Why Roland Barhtes could not - try as he might - become a marxist

In an earlier post I addressed the mythical structure of computer games. I believe a further post is needed justify this in the face of the predominant structuralist approach to myth that Barthes inherited from Levi-Strauss. The structuralist conception of myth is that of “a mode of signification, a form.” (Barthes 1972, 109) This kind of reading is, as Bourdieu (1991, 164) noted in regard to Levi-Strauss: “Proceeding, in accordance with Schelling’s wish, to be properly tautegorical (in opposition to allegorical) reading which refers the myth to nothing outside itself, structural analysis aims at laying bare the structure immanent in each symbolic production.” That is to say, in other words, it is hermetic, or to put still another way, it is ahistorical. Then one need not wonder why Barhtes' would be marxist part of Mythologies is so unconvincing.

Historically speaking art takes the form of myth in the function of what Habermas (1962/1990) has called "representative publicity", the ritual representation of feudal authority. It is ritual that inscribes art with mythological meaning, closes the reading, imposes a pattern of signal and noise. When Barthes (1978) claimed that "art is without noise", he failed to contextualize this claim to the specific historical context of bourgeois autonomous (or rather quasi-autonomous, as Bürger (1974/2005) claimed) art. Two factors emancipated art from under ritual practices: technical reproducibility and commodification. Both processes made it impossible to limit the use of art to ritual practice in which mythical meaning could be superimposed - a basic condition, the monopoly over the use of art, was no longer met.

The problem with structuralist analysis of myth is firstly that it obscures the historical specificity of myth. If myth exists in bourgeois society it is qualitatively different from the one in feudal society, it is reproduced through different mechanisms and is sure to be received, or "read", differently because of different social conditions. Secondly a purely tautegorical analysis of myth has no emancipatory potential. Knowing about the structure of myth does not mean we can be free from it. For that the analysis of social forces and formations that create it is needed.

References:
Barthes, Roland. . Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives. In Image, Music, Text. New York: Hill and Wang

Benjamin, Walter. 1936/2006. Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1992. Language & Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Bürger, Peter. 1974/2005: Theorie der Avantgarde. Frankfurt am Main. Suhrkamp.

Habermas, Jürgen. 1962/1990. Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno. 1947/2004. Dialektik der Aufklärung. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer.