Language as Control

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Originally Posted by RobinHood3000

Forgive me if I misunderstand your point, but I don't quite understand how I am to refer to the character of "Sandy" without using language.

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Obviously you have to use language – we all do. As the Bee Gees sang, ‘it’s only words and words are all I have.” The point was not about using words but about the dominant reading practice of discussing texts in terms of ‘character’. The problem with this approach is that it trains us to look at individuals in isolation from their wider context. Take for instance the problem of Hamlet’s so-called delay. Surely the point of all of Shakespeare’s great tragedies is that they dramatise a predicament which cannot be accounted for, let alone resolved, in terms of the moral responsibility of the protagonist alone. The plays require that we look beyond questions of morality and examine the premises of a society which could trap such an individual into such a predicament in the first place. The time and not Hamlet himself, is ‘out of joint.’ Interestingly, Terry Eagleton declared that the true heroines of ‘Macbeth’ are the witches because they, “by releasing ambitious thoughts in Macbeth, expose a reverence for hierarchical social order for what it is, as the pious self-deception of a society based on routine oppression and incessant warfare.” He goes on to add that “official society can only ever imagine its radical ‘other’ as chaos rather than creativity, and this is bound to define the sisters as evil.

Tell me if I have this correctly: it's not who the character is in the context of the narrative, it's who the character is as a construct relative to the context of its creator?

I intend no facetiousness, though I fear it's difficult to tell based on the wording of the above, but I'm trying to make sure I understand what you're saying.

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Originally Posted by RobinHood3000

Tell me if I have this correctly: it's not who the character is in the context of the narrative, it's who the character is as a construct relative to the context of its creator?

I intend no facetiousness, though I fear it's difficult to tell based on the wording of the above, but I'm trying to make sure I understand what you're saying.

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“Post-structuralism demands an awareness of the social, cultural conditions of meaning, of the dynamic interactions between texts and their contexts, the cultural practices and habits that determine the nature and directions of the process of meaning. Institutions - as organizing contexts - are centrally significant in terms of holding meanings in place, promoting specific meanings, enabling and disqualifying meanings. Institutions here include institutionalized reading practices, for example. Post-structuralist theory, then, enables analysis to go beyond the immediate encounter of reader and text to examine the institutional practices that position readers and texts, and to come to an awareness of the culturally powerful, readily available systems and possibilities of meaning. Post-structuralism also has the most powerful available descriptions of the individual subject of language and meaning - as a mobile entity enmeshed in cultural formations. This radically changes our understanding of reading and meaning processes: it also has implications for our understanding of cultural processes more generally.

In general, post-structuralism is likely to be sceptical of the claim of any single system of knowledge - like literature, for example - to comprehensive explanatory power, universal value or truth. Post-structuralism would insist on the necessary recognition that our knowledge and understanding of anything is inseparable from the business of representation (language - signs, texts, discourses, institutions). Post-structuralism would tend to insist that knowledge and understanding are always positioned - and that the identity and meaning of things shifts radically given different perspectives and cultural contexts.”

You must forgive me. I'm not as quick as you and Robin in my responses. I need time ponder points.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

Of course there are but doesn’t it strike you as significant that there are (at least in English) more negative words for women?

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I don't know that there are more for women. Has someone actually did a study and tallied them up? If so, at what point in time, because words are always evolviong. But my point is still the same: how can you discern if a man or a woman generated and propogated them?

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Many of Shakespeare’s own plays and much of the output of Hollywood reinforces the idea that a woman can be completed by marriage to a man.

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Well, don't most women share that point of view too? My mother (a female) believes that her daughter (a female) and her sons (both males) are all incomplete until married. Everyone is incomplete until marriage, and the notion is not just imposed by men.

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The fact that some women define themselves and others using such ideas is, surely, a powerful argument in favour of the Theorists’ position. It shows the extent to which certain ideas have been internalised and accepted as ‘normal’.

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So, if certain women agree with the theorists, they are enlightened; if they disagree, despite personal testimony, they have "internalize and accepted as normal" the bad ideas. Sounds Stalinist to me.

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I think that we approach things from the opposite direction – you believe that we make language; I believe that language makes us.

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I think you might be right here. This may be the fundemental point from which our thinking diverges. I believe that people have free wills and that language (especially english, for crying out loud) is diverse and flexible enough to conceptualize all sorts of ideas. If language makes us, how come an englishman and a frenchman share simliar ideas? How come you and I, both nautralized speakers of the same english language (with subtle differences because of the pond that separates us) have very different ideas? If language makes us, why are we not all identical thinkers?

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But his [Aristoltle] is just another ideological position and I return to my earlier question – is Aristotle to be considered an objective authority who is simply revealing truth? Wouldn’t that make him God? While I certainly don’t think we have outgrown Aristotle, I find it impossible to accept this position. It depends upon the implied assumption that everyone else is wrong and only Aristotle could see the true nature of things.

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First, I don't know what Aristotle's ideological position is. Does he have one in The Poetics? It's been a while since reading it, I don't recall it. In contrast Plato, who did not have a specific work on aesthetics but one could piece it together from various writings, did merge an ideological position with his understanding of art. Remember he wanted to banish all the artists and writers. Second Aristotle is not God. If I put him in a place of prominence, it is because he is the most satisfying to me. There have been people over time who disagreed with him. Wordsworth I've mentioned repeatedly is an antithesis in many ways. Aristotle looks at a work as a construct of a rational mind, while Wordsworth looks at art as an inspired effort--inspired from what? Nature, emotion, ultimately God. The teachers of my undergraduate days taught literature from what is called New Criticism (I.A. Richards, Blackmur, Penn Warren, Cleaneth Brooks). Mostly pre-WWII thinking (perhaps mostly American, but I'm not sure), in which in my opinion tried to synthesize Aristotle and Wordworth.

I don't feel that Wordsworth is ideological either in his thinking about art, and we know he had ideological positions in his personal life. On the issues of his day, he was what would be considered on the left in his younger days, but evolved to be on the right in his older days. But his aesthetic ideas never changed, no matter where he was ideologically. The theorists we have in question here are uniformly all on the left. Isn't that also suspicious? You would think that if the ideas aren't ideologically driven there would be a general 50/50 split, or given the leftward trend of acedemia even 70/30. But it's more like 99/1, if that one even exists.

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Another crux – yes, we do, but whose facts and how are they enshrined as ‘facts’? In the end it doesn’t really matter whether the earth is round or flat, what matters is what those in power decide to accept (again, not as part of any conspiracy).

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But how is language controling here. It strikes me that power is controling. What's to stop a person from saying in front of authority one thing but thinking that person is full of B.S.? How long over time can one continue to convince the public that the world is flat?

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But Malory didn’t exist in a bubble. His perception of the world must, axiomatically, have been the result of all the ideas available to him.

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We barely know the raw facts of Malory's life. What those critics are doing is speculating. They don't know what infleuenced Malory. And surprise-surprise, their speculation fits perfectly with their political agenda! Isn't that startling? I made the point in my essay on Malory that one could make the argument that the absense of a free market capitalist system generated the feud between Arthur and Mordred, and I backed it up with some facts in the text and compared it to the general stability of free market systems. I also went on to say that this would be just as rediculous a line of thought as the New Historicists. BTW, I got an A+ on that essay, my only A+ ever, and from a teacher who was not sympathetic to my position. Actually, she said it was the only A+ she had ever given out.

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Finally, I should add that I do appreciate you probing me and taking my responses seriously. I hope I am repaying the compliment.

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Absolutely, I'm enjoying it. Even if we don't convince each other, we're exposing these ideas to the younger people. BTW, you spelled "compliment" correctly.

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Originally Posted by ’Virgil’

You must forgive me. I'm not as quick as you and Robin in my responses. I need time ponder points.

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No need to apologise! I’m trying to make the most of my free time at the moment. I’m going to be offline for a week or so after today.

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Originally Posted by ’Virgil’

how can you discern if a man or a woman generated and propogated them?

