Hi, my name's Tom. Welcome back to my
channel and to another episode of What the
Theory, my ongoing series in which I
provide accessible introductions to key
theories in cultural studies and the
wider humanities. Today, we're looking at
poststructuralism. Poststructuralism's
central thesis is that language (and all
other forms of communicative system such
as images and video) are less perfect at
expressing our thoughts and ideas than
we might initially want to think they
are. Rather than replicating our thoughts
in the mind of a reader or viewer
perfectly, most modes of communication
are prone to misrepresenting us or to
encouraging alternative interpretations
of what we were trying to express when
we first said, wrote or recorded
something. Poststructuralism asks what
this means for the practice of analyzing
cultural texts and questions whether it
is ever possible to arrive at a
definitive interpretation of a given
film, book or other cultural text. Beyond
this, it also asks whether, in a society
in which much of our thinking about the
world is done through language, it is
ever possible to arrive at objective
truth, or whether the implicit biases
surrounding race, gender and other
concepts present in our linguistic and
other communicative systems might shape
our understanding of the world too.
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With that out of the way,
however, let's crack on with
Poststructuralism: What the Theory?
The first thing one likely notices
about poststructuralism
is that that, as with postmodernism or
postcolonialism, the term itself implies a
relationship with something called
"structuralism". Now, if you'd like a
complete overview of structuralism
itself then I'd recommend checking out
my video dedicated to that very topic.
For today's purposes, however, it's enough
to know that structuralism refers to a
way of thinking about cultural texts
which prioritizes systematic inquiry.
Drawing on the work of the Swiss
linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, it asks us
to view different forms of culture such
as literature, film, theatre, visual arts
and also culture in the all-encompassing
sense as a kind of language system. It
thus asks us to consider not only how an
individual book, film, performance or
artwork infers meaning on its own terms
but also its reliance upon tropes and
conventions prevalent throughout the
wider "language" of human culture. A
structuralist analysis of Jordan Peele's
Get Out, for instance, might focus on how
it employs or subverts certain narrative
devices present in other films. Does it,
as Robert McKee would likely suggest,
adhere to the "language" or perhaps
"grammar" of Hollywood storytelling in
having an 'inciting incident', a moment of
'crisis', a 'climax' and a 'resolution'?
Furthermore, how does it employ or
subvert the language of the wider horror
genre? Peele himself has been fairly open
about borrowing certain conventions from
The Shining, Halloween and North by
Northwest. Structuralism foregrounds the
presence of such shared conventions and
tropes across multiple texts in order to
gain a better understanding of the
language of individual cultural forms,
and perhaps human culture in its
entirety. Neither narrative structure
nor genre, however, are natural phenomena.
Both are human creations. And so, too, is
language itself. Structuralist analysis is
generally aware of this fact yet mostly
decides not to question it too much, it
holds that language (or, again, the
"language" of film or literature
etc) is all we have so we're best off
just compiling the best understanding of
it we can. Poststructuralism, however,
does go that step further in encouraging
us to consider whether the fact that
language is a human creation might mean
that, like any other human invention, it
might have certain flaws and biases. It
encourages us to ask whether language
(and, again, other forms of communication)
might sometimes fail us and communicate
something altogether different than what
we initially intended. Furthermore, it
asks us to consider whether those
languages might be subject to many of
the same ideological biases of, for
example, gender, race and class as other
human institutions. Let's start with the
notion that language might be imperfect.
Peter Barry forwards an evocative
example of how we might have experienced
this in his book Beginning Theory in
which he asks us to 'think of any
slightly less straightforward language
situation like writing to your bank,
writing an essay, striking up a friendship
with a stranger at a party, or sending a
letter of condolence. In these cases, and
many more, there is an almost universally
felt anxiety that the language will
express things we hadn't intended, or
convey the wrong impression or betray
our ignorance, callousness or confusion.
Even when we use a phrase like "if you
see what I mean" or "in a manner of
speaking"
there is the same underlying sense that
we are not really in control of the
linguistic system'. Though, for the most
part, language seems like a pretty good
system of communicating, then, it as
often leads to miscommunication as it
does to a perfect articulation of the
thing we wanted to express. Furthermore,
if you've ever found yourself trying to
soothe over a personal or professional
relationship after having had a letter,
text or answerphone message
interpreted differently to how it was
intended, you'll likely have found
yourself wrestling with the fact that
language is a closed system and thus all
you have at your disposal to explain
your previous words is more words which
are themselves open
to alternate interpretations. Such an
anxiety about the imperfect nature of
language is at the core of poststructuralism.
