Read the appropriate section of the Reader for the second time. Am I any the wiser? Probably not. One wonders why , in a first level Course it is felt necessary to present the student with articles that are "a combination of apparently simple and impenetrably dense ideas" without any pretence of providing some sort of map/guide/footpath through the impenetrable. I spent this morning in my garden clearing a bramble patch that by any definition was 'dense and impenetrable'. In tackling it I had knowledge, through experience, of what I would find and that the apparent chaos and complexity would be formed from individual interwoven strands. I knew that if I teased out the strands bit by bit I would eventually see the light (or in this case my neighbours fence) and feel that my task was accomplished.
If I had not had the previous experience then I could have turned to someone I believed had the experience and knowledge at least to explain to me what I might find and how best to tackle the impenetrable mess. Getting back to the Barthes' article I have some experience of working my way through the complexities of philosophical argument (Kant and Wittgenstein come to mind) so I do not think I am a novice at the game.
I decided to try for a third reading and on this attempt I decided to follow the path that I followed in clearing the bramble patch. I tried to follow the various threads of Barthes arguments to see if I could find an end/conclusion or, as I could not be sure from which point I was starting, a beginning/hypothesis. I was unsuccessful. The cause could be that I did not have the necessary skills to penetrate the 'impenetrable' or that there were was nothing at the end of the strand for me to find. Could it be that the ideas were not 'slipping away' but they were not there in the first place? After some thought I came to the conclusion that whilst my abilities may not be fully up to the task I would have found something.
The closest I came was Barthes' diagram of the relationship between language and myth (p.53. Visual Culture:the reader eds.Jessica Evans and Stuart Hall Sage Publishing 2010 edn). To quote : "...in myth there are two semiological systems, one of which is staggered in relation to the other; a linguistic system.... and myth itself which I shall call meta-language, because it is a second language, in which one speaks about the first. (p53 ibid). The problem here seems to be that what is linguistic and what is myth depends upon where you start the analysis. In language the product of the 'signifier' and the 'signified' is 'sign'. In myth the 'sign' from 'language', the first order system, becomes the 'signifier' in the second order system (given the identifier 'myth' in Barthes' argument) leading to the 'signified' and then to the 'signification' (the term created by Barthes to distinguish it from 'sign' in the first order system). However where you start the analysis is largely arbitrary and there is nothing that prevents the analysis at the point that Barthes described as 'myth'. We are then left with the choice of describing the next step as 'meta-myth' or reverting to the first order term 'language'. We also have to consider whether it is possible to start the analysis before Barthes' 'language' that presumably has to have another name. I would argue that there is no need for all this complexity because we are, in a sense, always dealing with the first order.
However I was not comfortable with my conclusion (I am not that arrogant) and so turned to the internet to see if there were others of greater standing that had doubts about Barthes and his approach. They were not difficult to find. Barthes clearly engenders very strong feelings amongst academics. Roy Harris, at one time the editor of 'Language and Communication' and Professor of Linguistics at Oxford University, who can be seen as well versed in linguistics was particularly dismissive of Barthes and his ideas. In reviewing a biography on Barthes Harris writes:
"As for Barthes' "semiology" the verdict on that was pronounced years ago by Georges Mounin. Observing that it is impossible to take Barthes seriously as a theorist of the subject, Mounin suggested that what Barthes though of as doing semiology was actually writing essays was actually writing essays on "psychanalyse sociale""
He goes on:
"Had the author of Mythologies ever got to grips with enough anthropology to understand what a myth is? One suspects not. ..... Barthes thought ....that myths need to be demystified. He failed to distinguish between two quite different enterprises: demystification and demythologisation."
He concludes:
"Barthes began a journalist and a journalist he remained to the end, constantly looking for a new angle to keep him one step ahead of the pack. This led him to ever more paradoxical but attention-grabbing claptrap......his most obvious expertise was knowing how to get himself talked about..."
Perhaps I am right in thinking that the ideas were not slipping away but simply did not exist.
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