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Quote by Roland Barthes

“[French] toys ... reveal the list of all the things the adult does not find unusual: war, bureaucracy, ugliness, Martians, etc. It is not so much, in fact, the imitation which is the sign of an abdication, as its literalness…”

Quote by Roland Barthes

Work

Mythologies

An in-depth exploration of how myths from various cultures have shaped contemporary society, literature, and the human psyche. more

Author

Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes (November 12, 1915 – March 25, 1980) was a French philosopher, literary critic, semiotician, and sociologist. He was a leading figure in structuralism and post-structuralism, known for his profound insights into semiotics, cultural criticism, and literary theory. His works, such as Mythologies, S/Z, and The Death of the Author, challenged traditional notions of authorship and meaning, emphasizing the multiplicity of texts and the active role of readers. Barthes' interdisciplinary approach influenced cultural studies, media analysis, and postmodern thought, making him one of the most influential intellectuals of the 20th century. more

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“When sexual liberation was the order of the day, the watchword was 'Maximize sexuality, minimize reproduction' . The dream of our present cloneloving society is just the opposite: as much reproduction and as little sex as possible. At one time the body was a metaphor for the soul, then it became a metaphor for sex. Today it is no longer a metaphor for anything at all, merely the locus of metastasis, of the machine-like connections between all its processes, of an endless programming devoid of any symbolic organization or overarching purpose: the body is thus given over to the pure promiscuity of its relationship to itself - the same promiscuity that characterizes networks and integrated circuits. The possibility of metaphor is disappearing in every sphere. This is an aspect of a general tendency towards transsexuality which extends well beyond sex, affecting all disciplines as they lose their specificity and partake of a process of confusion and contagion - a viral loss of determinacy which is the prime event among all the new events that assail us. Economics becomes transeconomics, aesthetics becomes transaesthetics, sex becomes transsexuality - all converge in a transversal and universal process wherein no discourse may have a metaphorical relationship to another, because for there to be metaphor, differential fields and distinct objects must exist. But they cannot exist where contamination is possible between any discipline and any other. Total metonymy, then - viral by definition (or lack of definition). The viral analogy is not an importation from biology, for everything is affected simultaneously and under the same terms by the virulence in question, by the chain reaction we have been discussing, by haphazard and senseless proliferation and metastasis. Perhaps our melancholy stems from this, for metaphor still had its beauty; it was aesthetic, playing as it did upon difference, and upon the illusion of difference. Today, metonymy - replacing the whole as well as the components, and occasioning a general commutability of terms - has built its house upon the dis-illusion of metaphor.”

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“What is “virtual reality”? It’s where people HIDE from real reality. What is the spectacular society? It’s where people watch other people having the spectacular life of which they dream. Why don’t they try to make it happen FOR REAL? There’s no high higher than REAL highs. There’s nothing better than being a real hero, not a fantasy hero. Ironically, all the spectacular people are a crashing disappointment in real life. They don’t have their scriptwriters with them to give then something clever and witty to say. They don’t have their make-up artists with them or the airbrushers or digital image enhancers that make them look so good on screen.”

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