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whether in completing the rational process, Barthes is not participat–
ing in the universalist Cartesian assumption of a rational natural
sequence of events. The
neant
is as opaque, as arbitrary, as unnatural
as any other cultural sign, which can be demystified. Barthes implicitly
makes it the only real or natural term in his discourse-despite his
relentless explicit denials of all claims to naturalness. How would
Barthes accommodate the possibly irreducible experience of plenitude
in the lives and works of Wordsworth, Tolstoy, and lawrence? Barthes
simply makes the parochial assumption that la Rochefoucauld's
method of demystification, abortive as it is, is the only route that
demystification can take : the route to the
vide,
the
neant.
I don 't mean
to say that the presence of the
neant
in Barthes always reflects a
Cartesian bias. As I show later, the
neant
also springs from Barthes's
affinity for the Marxist analysis of capitalism. The Cartesian assump–
tion and the Marxist view become mutually reinforcing.
Barthes writes elsewhere: "One cannot 'demystify' from the out–
side, in the name of ownership [note the connection between authority
and demystification as traditionally understood], but one must steep
oneself in the void one is revealing. " He goes on to say of literature
what could
be
said of the myths which he treats. " Literature [in its
indirection] is the very mode of the impossible, since it alone can speak
its void, and by saying it, again establish a plenitude." One is tempted
to linger on the word impossible, for it is mystifying how literature
establishes an authentic plenitude, which itself does not invite demysti–
fication . One can only surmise that Barthes maintains a covert alle–
giance to literature as a privileged domain, so that all he has to do is to
present the sign literature and trust that it will carry the day. Barthes
equivocates in his use of the term demystification between a view of the
method as a process which issues in nothingness, and a view of the
method which implies a reality alternative to the mystification. His
own method is sanctioned by the first view, but he is unhappy about its
consequences (the reason for its showing signs of wear) and he tries to
compensate for its destructiveness by arbitrarily claiming plenitude for
Literature.
In
M.ythologies
Barthes admits that " he cannot see The Promised
land," by which he means that there is no natural or rational order
which he can perceive through the present life of things as a basis for a
utopian formation . Though he refuses to relinquish a hope for
" tomorrow's positivity, " the future remains a blank in his work. But
that is not all. Having nothing but the present, the temptation
to
become an accomplice of the present is overwhelming. In characteriz-