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I don’t think it matters greatly. I think you are still seeing it in terms of conspiracy. However, when you consider that it’s men’s interests that are served by having words for women that ‘control’ their behaviour, it is far more likely to be men who help sustain them. It’s in their interests to do so. The simplest and most commonly cited examples I can think of are words that describe ‘promiscuous’ men and women (an interesting label in itself in this context). Identical behaviour is viewed in very different ways. A man seldom gets referred to as a ‘tart’ or (in the UK) a ‘slag’, ‘slut’, ‘slapper’ etc. Many feminist critics examine the way female sexuality is defined and controlled in this way.

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Originally Posted by ’Virgil’

Well, don't most women share that point of view too? My mother (a female) believes that her daughter (a female) and her sons (both males) are all incomplete until married. Everyone is incomplete until marriage, and the notion is not just imposed by men.

So, if certain women agree with the theorists, they are enlightened; if they disagree, despite personal testimony, they have "internalize and accepted as normal" the bad ideas. Sounds Stalinist to me.

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Again, your comment is good evidence of the way ideology operates. Yes, women also believe that marriage completes them. Many people believe it because it is such a dominant assumption within many cultures that it appears to be ‘normal’. It is reinforced (not necessarily consciously and certainly not conspiratorially) through the cultural artefacts that surround us. Even fairy stories carry the assumptions that women are ‘made whole’ by marrying.

Primary sex differences between males and females remain the same in all cultures. Gender differences vary greatly from one culture to another. In western societies, males are expected to be active, competitive, domineering, and authoritative. Women are expected to be passive, co-operative, submissive, and caring. But these masculine and feminine characteristics are completely reversed in some societies. This shows that the differences are not 'natural', but cultural.

We need to distinguish between sex and gender. In many areas of society, these distinctions are hidden, with the result that gender differences are often thought to be 'natural' - like a person's anatomy. The problem with this is that gender is used as a means of social organisation. It is a technique for producing inequalities between men and women.

Cultures create gender through social practices such as education, employment and childrearing. These activities slot men and women into different positions of power. Traditionally, women have been raised to take on domestic roles such as wife and mother, while men have been prepared for more powerful positions as wage earners and decision-makers. They have even been given personality characteristics which match these positions.

Once again, consider the words used to describe males or females who don’t opt for such ‘completion’ – spinster is pejorative while bachelor is not.

I don’t know where you got the enlightened/unenlightened idea from – The vast majority of people have never heard of the theorists I mentioned. Crucially, it has nothing to do with ‘bad’ ideas. I am making no value judgments here. ‘Value’ itself is a transitive term: it means whatever is valued by certain people in specific situations, according to particular criteria and in the light of specific situations. The point is that our knowledge and understanding of anything is inseparable from means of representation (language, signs, texts, discourses, etc.). There is no such thing as a disinterested fact.

As a sideline, as it’s Christmas, did you know that in none of the Gospels is there mention of an donkey or an ox? Yet most ‘Nativity’ scenes include an ox and an donkey. Most people, if asked to describe the Nativity scene, will mention the animals. Why? Because most of the representations they have seen include them. It is absorbed into us. This is not the result of a conspiracy but of constantly reproduced images that have now, for most people, become ‘reality’. Similarly, I remember once asking a lecturer at the Slade School of Art in London why so many 13th and 14th century paintings have so much intense blue in them. I was told that the blue used came from Lapis Lazuli, which was fantastically expensive. Those who commissioned paintings urged their artists to use the colour because it demonstrated the patron’s wealth. There is an example of how power and wealth can influence our perceptions and representation of ‘reality’.

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Originally Posted by ’Virgil’

If language makes us, why are we not all identical thinkers?

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I think this is a matter of degree. I don’t think we are that different, at least not fundamentally.

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Originally Posted by ’Virgil’

First, I don't know what Aristotle's ideological position is. Does he have one in The Poetics?

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Again, it’s not that Aristotle adopts an ideological position, simply that all positions are ideological.

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Originally Posted by ’Virgil’

The theorists we have in question here are uniformly all on the left. Isn't that also suspicious?

