Third Cinema

Several points: first of all, the "third" concept should not be limited to just cinema. Other artforms are just as capable of organizing and mobilizing the people. Fela Kuti used the music of afrobeat to express anti-colonial political concepts (as he began creating the music during the late 60's and early 70's), taking the aesthetics of various genres of music and blending them in a way that was uniquely African. This style would speak to all Africans in the midst of anti-colonial struggles. Also, his first band had a residency at Fela's club in Nigeria, allowing him to organize and motivate his followers. As his influence grew, more and more bands began taking up the style, placing their own regional twist on it. In this way, Fela breaks from the traditional "third" concept, as his voice and style were shaped to speak to all of Africa in addition to his own region. This meant that others, inspired by his music, could take up his style and use it as a political force in their own regions.

In response to what Ioana wrote on aesthetics and "third cinema": I believe that third cinema does not try to escape aesthetics, because, as Ioana mentioned, this is essentially what art is. However, I disagree over the "primacy" of aesthetics in art. "Third cinema" attacks this primacy, allowing other structures and concepts to determine aesthetics instead of the other way around (as in first and second cinema). In this way, they escape from the power of mainstream aesthetics, using political motivation to twist and shape it to their own ends. This is why third cinema has such a different feel to it; it is not art purely for art's sake, but art created only to serve a political purpose. Would Ceddo have broken from mainstream concepts in the powerful way it had if not for its political purpose? Would daydreams of a priest turn into a suprisingly accurate portrayal of modern Africa without the political motivation? Would the narrative moved in the slow, collective way it had without the desire for a uniquely African style drawing from the oral tradition, one that could free the filmmakers' country from the grasp of colonialism? I believe not. And while the auteurs realize that they cannot escape aesthetics, the west, or the creation of their own powerful and potentially destructive myths entirely, they do their best to subvert these issues to their own needs and oppose it against the intrusions of colonialism.

Publicity and Indifference

Publicity and Indifference by Thomas Keenan

page 106 2nd paragraph


"I propose that we understand
the “humanitarian action” that triumphed
in Bosnia as somewhat different from either of
the options that seem available—it is neither inaction
(a passive acquiescence or a cover-up, a
fig leaf that disguises the actual doing of nothing)
nor a heroic new nonstate politics of the
sort anticipated by many of the founders of the
humanitarian movement. It is an action that—
precisely because it refers, by way of public
opinion and the image, not to national interest
or the defense of the state but to “human beings,”
“victims,” “misfortune,” or “suffering,”
which is to say that it refers to the order of the
ethical—opens the possibility for a political discourse
that, for better or more often for worse,
does not have to justify itself in political terms."

For group discussion, can we please talk about the following questions in class?

1) Did the US liberate Iraq because of the oil interests in the country, humanitarianism, or both?

2) Would the US have gone into Iraq with no media at all?


In my opinion, (to answers my own questions) I believe that the US went into Iraq with both ideas in mind. The US had to go in and save the oil fields because obviously we (and basically the whole world) are so dependent on oil that we couldnt risk having a huge decrease in supply to the market. I believe the government was really concernced for the safety of the countrymen, people of neighboring countries, and America becuase of the threat of weapons of mass destruction. The government could go into Iraq and kill two birds with one stone; save the oil fields and liberate the people. The media, has turned this war into a mega political debate on the ethics of why we're still in Iraq. The media portrays this war as the US bullying Iraq and saving the oil, when the US is also in there and trying to help the country get back on their feet. People forget that we have actually done some good in Iraq.

To me, if there was no media at all, the US would not be at war in Iraq. Without media, there is no way the US could get passionate enough to back a cause like liberating Iraq like it has motivated us now. Eventually however, the government would learn of the risks to the oil fields and go in and save them. This action would come decisively late and we would lose the ethical integrity of humanitarianism in our cause.

