Critics on Criticism: Roland Barthes
From “Blind and Dumb Criticism” in Mythologies, translated by Annette Lavers:
Why do critics thus periodically claim their helplessness or their lack of understanding? It is certainly not out of modesty; no one is more at ease than one critic confessing that he understands nothing about existentialism; no one more ironic and therefore more self-assured than another admitting shamefacedly that he does not have the luck to have been initiated into the philosophy of the Extraordinary; and no one more soldier-like than a third pleading for poetic ineffability….
The reality behind this seasonally professed lack of culture is the old obscurantist myth according to which ideas are obnoxious if they are not controlled by ‘common sense’ and ‘feeling’: Knowledge is Evil, they both grew on the same tree….
In fact, any reservation about culture means a terrorist position.
Tags: criticism, mythologies, roland barthes
Agree, with terrorism as cultural reservation.
Btw, as I was in Japan, I understood, what did Barthes meant.
Agree, with terrorism as cultural reservation.
Btw, as I was in Japan, I understood, what did Barthes meant.
Mythologies is rad.
Mythologies is rad.
how interesting, would you say more about that?
how interesting, would you say more about that?
i’d forgotten about this essay. have to reread. thanks, amy, great stuff.
i’d forgotten about this essay. have to reread. thanks, amy, great stuff.
Well, the language has in Japan another status. Or, better said: the communications are in Japan meta-lingual. If people in Occident are trying to make meanings from words, people in Orient (here: Japan) are trying to do it avoiding the “meaning-making” (like they do it in haikus).
Surely, Japan of ‘Empire of Signs’ is a construct, it cannot be equated with Japan as a authentic location (full of cultural etc. significancies). Barthes’ Japan is rather a stereotype picture, which people usually use to alienate Occident vs. Orient. Barthes does the contrary thing: he helps with his Japan stereotyps to fight against our self-stereotyps (well, “fight” is perhaps a wrong word for it).
Anyway, reading Barthes in Japan is a great experience. And reading Barthes after Japan – also.
P.S. Sorry if it was posted twice here. My connection is not such quick.
Well, the language has in Japan another status. Or, better said: the communications are in Japan meta-lingual. If people in Occident are trying to make meanings from words, people in Orient (here: Japan) are trying to do it avoiding the “meaning-making” (like they do it in haikus).
Surely, Japan of ‘Empire of Signs’ is a construct, it cannot be equated with Japan as a authentic location (full of cultural etc. significancies). Barthes’ Japan is rather a stereotype picture, which people usually use to alienate Occident vs. Orient. Barthes does the contrary thing: he helps with his Japan stereotyps to fight against our self-stereotyps (well, “fight” is perhaps a wrong word for it).
Anyway, reading Barthes in Japan is a great experience. And reading Barthes after Japan – also.
P.S. Sorry if it was posted twice here. My connection is not such quick.