Peter Barry describes post-structuralism, deconstruction, and postmodernism the way younger generations would describe older generations or visa verse. I couldn't help but think of the arguments between generations of people. Page 60 to 61 really gave me this image because Barry was comparing structuralists to post-structuralists. Do we not learn from our predecessors and then take what they teach us and make it better or unique or whatever else to show how we can make a difference? It is basically organization vs. chaos and that is how my 83 year old grandmother views my generation - very chaotic. It's not like it used to be in the 'old days', but neither is anything else; and that is what makes the difference between the two. What is being said does not seem to matter as much as how it is being said which brings us back to what rhetoric really is - how the message is delivered. The post-structuralists and postmodernists break away from what was accepted as real and true and developed their own realities and truths - that is a big step to take. Longing for the past does not accomplish anything for the future. But what we have read throughout the semester thus far is a scaffold of what the ancients developed long ago.
I have read Barthe's "Death of the Author" and I really like the last line of the essay "...the birth of the reader must be requited by the death of the Author." The death of the author does allow the reader a certain amount of freedom as Barry points out (65), but don't we need some structure in order to understand what the product is supposed to be; or can chaos and freedom give us the final product as well? Individual interpretation is going to happen and rhetoric is rhetoric no matter how you look at it; it is the theory that determines how we will interpret or analyze a specific piece of work, from music to art to literature.
Post whatisms? I am finally starting to see and understand what my teachers' theories were when I was a student and I find it fascinating. I am also starting to see and understand what my colleagues' theories might be. What is even more exciting for me is that I am starting to match my pedagogy to certain theories based on what I have learned; I have always known my pedagogy, and it changes from class to class, year to year; but it has been fun matching it to the theories, people, authors, philosophers, etc. in the literature we have read.
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Although I often take argument with the "Death of the Author," I also find the power shift to the reader fascinating. In some ways, I agree, because the reader will pick up on things that the author is doing at the subconscious levels. Perhaps, authors could learn something about themselves based on the reactions of their readers. Now that's a shift in power!
ReplyDeleteI agree that nostalgia is grief for an idealistic past that never really existed, but, like you said, on the flip side, going against what has come before means something pretty radical.
ReplyDeleteI spent a lot of this week wondering what our generations have given to the whole of Western History. Is it Disneyland (god I hope not)? Or is it a different way of looking at the world?
Side note: My mother thinks that my generation's lack of absolutism is definitive of what we have allowed ourselves to become, but I am sure to tell her that it is her generation that has made us this way.