Myths in the Third Cinema

I kept thinking that it seemed like the Third Cinema-makers were forming their own myths, which they then hoped to indoctrinate their nation with. And isn’t this as bad as the nasty myth made of the black soldier? I think in some ways it is—it’s impossible to deny the nationalist myth of unity put forth by revolutionaries—but it seems like myth-creation, or at least myth-perpetuation, is part of the ownership of identity that is central to creating a Third discourse. Myth is the vehicle through which collective memory can be analyzed. Myth lends memory gravity.
For example, the Goddess of the Sea, mentioned by Gabriel, “signifies the African people’s return to identity and dignity” (57). Instead of the mistrust and irony with which Barthes analyzes the black soldier’s image as “…zeal[ously] serving his so-called oppressors,” Gabriel describes the Goddess of the Sea as “marking a place of meaning” that “stimulates the hushed memories of the homeland” (116, 57). Both men are talking about similar processes, through which the signifier becomes laden with the signified concept. To Barthes, myth-making is a process of thievery and brainwashing. To Gabriel and the makers of Third Cinema, it seems that engaging in myth-making does not necessarily perpetuate a lie but expresses an experience.

Of Physical Windows

This week, I would like to focus on the interesting discussion of architecture by Keenan in "Windows: of vulnerability." Specifically, this passage:

"Humans, because they are essentially upright, first of all are seeing beings, seeing ahead...Human knowledge stems from this gaze, and the window perhaps even more than the mirror gives form to this tenacious ideologeme. Evidently, we learn from Colomina and Reichlin, the length and horizontality of Le Corbusier's window band cuts across the human form and disfigures it, mutilates the upright installation of the one who stands," (126).

To me, at first glance this analysis seems overworked and farfetched. However, after a little thought experiment I began to relate to how my understanding of self and place could shift given architectural variables like Le Corbusier windows. Have you ever had the experience described in this passage? Do you think it is feasible? 

Moreover, this example asks a broader question, especially when in team with others like it (i.e. "The more light, the less sight, and the less there is in the interior that allows 'man' to find comfort and protection, to find a ground from which to look," (127).). That question seems to be: How much of human experience is defined by environment? Think of it in semiological terms-- life as a collection of external signifiers, either reinforcing or constructing experience. Furthermore, when those external signifiers become deliberate rather than arbitrary, as in the case of architecture, are we not living as subjects of a physical mythology?

Language and Vulnerability

“Language gives no stable ground to humanity, makes no room for our signs and representations. If we do so, if we make images and express ourselves, we do so only at the risk of the selves we so desperately long to present and represent. For language intervenes in the lives of those who seek to use it with a force and a violence that can only be compared to ... light, to the tear of the blinding, inhuman, and uncontrollable light that comes through a window - something soft, that breaks” (Keenan "Windows" 136)

Something that really struck me about this week’s readings was the concept of language as a form of light, as something public, and therefore something that upon using it make us vulnerable. Language is one of the most universal ways of exposing yourself, allowing the public access to what is the most private thing about us: our minds (and the privacy of our minds is something that has troubled philosophers of mind for centuries). As Professor Chun said, to speak is to put yourself at risk of being misunderstood. As I write this, and then post this, making my thoughts public and open to scrutiny, I am opening myself up to being criticized and judged, and even misinterpreted and it is terrifying. But then why am I so scared about posting on this blog, opening up my window to you, when I peruse Facebook so casually? Facebook is so open, but I feel some much less exposed when I hold social interactions with people on their public walls, post my feelings as a status, show and share my phone number with everyone. I am not afraid to have a public telephone conversation.

“The window implies a theory of the human subject as a theory of politics, and the subject's variable status as public or private individual is defined by its position relative to this window . . . Behind it, the individual is a knowing - that is, seeing, theorizing - subject. In front of it, on the street for instance, the subject assumes public rights and responsibilities, appears, acts, intervenes in the sphere it shares with other subjects” (132)

It is so much easier for me to look out the window, from my safe at others in the public sphere. Maybe because I am not expected to be profound, erudite, or cultivated when I am on Facebook or the phone. I am not intentionally interacting with anyone that I don’t already know. YOU right now are intentionally my audience and you actually should be paying attention to what I am saying, but I barely know you. You have been invited to look in my window, as opposed to Facebook-stalking or eavesdropping. When I do something in front of an open window, I risk that people can see in, but really don’t care. When I put on a show by my window, and invite people to look in, then it really matters. Every time we talk in class, it is a matter of politics, of grades, of judgement, or being known to the world, or maybe it is genuinely about sharing great knowledge. I know that I am a knowing, thinking, individual, and I now have to prove that to you. And this post is supposed to interact with the other posts, but we are all still singing aloud to our iPods, in our own little bubbles, insulated and pretending to share our spheres with others.

