Something About A Cow and Some Hay

First let me just say thank you to Ken Rufo for his guest lecture. It was a pleasure to read, okay maybe not a pleasure, I would have much rather been eating some cereal on my couch, but it was a insightful and entertaining read. After class yesterday, I realized I was going to have to read his post again, because I had zoned out the section about simulation, and it seems that was a slightly important part. I feel much better about Baudrillard the second time around, and well to tell you the truth I feel much better about Marxism the umpteenth time around as well. I seem to always think I have a handle on one of these theories and then we talk about them again, and I have to readjust my thoughts. Ken, (can I call him Ken? Is he a Dr.? I think I would rather call him Rufo, since that's a bad ass name...please don't be offended by that) Rufo did a great job of explaining both Marxism and Baudrillard in terms I can understand: Cows, Hay, and Money. I don't really want to rewrite everything he said because you can just read it on Dr. McGuire's blog, but he explained the basic order of simulation by using the example of money. I think the combined efforts of Dr. M (she sounds like a character out of James Bond) and Rufo (who sounds like a character out of Hook) to explain the simulation hierarchy has really helped me to understand Baudrillard, and also understand what the movie, The Matrix, was trying to say. I haven't seen The Matrix in a long time (I am very excited to watch it tonight!) but I think I already understand some of the reasons Baudrillard thought they got it wrong. I know we were talking in class about how a simulacra is a copy with no original, and this may be really simpleminded, but the Matrix (as in the thing that is in the movie The Matrix) isn't really a simulacra because it does have an original, it is based off of the world during the 1990's. Both Rufo and Dr. M tried to start explaining other problems Baudrillard had with the movie, but I'm not sure I understand them enough to go on talking about them. Maybe someone could explain it to me once they have written the extra credit paper.

I also wanted to talk about how Rufo had connected Saussure, Marx and Baudrillard, because I found the use-value and exchange-value stuff really interesting. I thought his explanation of the signifier and the signified in connection with the use-value and exchange-value really helpful in understanding theoretical commodities. When Dr. M was talking about this in class yesterday with Foucault's "What is an Author" I had no idea what she was saying, well that's not true I have enough of an idea of what she was saying to connect it with that Rufo was explaining about Baudrillard after I read his blog a second time. I'm not sure I am making a whole lot of sense right now, but I hope that at least my fellow classmates know what I am talking about. I'm wondering a quote from Rufo's lecture will help, "For Baudrillard, the possibility exists that these new systems of exchange, in this case 'critical theory' or 'Marxist theory,' become a model of sorts that produces its analyses as if they are self-fulfilling prophecies. " I feel like that is what Dr. M was talking about when we were discussing the importance of an author, when an author is needed, and the importance of Freud and other theorists as authors, and I was just nodding my head but not really understanding what she meant until now.

I think I will have to come back to Baudrillard after watching the Matrix and reading a bit of the stuff Dr. M put up on Web-CT. But at least I think I am ready for him. Thanks again Ken Rufo, and I'm sorry that I called you "Rufo" repeatedly throughout my blog.

I wrote Harry Potter.

Since I have not finished reading Foucault's "What is an Author?" I will be writing about what I understand of Barthes' "Death of the Author." I am actually quite glad I did not try to read this before our class discussion yesterday, because I am not sure I would have understood one word of it otherwise. I would like to look at one of the first points Barthes tries to make, which is that we (as a society that is obsessed with biographies) put to much stock in the author. One of the first sentences in "Death of the Author" really rung true for me, "...writing is the destruction of every voice, of every point of origin. Writing is that neutral, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body writing." Never mind the fact that the first time I read this I thought it said the "deconstruction of every voice," it means the same thing. When someone writes a book, it is not their individual unique voice going into it, that would be impossible, it is instead the reflection what they know as themselves, and what the world has created. Somehow I am trying to connect this to Lacan's ideal of the symbolic, but I am not doing a very good job. I feel like what Barthes is trying to say makes sense to me when I think about the example Dr. McGuire gave us in class about being a feminist. She said that you can never really be a feminist, because everyone's definition of feminist is different and you can not fulfill them all. I think this can be said of an author as well. Writing does not capture an individual, or "the voice of a single person." It places the power with the reader, not the author, because "it is the language which speaks, not the author." I recently searched for other blogs speaking on the death of the author, and came across this one (A Feminist Blog) on my first try. It is incredibly disappointing, because I believe the "author" of the blog post doesn't understand Barthes' "Death of the Author." She speaks of her need as a structuralist to look at the context and background of a literary work, but does not feel the need to "kill" the author. My response to this is, the author is already dead. You must just stop pretending she is still alive. We all tend to place the author on a high pedestal, when in fact we should putting our-reading-selves up there.

