1 Barthes Mythologies The beginning of this reflection

1

Barthes, Mythologies The beginning of this reflection was most often a feeling of impatience regarding the “natural” in which art, the press, and common sense unceasingly dress up a reality that, for all that we live in it, is nevertheless part of history. In a word, it made me suffer to see Nature and History confounded in our everyday discourse. I wanted to get a grasp of the ideological abuse that is, in my view, hidden in the decorative exposition of what-can-be-taken-for-granted. 2

“Myth” - Roland Barthes • Summary of the Lecture: – Semiotics: Language and “Myth” – Class and Culture – Closure, Naturalization, Exnomination 3

Semiotics: Language and “Myth” (Barthes) • Roland Barthes (1915 -1980) • Semiotics (Semiology) • Double Articulation 4

Semiotics (Semiology) The study of signification 5

Double Articulation (Barthes) LANGUAGE MYTH 6

“Myth” - Roland Barthes • Summary: – Semiotics: Language and “Myth” – Class and Culture – Closure, Naturalization, Exnomination 7

Class and Culture • • Medieval estates and cultures Modern classes Petty-bourgeois culture The Death of Working-Class Culture? 8

Medieval estates and cultures • Courtly culture • Burgher culture • Peasant culture = main locus of folklore 9

Modern classes • The bourgeoisie – true or haute bourgeoisie= main locus of “high” culture – petty (petite) bourgeoisie= main locus of the “middle-brow” part of popular culture • relatively socially insecure, desirous of “respectability” • The working class (proletariat) – main locus of a disappearing working-class culture • The Lumpenproletariat (“bum proletariat”) 10

Bourgeois and petty-bourgeois • bourgeois culture (high culture - critical, restrained, cynical) • petty-bourgeois culture (complacent, feelgood, has values, “normal”) – the marginalization of the working class after World War II 11

Petty-bourgeois culture • Became dominant as the middle classes expanded, especially after World War II • It is the “naturalized” culture that Barthes attacks • According to Barthes it makes bourgeois domination possible by making alternatives unthinkable • It is part of popular culture (more specifically: “middle-brow culture”) 12

The demise of the working class and its culture • working-class culture (oppositional, ribald, carnivalesque) • Barthes: petty-bourgeois culture imposed on the working class: • embourgeoisement • makes working-class resistance to capitalism difficult 13

Petty-bourgeois culture today • “Main-stream” popular culture = pettybourgeois culture – Sit-coms – Martha Stewart 14

“Myth” - Roland Barthes • Summary: – Semiotics: Language and “Myth” – Class and Culture – Closure, Naturalization, Exnomination 15

Closure, Naturalization, Exnomination (Barthes) • Petty-Bourgeois Myth as Mystification • History (Culture) Mystified as Nature • The Bourgeoisie Exnominated 16

17

18

Barthes, Elements of Semiology • ”… my denunciation of the self-proclaimed petit-bourgeois myths. . . semiology -- the close analysis of the process of meaning by which the bourgeoisie converts its historical class-culture into a universal nature. ” 19

Example of a Myth: Einstein’s Brain • Simple (all knowledge reduced to a formula) • Infinite (the formula is the secret of all knowledge) 20

21

22

23

24

25

26