We always say “Home Sweet Home” because the private is so much more comfortable.

On Storytelling

During the lecture, and the reading on the creation of Third Cinema, I found myself less interested in the political agenda of the films being created, as i was with the way the narrative is constructed in different parts of the world.
This is not to say I do not understand and appreciate the importance that the political undercurrents of these films carries, however out of context, to someone unfamiliar with the conflicts that the films address, their attempts to present a new telling of the past fall on deaf ears, I personally do not know enough about the history of colonialism (not that I know nothing, but my knowledge isnt extensive), so the content of the films didnt affect me in any deep way. I think that for them to be truly effective, there has to be a bias in the viewers mind already, which can either be challenged or reinforced by the film, not created.
What I found more interesting was the differences between Western cinema and Third Cinema. Of course the technology and infrastructure is less impressive, but in terms of the way stories are told. The readings reminded me of something that had struck me years earlier. The way peoples language is formed changes the way that they live and percieve life, it is beyond just a tool. There are several small African and Native American tribes that have no past tense, in which events are retold orally as stories, occuring in the present or future even. While the reading didnt mention anything on this, it hinted at it with the notion of a different type of storytelling. However, because of their very nature as indigenous tribes, they do not have the ability or perhaps desire to film, which strikes me as unfortunate, because such a direction in the film narrative would be very compelling, even without a political agenda.

Collective vs. Individual storytelling

Philip Rosen’s “Discursive Space and Historical Time” piece on Ceddo bring up the question of the role of the African oral tradition, especially in terms of the ways audiences are addressed. Rosen states that “this oral tradition [is] closely related to the idea of community and [argues] that African culture emphasizes community and collectivity over individuality” (720). He then states that this is linked to the objectives of third cinema. While third cinema certainly has different (less capitalistic) goals than Hollywood, I can’t help but agree with Marianna’s post in believing that a certain amount of content is sacrificed for a different narrative form. As much as you want to argue that cinema is a collective experience because we’re all being exposed to the same content, at the end of the day watching a film is still an individualistic experience. This is not the retelling of history through the direct voice of someone sitting in front of you as present in oral histories, but an edited, mass-produced version of one person’s perception of truth, in this case, the Ousmane Sembene. Furthermore, one could argue that individualistic and collective storytelling experiences are indivisible : that there is always a grain of individualism within a collective oral history (the spin any individual places on a narrative) or that there is a collective experience even with the most individual of activities (for example, as Anderson notes the fact that we all individually read the newspaper everyday and have a clear concept that other people are reading the very same news, thus creating an imagined community). Where do individual and collective representations of history differ, and perhaps more importantly, where do they overlap?

A “Public” List

1.1) Trapped in Public-ity

As Thomas Keenan notes in his essay Windows: Of Vulnerability, the notion of the public has changed in direct relation to the significance of the “window” as a cultural metaphor. Like the “window” that does no longer open onto another world, but onto the same one in another form, “the public” has grown to be integrated into the notion of the private, though latently so – as potentiality (1), as the following citation suggests:

The public sphere is structurally elsewhere, neither lost nor in need of recovery and rebuilding, but defined by its resistance to being made present. (2)

The result of this shift in the notion of the public is alarming, I believe: public-ity becomes a “mark” of the human being, a characteristic indissolubly connected with the human being. In other words, the human being is trapped in public-ity. In a sense, this amounts to what Walter Benjamin calls a “loss of the aura” (3) – only, this time, it is of the human being, for the public human being is subject to “reproduction” – not necessarily in the biological way, but in terms of his/her image that ceases to be a personal possession. In the public sphere, the human being loses the “copyrights” to his/her own image (and self).

With this in mind, I believe that answering a mobile phone in public does not create a “rupture of space”, an infiltration of the private into the public, as Prof. Chun suggested in the lecture. By contrast, it illustrates precisely this idea of the public being integrated into the private, for the mobile phone-answerer remains in the private sphere only in as far as he/she respects the rules of the public sphere. If, for example, he/she raises his/her voice to such an extent that he/she disturbs the other private persons in the public sphere, he/she is likely to be interfered with precisely on account of his/her public-ity.

The question to be addressed under these circumstances is then: how can we deal with this “inherent”, inescapable public-ity?

