Barthes

[entertainment]

Mythologies was interesting enough. S/Z struck me as a boring and reductive way of reading. A way of formalizing, to a ridiculous degree, what should be immediately present to anyone with basic reading capabilities.

 

[Clinamenic]

I share a birthday with Roland Barthes. And with Charlie Manson.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

I share a birthday with Roland Barthes. And with Charlie Manson.

It shows

 

[Clinamenic]

It shows

Ah yes, the semiotic revolution is nigh, and the post-structuralists will overthrow the structuralists and install me as their planetary leader.

 

[malelesbian]

S/Z struck me as a boring and reductive way of reading. A way of formalizing, to a ridiculous degree, what should be immediately present to anyone with basic reading capabilities.

I'm sorry, how is S/Z reductive? Barthes gives five different kinds of interpretation five codes. A reductionist would only give one interpretation, like the authorial intent interpreters Barthes criticized.
If Barthes' view does formalize what anyone with basic reading abilities knows, that's good. A good theory often accurately depicts everyday practice.
Barthes' view in S/Z does capture realistically our common practice of reading, in my opinion. Almost everyone uses a variety of interpretative methods while reading, just like Barthes does. Maybe there aren't ultimately only five ways of interpreting a book. But Barthes' more general point is true: we use a plurality of interpretative strategies to understand a book.

 

[craner]

It occurred to me today that Version is the Last Man. A significant, symbolic entity whose significance lies beyond the mere confines of Dissensus.

 

[luka]

he is a bit like the robinson crusoe of an abandoned planet, sifting through the refuse

 

[craner]

The consumer-spectator distilled into an ethereal, abstract presence, sifting through the debris.

 

[craner]

None of us have ever met anyone as important as Version because there is nobody more important left in the world.

 

[craner]

And yet the strange thing is, he still tries to buy drinks with coins.

 

[craner]

'Sift' is definitely the most aposite Version verb, swiftly followed by 'pay'.

 

[entertainment]

I'm sorry, how is S/Z reductive? Barthes gives five different kinds of interpretation five codes. A reductionist would only give one interpretation, like the authorial intent interpreters Barthes criticized.
If Barthes' view does formalize what anyone with basic reading abilities knows, that's good. A good theory often accurately depicts everyday practice.
Barthes' view in S/Z does capture realistically our common practice of reading, in my opinion. Almost everyone uses a variety of interpretative methods while reading, just like Barthes does. Maybe there aren't ultimately only five ways of interpreting a book. But Barthes' more general point is true: we use a plurality of interpretative strategies to understand a book.

His codes are not different kinds of interpretation. They are sort of tracks on which the text runs.

It is not reductive in the sense of restricting any of what he calls "meanings," but in restricting what the meaning of a text can be, which in his case is entirely logical, linguistic-system-meanings, one thing connected to another. He makes no room for what he cannot account and assimilate into his non-theory of the text. His "impressions" are reduced to signifieds such as "wealth". There is no phenomenology of the text.

 

[entertainment]

I know later in his career he was open to aesthetics but in S/Z he is comically afraid of any deeper interaction between the mind and the text than that of playing around in a web of meanings.

 

[entertainment]

Also, for his criticism of connotation as a sort of engineered and thus problematic meaning-instrument, he relies pretty heavily on it once he gets going.

 

[entertainment]

I would look at a piece of writing and say "I like this / I don't like this. Here is why I think I liked it." Barthes is not allowed to say that. He is not allowed to say that something is beautiful.

 

[malelesbian]

I would look at a piece of writing and say "I like this / I don't like this. Here is why I think I liked it." Barthes is not allowed to say that. He is not allowed to say that something is beautiful.

This is your most problematic claim. I consider the rest of 3 of your 4 posts valid criticisms of Barthes, but your first post worries me the most. I'll start with this claim because it's simpler. You conflate preference and beauty. I distinguish the two. There's a difference between our actual preferences and aesthetic value. But both are normative terms.

I think Barthes' web of meaning has normative value. I'm not sure why you think his interpretations can't involve prescriptions, but I disagree with that. Maybe Barthes' codes are overly descriptive but I don't think they prohibit all value statements.

