Barthes and "Toys"

Even though the section on "Toys" in Roland Barthes' Mythologies was really short, I really enjoyed this mini text. Perhaps because in a way, I agree with him and the fact that he tries to exemplify that this whole "French toys" movement is associated or connected to a social norm. He writes: "...medicine (miniature instrument-cases...) the air force (parachutists)..." and expresses that these toys are set up for children to look up to in a way. For example, a child who plays with the medicine case will aspire to become a doctor one day and this is the same concept for all the other toy comparisons he makes. The most concrete comparison, however, is that of the child (girl) who plays with her doll that urinates, associating her with motherhood. All these connections are very pertinent even to modern times...society has a way of "conditioning" people at a young age, children in this instance, to be "users, not creators". Therefore, the social norm was also created for this child and all he/she has to do is fit the shoe, so to speak, and become that certain individual that society is looking for. Reading “Toys” reminded me of my childhood and made me think of what kind of roles my brother, my sister and I were conditioned to. My brother always had the toy cars and the army men/toys and Nintendo, etc. My sister and I had the barbies and whatever pertained to them. I always wanted one of the water babies Barthes is referring to but I never got one but I did get a doctor case, which automatically came into my thoughts when I read this short text. I remember clearly carrying this case around with me wherever I went and telling people I wanted to be a doctor...as in medicine and what not...but in reality, I don’t think I could ever do that. So according to Barthes, this was society conditioning me to think a certain way, it doesn’t always become a reality, but this “case” was my way of knowing that I needed an education to get somewhere. My parents never had the same educational experience I’ve had so the fact that at a young age I was able to recognize that I did want an education, without really knowing what this meant, just reinforces Barthes vision. In conclusion, society will always have a role for humanity and maybe it’s up to us to be the creators and not the users? I’m not so sure now…    

Althusser and ideology

    From my understanding of Althusser's text, we come upon a society (our society so to speak) where children are taught at a young age what their social norm should be according to this society. And for this reason, the school has taken over institutions, such as the church who along with the parents represented the moral education of children, and become the number one source for their education: "the 'rules' of good behavior, i.e. the attitude that should be observed by every agent in the division of labour, according to the job he is 'destined' for: rules of morality, civic and professional conscience, which actually means rules of respect for the socio-technical division of labour and ultimately the rules of the order established by class domination" (132). I bring this up because in a way, I have to agree with his view on this subject. Since the first day of kindergarten, children are expected to know that they shouldn't speak out of turn, that school is a source of learning things that they will need to pass on to first grade, that they need to be polite, so and so forth. And with every year that passes within the school system, the student/child should come out with a clear understanding of the societal ladder and have an idea of where they belong in that ladder. With this said, we move into the ideology which Althusser refers to as the "ruling bourgeois ideology" whose focus is to "open up for them the path to the freedom, morality and responsibility of adults" (157) that they've been looking forward to since their institutionalization started. In reality, however, and I believe this is what Althusser is arguing here, this isn't freedom because it's always in the constraints of society and the roles we're supposed to play as members of this system.
    Moving on to what Marx defines as ideology according to Althusser, "ideology is a system of the ideas and the representations which dominate the mind of a man or a social group" (158) and furthermore, class is always represented by ideology. In thesis II where Althusser states that ideology has a material existence he exemplifies that the individual will worship what he/she believes in and although this is a text that was written years ago, I believe this concept still holds value today. As individuals in this society we are brought up with certain beliefs, and although not all of us decide to keep those same beliefs, we all believe in something and for the most part, will defend those beliefs over anything. Overall, this is all human nature and this text represents the different types of influence society can have on an individual.

Lacan

In all honesty, this is my first encounter with Lacan and I can't say I love the guy. I didn't really understand his message so that's why I'm deciding to blog about it. I may be totally off in my interpretation so please don't judge me, here it goes. In "The instance of the letter in the unconscious or reason since Freud", Lacan presents the concept that language and structure are entities of their own, leading to the difference between the algorithm "signifier/signified". In this, the signifier is the meaningful unit and the signified is a concept denoted by a sign..."the signifier answers the function of representing the signified, or better, that the signifier has to answer for its existence in the name of any signification" (191). So then we're given the example of the signified when the children on the train both see different words that are given meaning by society and therefore are interpreted by those children. All in all, the letter expresses the signifier because at this stage, it has not given the signified the denotation of the sign because letters take signification when we put meaning to them...just like words. So my question here would be could a word exist without a letter? and more so, can literature exist without letters? I really don't know because I want to say the answer is no because everything we speak on a daily basis are letters put together that make words, therefore, not much could be done without them. However, this also leads me to think of numbers and symbols and how they too can create a language of their own. And this is where I get lost...so for the moment that's it for my blog.

"Art as Technique" by Viktor Shklovsky

    As I started reading this article, the concept that stood out to me the most and in an immediate way, was this concept of the "algebraic" method. From what I understood, this term refers to the most important aspects of an issue (can really be any issue) and emphasizes that we tend to focus on what we consider to be the "main characteristics" of that issue. To try to put this into a way I would understand the reading better, I immediately thought of my cellphone and what I use it for. These days with technology and phones you can basically do anything, but none of that really matters to me because I basically just use my phone to communicate with my family back home; hence, this is the important function of the phone to me. And this is what Shklovsky is also stating, we only see or get what we want out of certain situations and "fail to hear the prose" because we're only focused on what we consider important.
     With this, we go into the meaning of the "purpose of art" only to re-emphasize this author's point of view. "The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known." The "perceived" in this definition is the word that stands out to me the most because it is what expresses art and everything that the "object" entails. This object, according to Viktor Shklovsky, is not important because its merely just the work of art; but the work of art can be meaningless if there is no one to interpret its meaning for themselves. For this reason, I think that the importance of art, in accordance with this reading, lies in the recipients perception of the piece, in which ever shape or form they see the art. Although a phone might not be the right comparison to art, if my mom and sister weren't on the other side of the phone call, the phone (the object) would have no purpose for me. And the same goes for art which just made me think of the phrase "beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder", art like theory and literature is up for your own interpretation.

the little cask

     Greed is one of those negative virtues in a human that will always be present in all types of societies. In Maupassant's "The little cask", it is seen in both Chicot and Mother Magloire; they both find themselves in a situation where the hunger for money becomes their reason for living (so to speak). Since the beginning, Chicot knows he is tricking this little old lady into his game and vice versa, the old lady also finds a way to profit from this situation. Therefore, Maupassant has created two characters who portray society's constant need for power. And in the end, one (Chicot) has to triumph over the other (Magloire) to reach that power; now the actions taken along the way aren't always positive, as is the case of Chicot. He knows very well that the old lady will not refuse dinner and nevertheless, drinking. Therefore, she represents the weak of the society who give in to the bribes of social injustices.

     Overall, I found the story line to be somewhat predictable, I was well aware that Chicot was going to end up getting his way, even when the little old lady tried to alter his plans. Despite this fact, however, I have never read Maupassant but I enjoyed his writing...I didn't think it was a bad story and I felt that it had some influence from realism in the way he was describing his characters and the surrounding areas. If more comes to mind...i'll be sure to blog about it.

practice run

:)