A Reflection on Ken's Post

I enjoyed Ken's entire post; I found it easy to understand, and it was a constant, steady flow, laying out different ideas and showing how they relate to one another. The part of the post I especially enjoyed was when he was talking about how different critical theorists simply invented these theories and concepts, they didn't actually discover them like something scientific.
I don't know how right I am about this, but I think that Baudrillard and Derrida would have some similiar thoughts about this. Derrida says every structure can be decentered, thus there are no stable or fixed truths. And when Ken was summarizing Baudrillard's thoughts on the Marxist idea of the commodity and the concepts of use-value and exchange-value, Derrida popped into my head and I immediately connected this idea with Derrida's that there cannot be any fixed truths. Baudrillard does not was to rescue reality, in fact it seems like he thinks this would be foolish or near impossible, that instead we should focus on rescuing illusion and keeping illusion alive. Wouldn't this relate to Derrida who believes we also must not focus on rescuing the real because the real isn't possible, that this all is an illusion? Lacan even, saying that if we ever reached the real we would be in a state of traumatic shock. These theorists invent these concepts to better explain our situation as human beings. That we must question and be curious about what happens around us, we cannot simply just take things how they are.
Our capitialist society is a good example of this. What I probably found the most interesting part of Ken's post was his comment on the 200 something trillion dollars American owe in credit. That is A LOT of consumer debt, and this is what keeps our country going. This fake, monopoly money is what makes up our country and makes us so strong and powerful. But this money is just an illusion. We consume therefore we are.
I also liked how Ken compared structuralism and Saussure's ideas about signs and the signified and signifier and related this to use-value and exchange-value. It really helped me looked at currency and its system in a new way, in a frightening way. What did others think of this comparison, and the statement on consumer debt? Did that make anyone else angry?

Foucault

Foucault says that "the task of criticism is not to bring out the work's relationships with the author..." When reading this, I had a variety of mixed feelings. First, I disagreed with Foucault, a part of me thinks it is very necessary to show the relationship between the author and the work. The work is created by the author, therefore it is a part of the author, designed from the author's mind, and it may be important to acknowledge the author, and understand why in fact the work was produced. Then, I also agreed with Foucault, especially at the end of his essay when he says, "What difference does it make who is speaking?" Because the words, the message of the work is what is important, not who wrote it. However, not always, but in some works, in order to understand the text more clearly or deeply, the author must be brought into consideration. They are connected, and to disregard this connection, to say it doesn't matter who wrote the work, I think is somewhat foolish. Also, why is this such as issue? Even if the author isn't mentioned, if they are popular enough, normally just from reading a work the author could easily be named from their distinct writing style.

I found a blog on "ghostblogging," which I believe means having someone else, other than the original writer, write in one's blog, or that someone claims credit for writing the blog who did not actually write the blog. The blog also discusses "blog authorship." These are all new terms to me, since I am new to the "blog world." This individual believes that the author of a blog should not be reflected in the text, but the blog is also not independent of its original author. My first question is, how does one know if a blog is ghostwritten? That doesn't seem possible to me unless someone walks in on someone updating someone else's blog. Besides trying to prove that the writing style does not match previous writing styles, I don't see how this can be proven. Even when noticing different writing styles, I still do not see how this could be proven.
This blogger is talking about having others update a CEO blog, and how that would be no different from having someone give a newspaper interview under your name. This I believe is true.

Dr. McGuire, I am sorry if this blog seems lacking in any way, I've spent the majority of today at the hospital being diagnosed for pneumonia, and my head the past few days has not absorbed the reading very well. I attempted the post on monday, but could not publish what I wrote because it sounded awful when I reread it, and I find myself in the same problem today, but it is past 5 o'clock and I have no choice but to post. Foucault's essay was difficult for me to grasp, and I will reread it in hopes that I understand it better. I am sorry again, I just do not feel as though this post wasm y best work.

Also, the other picture on the cover of the book that is not an apple, is not a cat, and is not Derrida, is Barthes, correct?

After reading about Psychoanalytic theory in the Barry book, I had a lot of questions.
First, Freud says our unconscious is in control of our minds. So, how can Freud accurately analyze and diagnose someone's unconscious behavior and thinking if his unconscious is in control of his mind? He would be attempting to analyze the unconscious with the unconscious, and that just doesn't seem possible. Or, rather, it seems possible, yet how could that be a validating diagnose or analysis?
I have a Spirituality and Mysticism class directly after Critical Theory and the Academy; polar opposite classes back to back. First I will be in class thinking about Derrida, and how if everything is a structure, and every structure can be decentered, resulting with universe that holds zero fixed and stable truths...where does that put God? Was Derrida an atheist? Then I'll go to my next class where we are discussing the journey of mysitics, whose goal is to be in union with God, that everything and everyone is part of God, and we must strengthen ourselves as spiritual beings.
Jesus' sacrament was love. Love those you fear. Every action you do in you life, do it with love. Derrida says that love is narcissistic. It is a relationship with the Self through the Other. That is a completely different message Jesus'.
I am not religious. I am curious, though, and I would like to know what others think of this juxtaposition of ideas.
In a sense, love is a structure. And by Derrida's definition, that is defining oneself and loving oneself through the lens of the Other. What I am is derived from you. By using Jesus' opposing "arguement," because I don't think Jesus would agree with Derrida, or maybe to a certain degree he would. But wouldn't this opposition create an instability among the structure of love? Or God? Wouldn't this structure then be decentered?
Yesterday in class we also talked about Descartes' words, "I think therefore I am."
The center is the Self...a free individual capable of self-awareness without the presence of the Other. If the Self is in itself a center, can the Self the be decentered, thus seen as flawed, thus having no absolute truth?
What is the identity of the Self?
Can the Self be decentered?

