Postmodern Culture

Everything you want to know about postmodernism, postmodernity, and postmodern culture. Your guide to achieving postmodern literacy from The Notorious Dr. Rog and the class of ENG 335 at Rollins College.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Bloggrokker (Scott) de Saussure

Ferdinand de Saussure goes on about the signifier and the signified and I muse away about a potential, fantastical, and, hopefully, implausible method for destroying the universe.
Yes I know--time for the backtrack boogie.
In relating his linguistic theory regardig signifiers and the signified, specifically concerning the inherent nature of their differences, de Saussure states "in language there are only differences without positive terms." Then he follows up with "but the statement that everything in language is negative is true only if the signified and the signifier are considered separately; when we consider the sign in itstotality, we have something that is positive in its ow class."
Sound all very well and academic? You bet.
And although I don't exactly understand all of it I beleve I get the gist of things here--negatives and positives within the framework of a sign's totality.
And the destruction of the universe thing?
Well, de Saussure's deepmindedness got me thinking about atomic theory. He got me thinking about the negative and positive charges atoms carry. His words made me think of language possessing similar properties, electrical charges. And why not? We humans possess electricity in our grey matter, the very biological regions where language asserts itself in terms of signifiers and the signifed.
Destruction of the universe? Don't worry, we're gettin' closer. There'a postmodern hitch, I promise. Kind of.
I found this analogy rather cool. Electrical charges in language just like electrical charges in the electron cloud, charges to keep language operating just like charges to keep reality intact.
Then de Saussure hit me again. Linguistic systems, systems of differences, systems of sounds and ideas, systems postmodern megalomaniacs like to turn inside out, take apart, rearrange--reverse.
Reverse?
Ready for the Big Bang?
Here's where de Saussure took me. Electron clouds carry a negative electrical charge; these chares repel each oter and keep the universe from falling to subatomic smithereens. What if someone (feel free to choose your preferred ne'er-do-well: disillusioned ex-Soviet nuclear physicist, billionaire pop-star armageddonist, partice-theory jihadist, etc.), somewhere, somehow reversed this electrical charge?
I believe we'd need to create a new word for the result, go neologo, if you will:
KKKKKRRRRRRXXXXXXXXKKKLLMMMMMMMIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSIIIISSSIISSSSOOOOOOOAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH
Somewhere in there, methinks, lies a great sf story idea.
Please refrain from idea-snatching. Thankyou.
Oh yeah, and the kinda sorta postmodern angle I kinda sora promisd?
Simply this:
Postmodern theorists are at their happiest when their destroying language.
If the fear of death has any weight in the Points of Postmodernity ideologicl canon, then destruction of langage--call it misreading if you like--is a justifable aspect of such fear.
Absence of language, absence of communication--appearance of death.
And many years from now, hopefully a great many, I'll go with the assurance that my headstone is made from the same atoms as my toenail clippings.
Cicle of life, yes?

3 Comments:

Blogger Ted said...

Bloggrokker -- I grok you, or at least I understand some of what you're saying, and this frightens me. There does seem to be some hostility behind much of what these PM chaps are saying about linguistics and literature; perhaps it has something to do with the fact that most of them were French, and the preponderance of literary works they are deconstructing are in ENGLISH, n'est-ce pa?
Think about it.
TYG

6:31 PM  
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