"bourgeois ideology is of the scientistic or the intuitive kind, it records facts or perceives values, but refuses explanations; the order of the world can be seen as sufficient or ineffable, it is never seen as significant."
Though this and a few other parts in this section give a bit of an explanation of what Barthes means, I'm still not entirely sure how he's defining bourgeois ideology. It definitely has to do with this scientific viewpoint as he mentions in that quote, and also is tied with the concepts of capitalism and consumerism. But, does he mean anything else in addition to that? Is there any way to formulate in a concise manner exactly what he means by bourgeois ideology?
1 comment:
Ben -
I thought the political discussion at the end of Mythologies was the most vague and challenging part of Barthes' discussion. I took the bourgeoisie to be the ruling class or the controllers of culture, specifically capitalism/consumerism.
The bourgeoisie seem to be the "mythmakers." The bourgeois ideology is ex-nomination. They deny that there is even such a thing as "bourgeois", and then bourgeois institutions can no longer be seen as limited to a particular social group. "Bourgeois" institutions (like fancy weddings) just become NATURAL.
I'm not exactly sure this is what Barthes' had in mind, but this is how I understood what was going on at the end there.
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