1.2) Image, knowledge, and performance

In the essay Windows: Of Vulnerability, Thomas Keenan states: “Human knowledge stems from the gaze” (4). In the same line, in Publicity and Indifference (Sarajevo on Television) he makes the following assertion: “Images (…) make things happen, sometimes too quickly” (5). The insistence on the power of the image and on the seeing-being seen mechanism and its implications appears to be prominent in both of the readings from Keenan for this week, and justly so, in my view, as the contemporary world seems to function on visual perception and image-negotiation. However, in her lecture, Prof. Chun appears to have focused almost exclusively on language and its relation to publicity. Is this because she operates with an extended definition of “language” covering “image” as well as other forms of representation?

2.1) The autonomy of aesthetics

The most intriguing aspect of Solanas and Getino’s manifesto is for me the requirement that art must be subservient to politics: “Dissolve aesthetics in the life of society”, ”The film, important only as a detonator or pretext” (6). Yet, calling into question – and even more than that, denying – the autonomy of aesthetics is in contradiction with the very notion of “art” as I conceive of it and as it has been defined since Antiquity (since Aristotle or even before him) onwards. What Solanas and Getino propose, therefore, is not a new art – for there can be no art without the autonomy of the aesthetic, in my view – but a new ideology. This, I believe, cannot be achieved in/through film or other works of art (the existence of the work of art presupposes the autonomy and primacy of aesthetics).

Essentially based on aesthetic primacy, the actual Third Cinema films are, thus, not the Third Cinema that Solanas and Getino envisaged in the Toward a Third Cinema manifesto. Sembene’s film Ceddo illustrates this idea. As Philip Rosen suggests in his essay Discursive Space and Historical Time, the creation of this film involves a series of decisions that account (in my opinion) for the primacy of aesthetics. For example, aesthetic considerations clearly underlie the technique of the “dissolved” close-ups (7) that Sembene so successfully employs. Even though political considerations might also be at stake here, these are secondary and not immediately grasped by all the spectators.

The Third Cinema as it was practically developed, therefore, is distinct from its theoretical formulation by Solanas and Getino in at least one fundamental way. This is because, in my view, a theory about Cinema that disregards the primacy of aesthetics cannot be validated and applied.

Notes

(1) Bentham’s concept of the panopticon is in operation here, in my view, though at another level. Thus, the private person is always – at least as potentiality – public, and this is embedded in his/her own privacy. Being private now presupposes being public. (2) Thomas Keenan, “Windows: Of Vulnerability” in The Phantom Public Sphere, Ed. Bruce Robbins (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1993), p.135

(3) Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” in Illuminations (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1958), p.223

(4) Thomas Keenan, “Windows: Of Vulnerability” in The Phantom Public Sphere, ed. Bruce Robbins (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1993), p.126

(5) Thomas Keenan, “Publicity and Indifference (Sarajevo on Television)” in PMLA 117:1 (January 2002), p.109

(6) Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, “Towards a Third Cinema” in Reviewing Histories: Selections From New Latin American Cinema, ed. Coco Fusco (Buffalos, NY: Hallwalls, 1987), p. 63& p. 77

(7) Philip Rosen, “Discursive Space and Historical Time: Ceddo” in Film Analysis: A Norton Reader, ed. Jeffrey Geiger, R.L. Rutsky (New York: Norton, 2005), p. 732

Changes in 3rd Cinema

I guess in an effort to state the question I wanted to ask in lecture today a little more clearly, and continue discussing 3rd cinema, in a time when the supposed aims of 3rd cinema are still being taken up and used by filmmakers and political activists, does modern political activism and media draw more from the local moment, the struggle as it is, Teshome's idea of a 3rd aesthetic and experience, or does political speech draw more from the media itself, former expressions of similar moments and struggles? Does 3rd cinema become its own system of signification, become myth, and in doing so, does it temper the message of the individual filmmaker? In short, does the form begin to dictate the content, and how does that contribute to the "effectiveness," salience, or acceptance of a work?