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No more suspicious than the fact that most other approaches are conservative and even reactionary. Take the Liberal Humanist approach (and this is the one that I was educated to accept). It claims to be interested only in the text and the human condition. In the case of King Lear, it is an approach that implies that suffering is universal and therefore permanent and unavoidable (part of the human condition); that the reasons for this pain are beyond human comprehension; and that the pain is somehow beautiful and necessary in a sense we cannot fathom. By implication, therefore, we must accept suffering as a part of what it is to be human. While I might agree with this, I can still see that it is a very conservative view of human experience and it does suggest that there is little point in trying to change things. At least the theorists make their political allegiance clear and do not claim to be offering universal truths.

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Originally Posted by ’Virgil’

But how is language controling here. It strikes me that power is controling. What's to stop a person from saying in front of authority one thing but thinking that person is full of B.S.? How long over time can one continue to convince the public that the world is flat?

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This is now becoming extremely complicated because the fine detail is now showing. Part of the ‘strategy’ (for want of a better word) is to enable people to preserve a sense of being able to maintain autonomy by thinking one thing and saying another. Willing capitulation is far more powerful than the imposition of rules from above. Perhaps my example was not well chosen. There is little to be gained by convincing people that the world is ‘flat’ but there is something to be gained by having everyone believe that promiscuity is bad for a woman. These ideas are not imposed on us from above in the way you appear to be assuming. Why is it that people think of the Nativity as a stable scene? There are many 13th and 14th century paintings that use the setting of a cave, not a stable. As I say, there is no conspiracy involved but the representations of reality to which we are being exposed are ‘controlling’ us nevertheless.

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Originally Posted by ’Virgil’

We barely know the raw facts of Malory's life. What those critics are doing is speculating. They don't know what infleuenced Malory.

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Does anyone ‘know’? However, we are all influenced by whatever systems of representation are available to us at the time. Malory was no different. It’s not that he consciously considered aspects of free market capitalism, but that he cannot be separated from his historical context. Take the simple example of texts criticised for ‘racism’. At certain periods in human history, it would have seemed natural to think of non-whites as inferior so it’s hardly surprising that this is reflected in the work produced.

I think the main barrier to your acceptance of the work of theorists is your sense that some sort of power hungry conspiracy is involved. That isn’t the case.

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Originally Posted by ’Virgil’

BTW, you spelled "compliment" correctly.

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You have to let these things go! :p

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

when you consider that it’s men’s interests that are served by having words for women that ‘control’ their behaviour, it is far more likely to be men who help sustain them. It’s in their interests to do so. The simplest and most commonly cited examples I can think of are words that describe ‘promiscuous’ men and women (an interesting label in itself in this context). Identical behaviour is viewed in very different ways. A man seldom gets referred to as a ‘tart’ or (in the UK) a ‘slag’, ‘slut’, ‘slapper’ etc. Many feminist critics examine the way female sexuality is defined and controlled in this way.

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It's a minor point to pick up on, considering that I agree with most of what you've said from what I've skim-read (this is a pretty dense thread!), but I don't think it's necessarily more likely to be men who perpetuate the patriarchal ideology in language. As you say, the nature of ideology means that we all see from within it. A lot of women are convinced that promiscuity is worse for women than men.

Having said that, it is one thing to analyse the differences in language and another to start to destabilise them. I know people who use 'whore' as an affectionate term (possibly evolved over time from attaching 'whore' to the end of words, 'hug whore' - somebody who hugs everyone, 'coffee whore' - somebody who drinks everyone else's coffee, etc) but it goes to show that dominant interpretations ('whore' as a negative term, promiscuity associated with it being negative) are not static. 'Manwhore' however, is a term used derogatorily and attached to men who think they're players, but are basically male sluts. So, whilst, generally and traditionally, these hierarchies exist (men are players not manwhores, women are sluts not players), they are not absolute. Sometimes it seems as if feminists could be simply strengthening the view of females as being oppressed by stating that the female component is always the weaker.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

Primary sex differences between males and females remain the same in all cultures. Gender differences vary greatly from one culture to another. In western societies, males are expected to be active, competitive, domineering, and authoritative. Women are expected to be passive, co-operative, submissive, and caring. But these masculine and feminine characteristics are completely reversed in some societies. This shows that the differences are not 'natural', but cultural.