His codes are not different kinds of interpretation. They are sort of tracks on which the text runs.

Methods of interpretations, perhaps? Pathways through the text...

It is not reductive in the sense of restricting any of what he calls "meanings," but in restricting what the meaning of a text can be, which in his case is entirely logical, linguistic-system-meanings, one thing connected to another.

But if anything, isn't Barthes overtly sometimess non-logical (not illogical) in his free-associative interpretations?

He makes no room for what he cannot account and assimilate into his non-theory of the text.

I'm pretty sure Derrida is the only philosopher who does make room for entities beyond his own system. Not just transcendent entities, but entities his own system lacks the conceptual resources to theorize about. You're asking Barthes to solve an insanely difficult problem. It's not clear he even needs to solve this problem for his argument to be sound. If you know anyone else who solved it, I'd love to know their names. I would argue the Levinasian tradition, philosophers like Irigaray and, yes, even Butler are in the minority of philosophers who have accounted for entities beyond their own systems. Barth never in S/Z discusses Levinas' notion of the infinite, transcendent Other person, the concept I consider necessary to solve the problem of making room for the unassimilable.

There is no phenomenology of the text.

Has anyone actually written a phenomenology of the text? Derrida explicitly denied doing a phenomenology of writing in Of Grammatology.
I aspire to write a phenomenology of the inner text, the mind's inner monologue and the outer text, propositions about the world. Don't ask me how, but this project is closely linked to male lesbianism. Coming soon to a bookstore near you.

 

[Clinamenic]

This is your most problematic claim. I consider the rest of 3 of your 4 posts valid criticisms of Barthes, but your first post worries me the most. I'll start with this claim because it's simpler. You conflate preference and beauty. I distinguish the two. There's a difference between our actual preferences and aesthetic value. But both are normative terms.

I think Barthes' web of meaning has normative value. I'm not sure why you think his interpretations can't involve prescriptions, but I disagree with that. Maybe Barthes' codes are overly descriptive but I don't think they prohibit all value statements.



Methods of interpretations, perhaps? Pathways through the text...

But if anything, isn't Barthes overtly sometimess non-logical (not illogical) in his free-associative interpretations?

I'm pretty sure Derrida is the only philosopher who does make room for entities beyond his own system. Not just transcendent entities, but entities his own system lacks the conceptual resources to theorize about. You're asking Barthes to solve an insanely difficult problem. It's not clear he even needs to solve this problem for his argument to be sound. If you know anyone else who solved it, I'd love to know their names. I would argue the Levinasian tradition, philosophers like Irigaray and, yes, even Butler are in the minority of philosophers who have accounted for entities beyond their own systems. Barth never in S/Z discusses Levinas' notion of the infinite, transcendent Other person, the concept I consider necessary to solve the problem of making room for the unassimilable.

Has anyone actually written a phenomenology of the text? Derrida explicitly denied doing a phenomenology of writing in Of Grammatology.
I aspire to write a phenomenology of the inner text, the mind's inner monologue and the outer text, propositions about the world. Don't ask me how, but this project is closely linked to male lesbianism. Coming soon to a bookstore near you.

Nothing that extensive or seriously scholarly, but for a while when I was in more of autistic state, I was really focused on something like a phenomenology of knowledge, or a study of the experience of building expertise in a given area of discourse. I referred to it as nootopology, and designed an autodidactic methodology around it:

MoGenPro Background

An overview of the development of this program so far.

solosalon.substack.com

 

[entertainment]

I don't really get much of what you're saying. Barthes ascribes value to a text according to an ideal--what he calls the "writerly", which means something like its openness to plurality of meaning. The "readerly"--what he identifies with the western classical tradition-- is something that has a closed system of meaning.

 

[malelesbian]

I don't really get much of what you're saying. Barthes ascribes value to a text according to an ideal--what he calls the "writerly", which means something like its openness to plurality of meaning. The "readerly"--what he identifies with the western classical tradition-- is something that has a closed system of meaning.

Right. And what's wrong with that?

 

[entertainment]

Right. And what's wrong with that?

It doesn't explain what is good about a book to me.