Questions with Barthes Mythologies

While reading the section of mythologies based on Myth, and listening to the professor's lecture i was met with a few problems in my understanding of the concept of myth.
First off, the idea of "defending" against the creation of myth was difficult for me to grasp. Barthes postulated that an "artificial myth" staves off the creation of unique myth, but why would that be so? If myth is truly like "flowing water" and able to surpass any human intention then wouldnt the act of creating a myth intentionally make the basis for a new myth? By the same token that the political campaign ads myths were based on the desires of those creating them, wouldnt the act of making an artificial myth show the intentions of its original creator? Perhaps there is something that I am not getting, but even the answer during the lecture was not particularly satisfying.
Again, I am feeling a little silly for not understanding this but I wanted to ask anyways, what is the difference between myth and metaphor? To me, it seems that the original sign (what becomes the form) is just a different way of saying that "this represents something else". While there seems to be something more nebulous within a myth, at least as described by Barthes, I cannot entirely grasp what the quality is.

Put it in the freezer?

One important element of Saussure’s conception of language is its social aspect (9). Language, as opposed to speech, “is not a function of the speaker. It is the product passively registered by the individual. It never requires premeditation, and reflexion enters into it only for the activity of classifying it” (14). He instills language with its own agency, in the sense that it changes and evolves, seemingly of its own accord, since it is under the control of a group rather than the individual. However, he also makes the point that “A language has connections with institutions of every sort.” This seems to tie into Benedict Anderson’s ideas about imagined communities, particularly in when Saussure discusses literary language. However, how does Saussure reconcile this idea of literary language developing through “artifical forms” and not being spoken in a way that allows “organic development” with his idea that a social aspect and evolution are unavoidable in language? He certainly poses the question, but does he decide that these efforts result in the death of the language? I think this is suggested by his writing, “Eventually every literary language, as a product of culture, becomes cut off from the spoken word, which is a language’s natural sphere of existence” (22). I guess my questions is this: is there some other (unnatural? isolated?) sphere in which language can exist?

Form and Concept

Here are some of my thoughts concerning the processes involving form and concept described by Barthes:


The assumption that in myth-making, concept, or first-order signified, must become impoverished to make room for the second-order signified does not sit perfectly well with me. To use the Paris-Match example, the photo of the young soldier pre-cover (1st order) arguably contains a certain history. Nothing about this history, to my knowledge, is lost upon placing this on the cover. (Any lack of history would be equally evident in the image in an isolated situation.) Rather, new meaning is achieved through the addition of other signage (ie the title, the "coverness," the zeitgeist). As such, this myth is constructed in a purely additive fashion, and is also not simply contained in the photo-- which has, again, not lost anything (though is perhaps masked). In short, I think that myth is perhaps constructed through the propinquity of un-"emptied" first-order semiological signs.


Returning to the same example, I would also argue that the "history" of the first-order sign, which is supposedly erased prior to (or because of?) the imposition of the 2nd order signified is in itself a second-order semiological imposition. Here's a quick diagram of my thinking:

How Barthes states process:

1- Signifier-- photo of boy 1- Signified-- history
2- SIGNIFIER-composite 2- SIGNIFIED- new myth of patriotism or whatever

My counterdiagram:

1-Signifier- pixels/film 1-Signified- face of boy
2 SIGNIFIER- composite 2- SIGNIFIED- history

Essentially, I think that Barthes' description is fallacious in assuming that the history is the 1st-order signified within a photo.

Finally, Barthes appears to assign values to different signifieds. Specifically, the assignment of a higher value of authenticity to the 1st-order than to the 2nd. In the example I've been using, for instance, Barthes language implies that the photo's "history" is somehow a more legitimate, natural or proper thing to be signified than the concept which (as Barthes argues) "empties" it. This seems arbitrary, and I would love to discuss this idea that a signifier is somehow predisposed to a certain, more "appropriate" or authentic signified.

Bridging the gap

When reading Saussure, I was particularly interested in the relationship between sound patterns (signals) and concepts. How does my psychological impression of a sound (say for instance, the word 'Freedom') differ from someone who whose idea of freedom is completely different? Furthermore, what role does media (and in the USA, the government) play in influencing our psychological impressions (and thus, the concept itself), especially with a word as loaded as 'Freedom'. I find it interesting that that the relationship between the signal and concept are so incredibly personal (for they define how we view the world), yet from culturally similar individuals, the relationship between a signal and a concept can overlap so greatly. This obviously begs the question of the role of culture, and to which degree it influences that gap between hearing and conceptualizing our environments.