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True, but I think that gender is becoming more fluid and Western culture is becoming more flexible in the expectations imposed upon men and women.

As a side-note, I recently did a BBC quizz telling me I have a Man-Brain :p The up-shot being, that whilst society imposes certain expectations and gender roles on people (women are worse at maths, better at languages, are caring etc...), most people defy these sorts of expectations/roles in some way (after all, gender is an act...)

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Originally Posted by fayefaye

A lot of women are convinced that promiscuity is worse for women than men.

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I wouldn’t disagree with this at all. I would add however, that such a view really helps men. If you can get women fighting one another over such labels then all the better. Their focus and energies are on who gets the labels, not on their validity.

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Originally Posted by fayefaye

Having said that, it is one thing to analyse the differences in language and another to start to destabilise them.

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Absolutely, which is why I find it fascinating to read these theorists but I have no interest in applying them in my own enjoyment of literature. This might come as a shock to some but I don’t actually accept them ultimately. Only now I know why I don't whereas before my position was troubled (broadly) Liberal Humanist. All concepts are relative and so I tend to focus on the characters and the ways they have made sense of their world.

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Originally Posted by fayefaye

So, whilst, generally and traditionally, these hierarchies exist (men are players not manwhores, women are sluts not players), they are not absolute. Sometimes it seems as if feminists could be simply strengthening the view of females as being oppressed by stating that the female component is always the weaker.

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Of course not – none of what I’ve said would make sense if they were absolute. Values change. We no longer put the mentally ill on public show, except occasionally perhaps, on the ‘net. :p How and why they change is what’s interesting. And I still believe that we do not all have an equal say in effecting those changes.

Your last point might have been a side-note but (together with a few other comments) it’s relevant to the issue. Some theorists have explored the way that dominant ideologies have a sort of inbuilt pressure valve by ensuring the existence of some form of opposition to its domination. This way opposition can be contained by having issues debated on the dominant ideology’s own terms. If the discourse with which to challenge something disappears altogether, then certain types of alternatives become literally unthinkable.

PS Sorry to hear that you might be a man-bird. :p

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

PS Sorry to hear that you might be a man-bird. :p

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:goof: (I love this emoticon, it really is quite goofy looking). The point I was sort of trying to make, in a very roundabout way, was that if gender is culturally constructed, then the differences and oppositions and hierarchies created are also culturally constructed. More importantly, the differences aren't really all there, but are rather dependant upon people behaving in a certain way (the way defined by those in power, I suppose). So the difference between being a man and being a woman (gender wise) isn't all there. You can see this when you look at the people around you. Most dont' behave in the 'socially defined' way. Men who are very self conscious ('does this shirt make me look fat? White makes me look fat'), women who are very apathetic, for example. Feminist statements about how the female component of a binary opposition are weaker, and female qualities are viewed as inferior etc rely on the social definition of what it is to be female, and seek to show that it shouldn't be seen as inferior, that 'femininity' isn't weaker. But, as you say, this is arguing an opposition within a dominant discourse (arguing for equality within a patriarchy which defines female, and accepting the patriarchy's definitions of female. If that makes sense. It seems as if they accept the definition of female imposed by the patriarchy but resent the implication that feminity is weaker/marginalised). Couldn't we get rid of the definitions altogether?

I hope that makes sense... I'm not in much of a thinking mood atm. :confused:

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

I I think you are still seeing it in terms of conspiracy. However, when you consider that it’s men’s interests that are served by having words for women that ‘control’ their behaviour, it is far more likely to be men who help sustain them. It’s in their interests to do so. The simplest and most commonly cited examples I can think of are words that describe ‘promiscuous’ men and women (an interesting label in itself in this context). Identical behaviour is viewed in very different ways. A man seldom gets referred to as a ‘tart’ or (in the UK) a ‘slag’, ‘slut’, ‘slapper’ etc. Many feminist critics examine the way female sexuality is defined and controlled in this way.

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All this proves is language reflects social norms. It doesn't prove that language controls people. And frankly, I can point out a number of places in your write up here where you suggest, perhaps unaware on your part, it is a conspiracy.