And, just as did
structuralism, it extends this view to
the "languages" of art and culture. Perhaps
the most famous text which develops this
notion is Roland Barthes' 1967 essay The
Death of the Author in which he
questions previous scholars' obsession
with analyzing cultural texts with the
goal of identifying what it was the
author intended it to mean. In such
approaches, Barthes argues, 'the explanation
of a work is always sought in the man or
woman who produced it, as if it were
always in the end, through the more or
less transparent allegory of the fiction,
the voice of a single person, the author,
"confiding" in us'. Yet, if language is an
imperfect communicator, Barthes continues by
asking, is it ever possible to arrive
at an understanding of a text that
is 100% accurate to that intended by the
author? Furthermore, he asks, even if we
could, would that be the most useful goal
to aim for? For, most people who encounter
a given text likely do not come to it
with an extended knowledge of the
author's life and artistic priorities.
Thus, to try to look through the text to
see the intentions of the author behind
it ultimately involves ignoring the rich,
meaningful possibilities of the text
itself. Poststructuralism, then, is almost
entirely disinterested in what an author
might have originally intended a text to
mean. In fact, it's sceptical that any
text has any objective or "final" meaning
at all but, instead, is overflowing with
possible interpretations.
Therefore, as Terry Eagleton argues, 'the
reader or critic shifts from the role of
consumer to that of producer [of
potential meanings of a text]. It is not
exactly as though "anything goes" in
interpretation, for Barthes is careful to
remark that the work cannot be got to
mean anything at all; but literature is
now less an object to which criticism
must conform that a free
space in which it can sport'.
Poststructuralism
encourages us not to pursue some kind of
definitive meaning but to celebrate the
many and multiple meanings that a given
book, film, painting or other form of
cultural text might invite. Now, in so
doing, poststructuralism is often
accused of failing to show enough
deference to the text itself and as
positioning the critic or scholar or
reader (you or I) as more important than the
person or people who sweated to create
that text in the first place. And there
are no doubt examples of individuals
doing both of these things. Nevertheless,
a more sympathetic view would be that
poststructuralism in fact returns our
attention, which previously might have
been obsessed with the life and opinions
of the author behind the text, to the
text in front of us itself and embraces
the surface of meaning present within it.
This celebration of the text itself is
perhaps best articulated by Jacques
Derrida who famously declared in his
1967 book Of Grammatology that "il n'y
a pas de hors-texte" which, though difficult to
translate directly, translates roughly as
either "there is nothing outside the text"
or "there is no outside-text". In perhaps a
further vindication of the imperfections
of language, there exists a great deal of
scholarly discussion surrounding what
Derrida actually meant by this sentence
fragment. Even Michel Foucault has been
accused of misinterpreting Derrida on
this statement. Does he mean that, when
critiquing a given book, film or artwork,
that we should take into account nothing
but the text in front of us?
Or does he, in fact, mean that there is
"nothing outside the text" in the sense
that the text in front of us
subsumes everything around it and thus
we should take into account all possible
contexts that might inform the
interpretation of it? Today, the consensus
generally swings towards the latter
understanding.
For Derrida was interested in how the
meaning a given text infers might be as
reliant upon what
is absent from it as much as what is
present. See, as we explored in my video
on structuralism, individual words only
come to mean a certain thing because
they do not mean something else. The term
"high", for instance,
doesn't mean all that much until we have
the opposite concept, "low", to compare it
to.
Derrida thus argued that any use of a
given term always carries with it the
"trace" of its opposite. In short, wherever
the word "high" is used in a piece of
writing, the concept "low" is always
implicitly there too, lurking in the
background. And this has implications not
only for individual words but for an
entire text. For, although a given book,
film etc might be presented as having a
single, unquestionable meaning, the
presence of countless "traces" behind
every single term or concept invoked
within it means that there are always
alternate possible interpretations
hiding there waiting to be discovered
Derrida thus developed a methodology
for textual analysis called
deconstruction whic,h as Jack Reynolds
explains, 'contends that in any text, there
are inevitably points of equivocation
and "undecidability" that betray any
stable meaning that an author might seek
to impose upon his or her text. The
process of writing always reveals that
which has been suppressed, covers over
that which has been disclosed, and more
generally breaches the very oppositions
that are thought to sustain it'.
Deconstruction does not necessarily
contend, then, again, that a text can
mean anything at all. Instead, it seeks to
draw out the hidden meanings beneath its
surface and, in particular, to question
the binaries of meaning which a less
critical reading of that text might
ignore. Although not focused on an
individual cultural text, in looking to
explain how deconstruction can be
applied in practice, I'd like to take a
look here at Derrida's 1985 essay
Racism's Last Word in which he seeks to
critique
"Western" (and in particular European)
discourses on apartheid, the white
supremacist regime which ruled over
South Africa until 1994. Early on,
Derrida comments that 'no tongue has ever
translated this name [apartheid]—as if all
the languages of the world were
defending themselves, shutting their
mouths against a sinister incorporation
of the thing by means of the word'. And,
continuing this line of thought, Derrida
foregrounds the manner in which
European governments' condemnations of
apartheid, though welcomed in pursuit of
ending the repressive regime, often
sought to present racism as something
which always happened "over there". And a
binary is thus drawn between the non
racist nations of Europe, "here", and the
barbarous apartheid regime, "over there".