Barthes

Barthes says that using the word “tree” in any way except to directly describe a specific tree robs all trees of their history, transforming them from substantial and historied to general, timeless images. I think a more accurate term would be to say it robs trees (or a particular tree, which, like the lion in his grammar-book example, could react with outrage at becoming an empty signifier) with their individuality, for individuality (or specificity) is created by a uniquely experienced history. Individuals can only be historied, and it is the sum of their historical experiences that make them specific individuals. History cannot help but create individuals. This individuality, says Barthes, can only be thoroughly captured by political speech, which is basically synonymous with literal speech. Using “tree” as a building block to express more complex thoughts causes the impoverishment of the first-order sign, robbing it of its individuality by glossing over its specific history. Anything besides literal speech contains generalizations. Therefore, abstract speech cannot be honest. I feel like this is pretty ridiculous. It’s interesting to see how the weightiness of literal meaning can be drained from a word once it is used to express something more abstract or complicated, but I don’t think that simply using a word is equivalent to engaging in myth-telling. Barthes champions a manner of languaging in which words are painstakingly confined to primitive one-to-one definitions of specific moments in history—tree that I felled, axe that I held. What Barthes categorizes as mythification of the lion in his grammar-book example is the definition of using language.

Obviously, there are different ways to use language, and ways to create myths that are overblown. But I think Barthes makes a mistake when he groups all media into a pile of possible sign-makers, spoken language and photography included in the same breath. It would be a mistake to place the act of using language to express abstract thoughts along the same continuum that holds the act of political propaganda. I think that myths expressed by photographs are different than myths expressed by words themselves.

Also, I’m confused about the passage about the Basque house (124-5). He seems to be describing two ways in which it is possible to view a house, through oneself and for oneself (which he connects with history-less-ness) or at a distance (through the lens of history). I don’t understand when each approach would occur, and what they have to do with mythification.

Protest

During professor's lecture on Monday she talked about three main ideas; signification, agency, and value. When she was specifically talking about agency, on her slideshow she wrote "to submit to language is to submit to society." I may be confused about what she meant when she said this. For example, transcendentalists like Emerson and Thoreau used language to not conform with society and argue society's rules. Transcendentalism did begin as a protest against society so I was wondering how transcendentalists could submit to and protest society at the same time?

Revolutionary Speech

“There is therefore one language which is not mythical, it is the language of man as a producer: wherever man speaks in order to transform reality and no longer to preserve it as an image, wherever he links his language to the making of things, metalanguage is referred to a language-object, and myth is impossible. This is why revolutionary language proper cannot be mythical. Revolution is defined as a cathartic act meant to reveal the political load of the world: it makes the world; and its language, all of it, is functionally absorbed in this making. It is because it generates speech which is fully, that is to say initially and finally, political, and not, like myth, speech which is initially political and finally natural, that Revolution excludes myth. Just as bourgeois ex-nomination characterizes at once bourgeois ideology and myth itself, revolutionary denomination identifies revolution and the absence of myth. The bourgeoisie hides the fact that it is the bourgeoisie and thereby produces myth; revolution announces itself openly as revolution and thereby abolishes myth” (146).

This passage really grabbed my attention, as I was starting to question whether or not everything that is communicated to a group of people is indeed mythical. This is great! Revolution is meant to shake up what is conceived to be natural, and revolutionary speech in itself is very political and antithetical to myth. ¡Viva la revolución!
Then I started thinking. I’ve done a lot of talking about changing the world. I’ve done it enough that it has lost some of its political motivations and just seems to me to be something natural that I should do. Revolution in itself has lost some of its sparkle, especially since the 1950s. It has even become a fad, over-talked about. Environmentalism is now in fashion. We have talked about saving energy so much, mind you under good intentions, that it has lost its political drive and has just become something that is. The mover and the shaker aren’t so rare anymore. Activism and revolution is chic, and itself is a bourgeois joint-stock company. You too can save Darfur by donating your change! Green is the new black! Support your favorite cause by sending a check. The bourgeois is hiding the fact that is is bourgeois by pretending to be revealing the terrible political state of elsewhere. Bono and Angelina spend their free time trying to save Africa, to create an image of themselves that isn’t totally capitalist.
Maybe then activism isn’t revolution after all. Maybe it is that “left-wing myth [which] supervenes precisely at the moment when revolution changes itself into ‘the Left’” (146). After all, activism isn’t meant to “reveal the political load to the world.” It comes only after it is exposed, and the population of activists is much greater than that of the revolutionaries. So, in the end, I agree with Barthes. Revolutionary speech, when truly revolutionary, is not myth.

