The Limits of the Matrix: Barthes, Foucault, and the Desires That Escape the System
Part I — Barthes: Discovering the Remainder 1. The Remainder Near the end of his inaugural lecture at the Collège de France, Roland Barthes gives semiology a definition that sounds less like the description of an academic discipline than a declaration of allegiance: « La sémiologie serait dès lors ce travail qui recueille l'impur de la langue, le rebut de la linguistique, la corruption immédiate du message : rien moins que les désirs, les craintes, les mines, les intimidations, les avances, les tendresses, les protestations, les excuses, les agressions, les musiques, dont est faite la langue active. » “Semiology would consequently be that labour which collects the impurity of language (langue), the waste of linguistics, the immediate corruption of the message: nothing less than the desires, the fears, the appearances, the intimidations, the advances, the blandishments, the protests, the excuses, the aggressions, the various kinds of music out of which active language (langu...