I feel like I want to still talk about texts being written in the here and now, but I would like to do a little more reading and research on this idea before tackling it.

Wait, Was Derrida a Buddhist?

I really enjoyed today's class, probably because for once it made sense while I was in class, instead of the usual situation of it making sense 51 hours later when I am on the E-line coming home from work.

I thought our discussion at the beginning of class about self/other was particularly interesting, because, once again, I connected it to the Buddhist religion. As we were saying, and what I believe Derrida was saying when talking about the self, is that there is no one true self there is only self in relation to others. This is part of the Buddha's teachings as well, that there is not individual soul that defines us, but rather just us as part of a whole. Of course it is a little different when Derrida is talking about it then when the Buddha is talking about it. Derrida talks about the self being found in our perception of others, such as when he tells Amy that her biography of him is actually an autobiography of herself. The artist always comes out in the portrait of another.
That reminds me of the theory of perception that we talked about in my organizational behavior class (and I mentioned in this class). It is this idea that we define others by how we know ourselves and experiences we have had with others. We project ourselves on others. Dr. McGuire pointed out that a more radical way to think about it is what i have just said in the former paragraph, that it is actually the self that is defined by others, which completely makes sense to me, (hey, there's a new one).
I hope this rings a bell for other people, as it does with me. It sounds exactly like what Saussure was saying about words, and what Levi-Strauss was saying about the Oedipus myth. Or at least I think it does even though I know that is more Structuralism than Deconstructionism. I am just starting to understand Post-structuralism and Deconstruction so you will have to bare with me, but I feel good about making connections between the theories we have covered.

PS. I am just starting to really understand Marxism now, I can't wait until its halfway through Christmas break and all of a sudden Lacan becomes crystal clear.

Buddhism and Structuralism, It's All Relative

I was having a lot of trouble deciding what I was going to write about for this prompt, that was until I read a couple of other blogs, so thanks you guys. It's funny, I'm kind of superstitious, and I just made a wish on an eyelash that I would have an amazing revelation and be able to write this blog, it turns out my wish came true. You can decide if that was God messing with me or just a coincidence.

Now, as for structuralism, I am going to look at the quote, "Signs function not through their intrinsic value but through their relative position." I was having trouble connecting this quote with my thoughts on structuralism until I looked up the word "intrinsic" (I have an extremely limited vocabulary, it's sad, but I'm working to change that). Now I can comfortably say that, Saussure means that words (and the concepts that go along with those words) do not get there meaning from their native/natural being, but instead get meaning through their relative position in the language system. As I mentioned in class, this immediately reminds me of what I know of the Buddhist religion. Keep in mind I just started studying Buddhism this week, but from what I understand, Buddha's teachings, also know as the Dharma, state that no person holds meaning within oneself, we get our meaning through every other living thing. We are relative beings. We can not be released from Samsara (the cycle of reincarnation) until we accept the fact that we are not an individual but actually part of a system, and that system is what gives us our meaning, or defines us. That is an extremely spiritual way of looking at Saussure, I don't know if that will help anyone else understand what he means, but it helps me.

Another good example of this idea, is found in the "hut" example that everyone else has been talking about. I won't go into too much detail about it, because you can just read about it in Beginning Theory (Barry). But the gist is, the word "hut" doesn't have meaning on its own, it gets it meaning through words with similar value like "house" and "shack." If the word "hut" did not exist then its meaning would just be absorbed into the surrounding words. Hopefully, the example given in class about the tree also helps you understand this concept too.

I think this feeds into the other ideas that Saussure presents, like "the bond between the signifier and the signified is radically arbitrary" (as I'm sure it should), which explains that words have nothing to do with their partnering concepts. I know I am only supposed to talk about one of the quotes, but I think my understanding of these two quotes coincide, so it may do the same for other people.

I can't wait until I have to tackle Poststructuralism/Deconstructionism, Buddhism talks about decentralizing too!