Myth and Politics

Choice: Myth and Politics

My reflection on this week’s readings will address two aspects: firstly, I will discuss the phenomenon of making choices in language as an essential point in Saussure’s theory of linguistics; secondly, I will make the claim that myth is a political concept as well as politicized speech in response to the Barthesian semiological theory put forth in Mythologies.

Even though Saussure seems to advocate a kind of determinism concerning the mechanism of meaning-production in language, arguing that the relationship between the signifier and the signified – though arbitrary – is necessary, he also allows for the freedom of choice of the individual: “When a syntagma is brought into use, we call upon associative groups in order to make our choices” (1). I find this freedom within necessity (perhaps similar in a sense to that purported by Spinoza in another context) particularly intriguing, and the tension it implies, irresolvable. That is because the range of possibilities for word choices is necessarily limited to the entries in the dictionaries. Moreover, it is highly unlikely that any human being will ever be acquainted with all of these. At the same time, words in a language are interchangeable with a limited range of other terms. Successful communication presupposes intelligent choices on behalf of the speaker and the human experience of language is exciting precisely because of the freedom it involves.

This leads me to my second point. In formulating his theory, Roland Barthes uses two key terms in association with “myth” (in the Barthesian sense of the word): “motivation” (which relates to the concept of free choice in the Saussurian theory) and “duplicity” (2). Given, therefore, that distortion for a well-defined purpose and a negotiation of power relations lie at the very heart of “myth”, I would argue that “myth” is a highly political concept as well as politicized speech – at least in a 21^st century dominated by postmodernism (3). Barthes, by contrast, claims that “myth is depoliticized speech” and that “there is at least one type of speech that is opposite to the myth: that which remains political” (4). The reason for this contradiction, nevertheless, seems to consist in a different understanding of the political. For Barthes, “a political language: (it) represents nature for me only inasmuch as I am going to transform it” (5). In my view, this is a Marxist (or post-Marxist) understanding no longer valid in a 21^st century in which postmodernism with its politics of representation dominates the political arena. Even though postmodernism arguably stands against the structuralism to which Barthes’ Mythologies subscribes, I believe that it paradoxically relies on “myth” for its success as a political concept. The photographs and advertisements that Prof. Chun showed during the lecture prove this point. Emptying one signifier of its commonly-accepted meaning and subtly investing it with another politically-determined one with the intention of naturalizing it underlie the political games with race (Senator McCain meets with local law enforcement officials), feminism (Obama photographed with the two white elderly ladies), identity, subjectivity – points high on the agenda of postmodernism. Perhaps an understanding of “myth” – of its structure and operative mechanisms – is even more important in the 21^st century than it was at the time when Barthes formulated his theory (1957).

Thus, from among the wide range of possible meanings for “myth”, this is the choice I have made: “myth” is political representation.

Notes

(1) Ferdinand Saussure, Course in General Linguistics (New York: McGraw Hill, 1966), p. 128

(2) “Motivation is necessary to the very duplicity of myth: myth plays on the analogy between meaning and form, there is no myth without motivated form” in Roland Barthes, Mythologies (New York: Hill and Wang, 1972), p.126

(3) I here refer to postmodernism as a political project comparable to socialism and liberalism, in line with Terry Eagleton’s perspective in The Illusions of postmodernism (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1996)

(4) Roland Barthes, Mythologies (New York: Hill and Wang, 1972), p.148

(5) Roland Barthes, Mythologies (New York: Hill and Wang, 1972), p.145

Myths and some puzzles

Myths and some puzzles

In the lecture he gave at Authors@Google, Rory Stewart stated that “nation-building is not a question of technical decisions. It is, in fact, an issue of myth, of legend, of identity, of culture, of history, of tradition.” (1). I found this assertion very intriguing. Even though it seemed true in principle, it did not suggest any answers to the fundamental questions: How is myth created? How is identity formed?

The past week’s readings provided me with a plausible solution to these puzzles (and with yet another puzzle). As Benedict Anderson observes, the “forms of imagining” and the “technical means” associated with them (2) – or, in other words, the different media – are major factors in the creation of the narratives that bind people together in communities of different kinds and generate a sense of belonging. I find this to be an immensely valuable piece of information as, if it is correct – and Anderson’s historically-grounded argument makes a very strong case for its correctness – it might be used to solve such urgent matters as those of nation-building in Iraq or Afghanistan.