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Primary sex differences between males and females remain the same in all cultures. Gender differences vary greatly from one culture to another. In western societies...

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Ok, can you name one society in the world and across time that would not be regarded as patriarchal? Frankly, an argument can be made that western society is the least patriarchal. But that's neither here nor there.

I think we're talking past each other.

First, I fail to see how Aristotle and Wordworth are ideological. Your whole argument seems to hinge on this [either (a) their language has framed subsequent ideology or (b) they've written from a language already imbued with ideology - not clear which you mean. Either way, I catagorically reject this. You need to prove it. I don't honestly see it. You say:

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Again, it’s not that Aristotle adopts an ideological position, simply that all positions are ideological.

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The reason you say this is because everything the theorist see is through their idelogical glasses. They've constructed a world view that that is not complex, but is simply binary. So, if it doesn't agree with them, it must be ideologically against them. It's as if from the beginning of written history, there was a philosophy A, which prevailed up to them (20th century?) and then there was a B philosophy. This is so limiting as an avenue of literary criticism. This is why every five years they need to restructure their argument into a new "ism."

Second, I maintain that the theroists are ideological and consciously so. I maintain that they look at a text, and--surprise-surprise--it fits in with their ideological perspective, either anti-capitalists or patriarchal or pro-Marxist or pro-feminists. They interpret a text not from what the author intended, or even from what the text says, but from what it doesn't say. While I don't mind a critic speculating at some point about the author's social context, to develop a critical approach this way is ripe for shoddy thinking.

Third, I still don't see how language controls human behavior. You have presented a few examples, but it's not evident from your examples that language is reflecting reality rather than creating reality.

The points that Faye makes about language shows just how complex its relationship is to social norms. To me, that complexity says volumes. It says to me that it doesn't fit into ideological patterns. Thanks Faye.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

I think that we approach things from the opposite direction – you believe that we make language; I believe that language makes us.

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Not exactly... language doesn't make us, concept does. The only part of us that language makes is our conscience, without it we would not really be able to use it. All our thoughts begin in our subconscience though which is purely concept.

The point here is the definition of power. If power is only the act of force someone to accept anything by means of concrete threat, I should agree with Virgil. However, there are many ways to excercise power, which are more subtle and more effective, because a direct threat often will raise a resistance; therefore indirect means of control would be preferable. With the means of comunication that we have access in this late times, the indirect control is more easy and reachs more people. And if indirect power can suggest us what to desire, so there is no need of forcing by physical means. Lately I see many people are absolutely interested in material things - I have no prejudice against material things. I like cars, computers, music etc. A man whose main care is to buy expensive tennis shoes or movil telephones or new car and so, doesn't reflect much at all and is more controlable.
It is true that we are free to make elections. But we can only choose between the things we can do, because nobody chooses things he doesn't know, and with great difficulties chooses things that are unnacceptable in the social context that he is inmersed. So, the human being is limited in his elections, and will choose what he knows and what will not give him problems.
Reality is built everyday, and with materials that are originated from issues of information that are not contingent, but controlled by economic and politic power. Of course the question is not simple. There are many variables, sociological, psychological, etc. that converge in the determination of phenomena. Some days ago, I was introducing myself to the theory of Teun Van Dijk. This author states that Social Cognitions are “socially shared systems of social representations”. Those systems are socially shared by means of discourse, and includes representations about “groups, classes, structures or social issues”. The idea is that the elites that have privileges in their access to management of discours can excercise some influence on the social representations of those who receive their messages, by means of discourse. Van Dijk did research about social communication, anayzing how stereotypes about ethnic minories were transmitted in a biased way, creating the conditions for the reproduction of racistic beliefs.
If we assume that an actitude is the germen of a behavior, so we have to accept that the control by linguistic means exists. I don’t think it’s an irreversible fact; I believe that reflection about it makes us more conscious, and it is a better strategy that deny the existence of the problem.
I must add that I’m enjoying this thread!!

Virgil said:
"I believe that people have free wills and that language (especially english, for crying out loud) is diverse and flexible enough to conceptualize all sorts of ideas. If language makes us, how come an englishman and a frenchman share simliar ideas?"

