I really don't know what to say. These readings seem to be starting to rehash everything we have been talking about from the beginning. Issues of form and the purpose of literature and rhetoric (revealing the author, concealing the author, ignoring the author) are still with us. Marxist theory (in its various forms) seems more proactive than most with its stated purpose of not just understanding but changing reality. At least it acknowledges the existence of reality. It is paralleling the more spiritual Greeks who explain the ideal in the guise of the caste system of the utopian philosoper king. Marx denies the ideal and replaces it with the somewhat more mobile and material caste system of class struggle--more mobile in the sense that up sometimes winds up being down and vice versa. Then Althusser brings us right back to a decentered structure without essence or focus. It is all very much like a tail chasing its dog.
So, that's all folks. I am going to sign off now and go read the book that I have selected to review. It really is more interesting for me than this week's assignments, and I suspect it is more original, too.
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I struggled through Althusser. Perhaps something truly is lost in French translation, as with Derrida. Fortunately, Barry sorts through and disseminates some understanding i.e. the role of ideology. As the Ancients pointed out, any side of an arguement can be successfully argued. Growing up during the Cold War, I equate ideology with propaganda.
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