However, when I explored the problem further, I was confronted with another intriguing point: which medium is the right medium for creating the right myth in a specific context? Neither Anderson, nor Benjamin answers this question. However, their reflections on particular media and on the types of communities and changes they generated offer some insights into this issue. Thus, reading Anderson’s account, I identified a kind of pattern as to the types of media that created communities throughout history. The first medium (chronologically) identified by Benedict Anderson – “sacred languages” (3) using ideograms – was image-based. Novels and newspapers, which succeeded the “sacred languages”, were, by contrast, primarily based on arbitrary signs (the written words of vernacular languages). With the emergence of photography and, later, of film, a most striking return to the image-based media occurred. If this pattern is respected, it follows that the next prevalent media creating the myths of the future will be primarily based – again – on the arbitrariness of the sign (written language). Would this be possible?

I think that this hypothesis is plausible and I would now like to consider Benjamin’s key argument in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction in the light of it. According to Benjamin, in the age of mechanical reproduction which, he argues, begins in the 1500s, the works of art lose their “aura” (4), their authenticity. However, I would like to point that Benjamin does not distinguish between the two different media types (that based on the arbitrariness of the sign and the image-based one) prevalent in the mentioned time span. I believe that this is significant as Benjamin’s theory is not relevant to the media based on the arbitrariness of the sign. For example, a novel, even if printed in numerous copies and different editions, retains its aura. The subsequent copies do not change the original. So, in reading both the 1922 and the 2004 edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses, for instance, I encounter the same original model that has its source in the novelist’s thoughts. As a result of this point, I believe that the prevalence of a medium based on the arbitrariness of the sign may lead to an invalidation of Benjamin’s theory in the future, even in the age of “mechanical reproduction”.

As Charlie Chaplin’s film Modern Times suggests, image-based media are extremely powerful. There is no surprise, in my view, that the President of the factory appears on a screen when he passes an order to the workers in the factory, rather than having only his voice transmitted through a sounds amplifier. With these in mind, I cannot but ask another question: how powerful is a medium based on the arbitrariness of the sign (written or spoken language) in comparison to one based on image? The medium that will prevail in the future will probably enable me to answer this question.

Notes

(1) Rory Stewart, Authors@Google, 10 March 2008,

(2) Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, rev. 1991), p.25

(3) Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, rev. 1991), p.14

(4) Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” in Illuminations (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1958), p.223

Signifying

So, it looks as if I'm the first student to be posting a response here. Of course, that also means that I have no idea how to construct this post. So, I'll just list off some thoughts on Saussure.

Saussure is amazing. The introduction of the idea of signifier and signified, as well as the realization that the sign is essentially arbitrary created a huge shift in thought, and still opens up possibilities today. However, I don't feel as if everything Saussure wrote is correct. For example, the concepts of synchronic and diachronic. While these are essentially true in a western context, things begin to get stranger when you try to factor in the Yoruba myth of Esu-Elegbara (who is related to the Signifying Monkey found in stories in the Americas) and the tradition of signifyin(g). Esu-Elegbara was essentially a trickster who had power over words and their meaning. However, Esu does not control what is said or done; he only controls the interpretation and meaning of the sacred texts. While this idea makes much more sense with an understanding of Yoruba religion, it essentially means that words were viewed as having a "truth" (for example, the exact words of a sentence) and an "understanding" (the meaning behind that sentence) that are separate. While the truth is fixed down, the meaning can shift and fluctuate. Esu has multiple meanings, which means that the "truth" also has multiple meanings (as Esu controls interpretation).

Henry Louis Gates linked this tradition to the practice of signifyin(g), or the art of distorting the meaning of a word so that a small group of people could communicate and interpret the words being said one way, while an oppressor would interpret the words in a completely different way. Take for example the word, "bad." "Bad" has always meant "bad." But, then a small group decided to use "bad" as a term for "good." By playing off the original meaning of the word, the group is able to subvert language to their own purposes (or at least, is able to for the short period of time during which only the group uses this term). In this case, while Saussure is certainly right to say that we cannot control language after we release it to the general population, his idea that synchronic and diachronic must be completely separated are weakened by signifyin(g); in this case, a group of people were able to change languange to fit their own needs and goals by subverting it.

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