Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Mythologies

The one topic that confused me the most was when Barthes started talking about the difference between Left-Wing myth and bourgeois myth: "Yes, myth exists on the Left, but it does not at all have there the same qualities as bourgeois myth. Left-wing is inessential." This is where I went from kind of getting it to being completely lost. Presumably Barthes is talking about the left wing of of politics in France at the time he was writing this. Is the left wing the same as the poor that Barthes mentions who also have inferior myths? If myth is a social fact, how can myth as used by some people be more important or essential then when used by others? Does he mean that while bourgeois myths like the wedding become naturalized, left wing or poor myths do not? It seems to me that categorizing the linguistics and myths of an entire class of people as inferior is a very broad generalization. Can't the working class have their own myths separate from the bourgeoisie?

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