I also believe people have free wills, but our freedom is limited; and it is not equally limited for everybody. Our freedom is diverse if we are born in different places, times and social groups. There will be always limitations, but in some cases it will be more notorious. A child born in a context where he has no possibility of reading will appropiate discourse in a different way that a child who is encouraged to reading since he has age to do it; his ability of express his thinkings will be different, his behaviour will be different. In theory, books are available to everyone, but the social context is a very important factor, and imposes values and attitudes that precedes the individual. I believe that the statement "language makes us" makes reference to a process of internalization of social discourse, that is different to the learning of a "tongue". I conceive discourse as an ability to expose our thinking by means of an idiom, that implies argumentation skills as ways or operating by symbolic means with our representations of reality (Defining Discourse is a hard work; I am making a stipulative definition.) A Frenchman and an Englishman who have similar management of discourse can share similar ideas because idiom is not an obstacle; perhaps a Frenchman can comunicate whit his British equal in a better manner that he could do with another Frenchman whose social context, age, gender etc were different.
After all, I do prefer to believe in freedom of will, but recognizing that freedom is not uniformly easy for everyone. I think is more realistic, and not so deceiving as believe that our lives are entirely controlled from out of ourselves .

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Originally Posted by Anna Seis

If we assume that an actitude is the germen of a behavior, so we have to accept that the control by linguistic means exists. I don’t think it’s an irreversible fact; I believe that reflection about it makes us more conscious, and it is a better strategy that deny the existence of the problem.
I must add that I’m enjoying this thread!!

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The fact that it is not irreversible suggests to me that we are not under the contol of language as unnamable states. I'm not arguing that we can't get pursuaded by people and propaganda. This is sort of a short term, individual by individual decision. What I'm arguing against is that society at large, millions of people across time and space are controled by nuances of language and culture. What I claiming is that these nuances are a reflection of society at large. We contol the language; language doesn't control us.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

We contol the language; language doesn't control us.

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Yes but do we?
I mean at first w control the language but say you come across a new phrase or ok how about this "I have a learning disability."
Now should you not know me or not be aware of the differance between a learning disability and a learning difficulty.
The strength of th word is going to color your attitude towards me. First impressions and all. Thats where I think languge does not so much irriversabvly control us so much as has a tendency to color our thoughts andd nuge our opinions in a certain direction.
Its all to do with the negtive and postive social associations with a word. Although naturally personal associations are stronger than social ones and thus have more power.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

All this proves is language reflects social norms.

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And where do social norms come from? How are they established and maintained?

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Originally Posted by Virgil

It doesn't prove that language controls people.

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Perhaps we are at cross-purposes over the meaning of ‘control’. I don’t mean simply that language bludgeons us into a state of submission in some Orwellian stamping boot way (although I think Orwell would disagree with your assertion that language doesn’t control us. Think of 'Thoughtcrime'.). I mean that our very identities are constructed through the systems of meaning available to us, of which language is the most important.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

And frankly, I can point out a number of places in your write up here where you suggest, perhaps unaware on your part, it is a conspiracy.

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Then this is my fault. I still say that there is not, at least in the vast majority of cases, a conspiracy. However, there are many instances of centralised attempts to police language. Why is so much importance now placed on ensuring we adopt politically correct terms? Recently in the UK, a retired female teacher put forward a motion at a teachers’ conference that the word ‘failure’ be dropped when assessing students’ examination scripts and the term ‘deferred success’ be adopted instead. If language doesn’t control the way we see the world and ourselves, why does it matter? And why are words like ‘nigger’ so unacceptable?

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Originally Posted by Virgil

Ok, can you name one society in the world and across time that would not be regarded as patriarchal?

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No – but that surely supports my point? Men have always been in control.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

I think we're talking past each other.

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I disagree that I am not listening to you. I used to be broadly supportive of your approach and resisted the theorists at first. I simply think that the post-structuralist argument is ultimately far more convincing than the others.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

First, I fail to see how Aristotle and Wordworth are ideological.

