearth of denotation.” In this, he is claiming there is an element of all texts that can be the subject of pure denotation – meaning they are fact, and not to be interpreted. He asserts that any interpretive meaning then circles around the core, truthful meaning. Can a text be purely interpretation? Does all art need to have some root in reality in order to offer any opportunities for interpretation?
Also... what does S/Z mean? Did i miss this?
Mouffe's premises at the beginning of the article are questionable. She assumes that all of politics is a fight between different identities that can't be resolved (which I would probably agree with), but then goes on to say that because of the fall of communism, liberal democracy had a need to find another enemy (internal) and turned it's focus on immigrants differentiated by ethnic origin and religion. I don't really see how it's the fall of communism that caused this focus on the new enemy - it doesn't seem like communism had to fall for the new enemy to be the focus.
Mouffe is against liberal rationalism and thinks it leaves out passion (whatever passion means). She thinks if we replace it with agonism it will create a vehicle for the discussion among groups that allows focus on identity and passion. She says there can only be identity when it is constructed as a difference. Does everything have to have an other in order to be defined?
Barthes writes about the "writerly text" and the "readerly text", comparing them with regards to being products or productions. how does this relate to something like Ebner's or Stella's work? he discusses how "writerly texts" cannot exist...I am thinking of it in the sense that it is the action, it is a textual verb instead of a noun. How does this change or inform the perception of a work that is highly process based?
From Mouffe's article, I am interested in discussing her interpretations of identity as only part (or "not part") of a grouping. also, she discusses the notion of "consecutive outside" as an implication that it is impossible to completely separate the interior from the exterior--one cannot exist without the other. combining this with Lauren's connection to illegal immigration into the US...are illegal immigrants necessary for Americans to know what it means to be an American? I feel like there is all kinds of tension generated when you then bring this discussion to mixed-race people; a situation where you can literally not separate the "interior" and the "exterior". What then, does it mean to be a child of an American and an illegal?
Mouffe writes that a political identity is grounded in antagonism, the translation of the other into an enemy. In a way without enemies, there can be no politics. On this reading, does any us/them division, when one identity appears to block another, have the potential to become politicized? Her position is that people must dare to have passionately different opinions, for this is the best building block for democracy, in oppostion to the stranglehold of consensus thinking. Can art contribute and do justice to her intentions, particularly when their activities overtly involve the political domain? (Examples- planning new urban neighbourhoods, conducting social projects, organizing encounters).
Andrew- S/Z is Roland Barthes's structuralist analysis of "Sarrasine", a short story by Honoré de Balzac. Barthes methodically moves through the text of the story, denoting where and how different codes of meaning function in order to explore and demystify the link between a sign and its meaning. The title S/Z refers to the clash between the ‘S’ of ‘Sarrasine,’ the male protagonist of the work, and the ‘Z’ of ‘La Zambinella,’ the castrato with whom Sarrasine falls in love. Sarrasine is an artist who, functioning under the assumption that all beauty is feminine, regards La Zambinella as the epitome of beauty. Sarrasine’s Pygmalion-like sculpted image of the “female” La Zambinella accordingly represents the “complete woman.”
Connotation becomes a central concern. Barthes writes that both scientific discourse and ideology have taken aim at connotation, seeking to eliminate its ambiguity and to force all discourse into precise denotative habits. He then states that "connotation must therefore be rescued from double contestation and kept as the namable, computable trace of a certain plural of the text". Could this be related to the plurality asserted by Mouffe as necessary in politics?
I was fascinated with Barthes' notion of the writerly versus the readerly texts. Although written in 1974, in his account of the writerly text as a "perpetual present upon which no consequent language can be superimposed...ourselves writing," he seems to be describing the very act that has taken over modern American culture is so consumed with today - blogging. If writerly and readerly texts are separated by the operation of interpretation, then what are we to make of pop culture critiques which often comment on blogs, home-made videos, etc? Is it truly possible to manufacture a readerly text based on readerly texts? Do authors like Chuck Klosterman produce writerly texts that just so happen to be published, or are these actually readerly?
Mouffe states that, "Identity cannot, therefore, belong to one person alone, and no one belongs to a single identity. We might go further, and argue that not only are there no 'natural' and 'original' identities, since every identity is the result of a constituting process." This, I believe, goes back to the idea of aesthetics and the Eagleton article. Is Mouffe implying that we are unable to organically acquire our own personal preferences? Would he agree with me that since we create our own identity--our own political--from those that surround us, that that is the way our aesthetics preferences are shaped as well?
This is going off of what Danny wrote about in the Barhtes article. Does the "function" of the artist's intent work the same way as denotation? And are we, the viewer, left to come up with our own connotations, since connotations are more subjective. Does the artist intend to have his or her work mean just one thing or have one purpose?
"Identity cannot, therefore, belong to one person alone, and no one belongs to a single identity... this process itself must be seen as one of permanent hybridization and nomadization... [Identity is] the result of a multitude of interactions that take place inside a space whose the outlines are not clearly defined." (p.110)
We define ourselves by what we are not as opposed to what we are, but how does this reflect upon the identities and genres within art? Is there even a feasible way to identify anything without using any kind of negative associations?
So, let's be completely honest; I have no idea what Barthes is talking about. There was no context for that article to begin with, and I understand that he's referring to text and the way we perceive it, but other than that, I think I missed something that would allow me to understand what on earth he's referring to. Please explain.
When Mouffe refers to the crux of Democracy as its demise, does he mean that in order for a true democracy to exist, there needs to be opposition? Does Democracy need a varied collection of opposing points of view in order to see the eventual outcome better? Is he implying that if everybody agrees, there will be no opposing perspective, and therefore no debate or need for resolution?
1)
Barthes notes the significance and necessity of transforming the reader from a "consumer" to "a producer of the text," meaning the reader must be a major factor in what and how a writer writes. The author, according to Barthes, must give ample substance (codes) for the reader to interpret/dissect. How, then does the same policy apply to the relationship formed between artist and viewer/spectator? Should the artist be mandated to make his work interpretable? To continue, Barthes argues for the freedom of the reader. But what about the freedom of the writer?
2)
Mouffe begins her essay by declaring, "Today's democracies are...confronted with a great challenge." That challenge, according to her, lies in the creation of a collective identity which distinguishes between an "us" and a "them," two groups, inevitably and eventually broken down into an antagonism involving "friend and enemy." And according to Mouffe, a pluralistic democracy can not survive without this inherent hostility between variant groups (based on aspects such as ethnicity and/or religion). However, Mouffe does not offer any practical means by which a democratic society can appropriately function while preserving all differences. How is such an arrangement possible? She goes on to conclude that a democracy is stabilized because of these conflicts which make equivalence a goal, though "there is no point of equilibrium where final harmony could be attained." Is Mouffe then inferring that democratic societies progress in futile hopes? That through deception, our society exists?
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