Film on Derrida

Half of the film we watched on Derrida yesterday in class was fascinating to me in a few ways.
First, it was exactly how I pictured him to look, act, walk, talk, etc. I did not expect him to be married, although I found it very interesting that he was married to a psychoanalysist.
The main point however was that it was a documentary, it was film. Derrida frequently repeated what I was thinking throughout the movie, "I do not normally act this way, I am different in front of a camera." It was a superficial way to view Derrida's life, because he was censoring himself, changing himself, and not living honestly. He said that on a typical day, up until he left his home, he would be walking around his home in his pajamas. He would not, however, act that way when the camera was present.
Derrida's message, especially in his essay, is that there is no absolute fixed truth or meaning because structures (meaning, text) can always be decentered and have its flaws revealed. That is one purpose of the post-structuralist, to read the text against itself and reveal these breaks and flaws.
Therefore, whatever "truth" the film crew was trying to reveal through their documentary on the life of Derrida, would automatically be flawed, which would automatically destory any concept of "truth" it was aiming at. Derrida saw this clearly and clarified it saying things such as, "This isn't me. This is not how I normally act."
When Derrida was on his couch, watching himself on the television, watching himself watch the documentary of himself, that was a decentering of the structure.
When Derrida was on the couch with his wife, and the film crew was trying to have them engage in a conversation with them concerning their love, their meeting, their romance - they both remained quiet. Derrida said they were thinking the same thing, and they knew they were thinking the same thing, but they didn't say it aloud. Instead he gave the facts, the dates, and the times.
When also, in this universe Derrida dares us to enter - there are no guarenteed facts. There is only interpretation.
That is also another main message, I think, of Derrida in the movie. This was supposed to be a documentary on his life, on his work (or so I've gotten from the thirty minutes we were able to watch in class so far), which are both apsects of what one would probably label as "truth." Watching a documentary on someone is supposed to reveal the "truth" behind them. When in fact it doesn't at all!
When Britney Spears or whatever is interviwed on that show that says something like, "You think you know? You have no idea...this is the real life, or diary, of Britney Spears" or so-and-so...that is not "truth". That is not real. It cannot be truth. I don't think anything can be "truth" or arrive at a "truth."
Us, as viewer, watching Derrida, then watching Derrida watch himeself watching himself, or even us just watching Derrida walking through Paris smoking his pipe, cannot obtain clarified, guareneeted facts, because they do not exist.
There is only our interpretation of Derrirda, of the film.
There is nothing else.
There is no truth.
In fact, studying post-structuralism has really changed my outlook on everything and I'm beginning to think there really is no truth to anything. At all. Truth ceases to exist.
But anyway...maybe this is what the film crew was trying to accomplish in this documetary. I do not know.
I cannot wait until we study psychoanalysis, because, I know some about it, but not much...and I really, really find it interesting that his wife was a psychoanalysist. Because I thought the purpose of psychoanalysis was to work with an individual for years, and bascially deconstruct and pick them apart, have them work against themselves in a sense, and decode them according to their subconsious thoughts and past happenings....to finally arrive at their "truth" and help them figure out who they are and what they are doing and why they are doing what they are doing...
I'm going to stop here.
This is getting me all worked up and I have two minutes to get to my next class.
I am excited to finish the film.
I am excited to see more Derrida. He gave me a headache at the beginning, but now is BY FAR the most interesting theorist we have studied. And I'm really getting into post-structuralism.

But quickly - what did others think of the film? I know we don't need to post this week, but I really am curious as to what others thought. Please comment and let me know!

A Statement on Saussure

"Signs function not through their intrinsic value but through their relative position" (39)

A sign, according to Saussure, is a combination of a signifier and signified. The concept is the signfied, and the sound image is the signifier. The relationship between the two is arbitrary. Therefore, if the relationship is arbitrary, Saussure would claim that sings are arbitrary.
Meaning and value comes from the individual, or group. Meaning and value also comes from their relative position, meaning, one sign's relationship and comparison to other signs. This is shown through defining words through their opposites. To define "female," "male" must be taken into consideration. This also applies to how signs recieve their meaning. "Evil" is defined and recieves meaning through its opposite, "good."
Language operates on a linear sequence, meaning, words follow one another one by one. Because they function on a line, they are all connected to one another. Therefore, their value is only seen when words are put in relation to one another. In our Barry book, he used the example of the word "hut." "Hut" gains value when it is placed next to other words such as "shed," "palace," and "mansion." The word "hut's" relation to these other words, who have similiar attributes, allows it to recieve its value.
If I am on the right page here, Saussure would then claim that the value of the signs comes from how they are used as a whole within a community. Also, value is NOT to be confused with significance. This part of the lesson somewhat confused me. I had a very difficult time catching on to how significance and value are different, but I think it is this: Significance is the meaning between the signified and the signfier. BUT...VALUE is the relationship between the signs in the whole signified/signifier as a whole....is this right?
I enjoy Structuralism A LOT more than Marxism. I feel like I have a good understanding of the basic foundation of its theory. I hope I am correct in this assumption.