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The point is that everything is ideological. Notice that I say ideological and not ‘political’ or ‘party political’. There is no such thing as a disinterested statement of fact. During the last Labour Party Conference, an elderly man called Walter Wolfgang was forcibly evicted from the conference hall for shouting ‘nonsense’ during one of the speeches. When the BBC reported the incident, he was described as “frail, former refugee from Nazi Germany.” Now he did look frail and it is a verifiable fact that he was a refugee from Nazi Germany. However, the reason these facts rather than others (his shoe size, his height, his hair colour) were given is something we should question. It certainly helped to establish some kind of equivalence between the thugs evicting him (and by implication, the Labour Party) and the Nazis. It’s not that I’m a socialist who objects to his party being tarnished in this way. I am not making any political point here, merely trying to show that what we take as unbiased can never be so. If we say that in South London X% of crime is committed by non-whites, is that a fact? Why are we not told the %age of green-eyed people, or blondes, or left-handed people etc.?

‘Our’ Wordsworth and Aristotle are not identical to the Wordsworth or Aristotle of their contemporaries. It is rather that different historical periods have constructed a ‘different’ Wordsworth and Aristotle for their own purposes, and found in those texts elements to value or devalue. The claim that knowledge should be ‘value-free’ is itself a value judgment. The largely concealed structure of values which informs and underlies our factual statements is a part of what I mean by ‘ideology’. Literature does not exist in the way that say flowers do. The value judgments by which it is constituted are historically variable and these value judgments have a close relation to social ideologies. Aristotle’s and Wordsworth’s views of the world are not the only, ‘true’ views. The fact that they are not the same means, by simple logic, that both cannot be ‘correct’.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

Your whole argument seems to hinge on this [either (a) their language has framed subsequent ideology or (b) they've written from a language already imbued with ideology - not clear which you mean. Either way, I catagorically reject this. You need to prove it. I don't honestly see it.

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It’s not really my argument but those of Barthes, Derrida, Lacan, Foucault, etc. They have produced work that exposes the Liberal Humanist position for what it is – a piece of disguised ideology. This does not mean that the 'great writers' produced propaganda or that the world ‘out there’ doesn’t exist, but that our perception and knowledge of that world is shaped by the medium through which we express it. Why do we still use the expression ‘sunrise’ when it doesn’t?

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Originally Posted by Virgil

The reason you say this is because everything the theorist see is through their idelogical glasses.

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I think you still see ideology as the same as propaganda. The two are not synonymous. We all see the world through ideological glasses. How could it be otherwise? Your original response to this question was that it’s common sense. The fact that structuralism offends common sense is one of its greatest assets. Common sense tells us that the world is more or less as we perceive it. We know that the sun goes around the earth because we can see that it does. It’s common sense.

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Second, I maintain that the theroists are ideological and consciously so.

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Yes, theorists are ‘ideological’ as I said before. The point is that they know and admit this. You refer to ‘what the author intended’ as if Literature has an ontologically privileged status. This is untenable. The main consequence of the kind of linguistic study carried out by men such as Wittgenstein and Saussure is our recognition that meaning is not something expressed or reflected in language – it is actually produced by it. It’s not that we have meanings in the first place and then dress them in words. Meaning is not a pre-linguistic something that the author ‘wills’, which is then fixed for all time in a set of material signs. Martin Heidegger, pupil of Edmund Husserl, broke with his master’s system of thought when he recognised that meaning is historical. It’s not simply a matter of asking what signs mean but of investigating their varied history, as conflicting social groups, individuals and discourses sought to appropriate them and imbue them with their own meanings. You will probably claim that this is evidence of conspiracy. However, I consider it no more conspiratorial than when you say above, “an argument can be made that western society is the least patriarchal”. You are trying to insist on your own definition of meanings. I assume that you are not involved in any conspiracy to do so. Language is a field of ideological contention and not a monolithic system. Signs are the very material of ideology – without them no values or ideas could exist at all.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

The points that Faye makes about language shows just how complex its relationship is to social norms. To me, that complexity says volumes. It says to me that it doesn't fit into ideological patterns. Thanks Faye.

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I don’t think Faye disagrees with me, in essence.