Yet, argues Derrida, 'the judicial
simulacrum and the political theatre of
this state racism would have no meaning
and would have had no chance outside of
a European "discourse" on the concept of
race'. In short, the underlying racist
belief system which gave birth to
apartheid, Derrida contends, was a
European invention, exported to South
Africa through settler colonialism. Derrida
sees that the invocation of the "over
there" of South Africa carries with it
the trace of "here", Europe. And, by
following that trace, he identifies an
interpretation of apartheid which
European governments' discourses on the
topic were actively trying to seclude
and ultimately contests that the
underlying binary which suggests that
racism is something which only happens
"over there" is false. Cultural texts
themselves can engage in such an act of
deconstruction too. To return to the
example of Get Out, the film regularly
seeks to foreground the reliance of the
horror genre on binaries of race. The
author Zadie Smith, for example, has
highlighted the manner in which the film
subverts the tendency of horror films to
present white people as inherently innocent
and black people inherently threatening.
Get Out, she argues, 'flips the script,
offering a compendium of black fears
about white folk'. More than this, however,
the film critiques the manner in which
many rich white liberals seek to present
their love of black culture as a way of
assuring the world that they are in some
way anti-racist. Smith argues that 'in
place of the old disgust, a new kind of
cannibalism. The white people in Get Out
want to get inside the black experience.
They want to wear it like a skin and
walk around in it'. Blackness, to the white
characters in the film, is merely an
aesthetic and so, too, is their politics.
For while they might detest blatant,
interpersonal racism, or the police's hostile
treatment of black people, they are quite
clearly happy to benefit from deep,
structural racial inequalities. The white
characters in the film seek to present
the fact that they like basketball, for
instance, as a way of creating a binary
between them and those, like the police
officer towards the beginning of the
film, who engage in explicit,
interpersonal racism. Yet, pointing to
other ways in which those characters are
complicit in racist systems, Get Out
questions how meaningful that binary
really is. Both Racism's Last Word and
Get Out are useful examples here because
they point to the somewhat larger
implications of the poststructuralist
observation that language is highly
flawed. For, alongside not always
successfully expressing the meanings we
intended, the foregrounding of language
as a human creation asks us to consider
whether it might be open to the same
biases of race, gender, class (to name but
a few) as other human institutions. Think
of the use of the term "man" to describe
all of humanity for example, or the use
of the suffix "ess" in "actress", "waitress" and
"princess". Not only do such terms create a
clear binary between
men and women as two distinct and
uniform categories of people, even when
doing the exact same job, but the
application of the root term (say, actor)
to men and the adjusted term (actress) to
women clearly presents men as a kind of
norm and women as a sort of deviation.
And, to some, this might seem like a
trivial observation. Yet, for the most
part, language is the medium through
which we think and talk about the world
and so a binary in language helps to
sustain a binary (and an unequal binary
at that) in our way of thinking about a
certain topic. Poststructuralism desired
intension to foreground and
deconstruct such binaries has led to it
being a key influence in, for example,
feminist studies. In her 1990 book Gender
Trouble (which I plan to discuss in a
future video), for instance, Judith Butler
draws on the work of Derrida and others
to consider how a binary between men and
women sustained by language but also by
many other aspects of our society
encourages us to conform to hegemonic
modes of masculinity or femininity
before encouraging us to deconstruct
this binary entirely. Where
poststructuralism begins with the
fairly basic proposition that language
is a flawed means of communication, then,
it comes to have fairly large implications
for human society. For its core
methodology, deconstruction, can not only
be used to critique individual cultural
texts but also far-reaching concepts
that have a huge sway on our society.
When the University of Cambridge
considered awarding Jacques Derrida an
honorary degree in 1992, a group of 19
academics wrote an open letter advising
against the move and accusing Derrida
of, among other things, 'attacking the
values of reason, truth and scholarship'.
This was meant as an insult. Yet one
wonders whether Derrida might have
quite liked such a description of his
overall project and whether it might
serve as a useful articulation of the
goal of poststructuralism as a whole.
For, in a society in which language is
the medium through which we reach
consensus on what counts as "reason", "truth"
and "scholarship", poststructuralism
ultimately does ask us to question
whether such things can ever be
objectively decided upon once and for
all. For, if language is as flawed as the
poststructuralists suggest, then the
conclusions we reach through it will
always be similarly flawed and biased.
Thank you very much for watching this
video, I hope it's given you a bit of an
insight into poststructuralism. And
thanks as always to my top patrons: Ash,
Michael V Brown and J Fraser
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