cut up so they can be grasped by sticks,nbut also the chopsticks exist because thenfoodstuffs are cut into small pieces, onenand the same movement, one and thensame form transcends the substance andnits utensil: division.” In an essay innMythologies, “Myth Today,” Barthesnprovides an explanation of the trinity ofnstructuralism: the signifier, the signified,nand the sign; he seized upon a cover ofnParis-Match and a sentence from a Latinngrammar book to do it. Fashion^—specificallynthe wearing of a sweater and anleather jacket—is used in “The Imaginationnof the Sign” to illuminate the syntagmaticnrelation; Barthes, however,nshowed himself to be not adverse tonusing jargon, as in “garment systems.”nBarthes isn’ t any less of a theorist whennhe turns away from literary texts. Indeed,nthe “turning away” metaphor might benimproper in the context of Barthes asnstructuralist. Structuralism is (thoughnthere’s wide disagreement about anyndefinition) an approach wherein ansystem, be it a novel or a social arrangement,nwhich consists of form and content,nis broken down into its constituentnelements, which are then examined innthemselves and as they relate to thenwhole. Form is considered more importantnthan content, in the conventionalnsense of those terms, though form isnshown to have a content. The importancenof surfaces is stressed, as the surfacenis said to be so obvious that it’s oftennoverlooked, as in Poe’s “The PurloinednLetter.” What the text says is not as importantnas how it says it—at least inntheory. The word text, which is ubiquitousnin modern criticism of all types, isnimportant here. As WalterJ. Ong pointsnout in Orality and Literacy, text has “anroot meaning ‘to weave,’ ” and so it is,n”in absolute terms, more compatiblenetymologically with oral utterance than isn’literature,’ which refers to lettersnttymoog’ic2i\y I (literae) of thenalphabet.” Texts, as Fr. Ong shows,nshould not be thought of simply as thosenthings found between covers. So, it cannbe stated that Barthes was simplyn”reading texts” when he examinedn16inChronicles of Cttltorenclothing or the Eiffel Tower.nWhile it is true, as Jameson pointsnout, that Barthes is considered “primarily”na literary critic, Barthes’s writingsnshow that the category is a convenientnbut not a perspicacious one. Barthes wasnelected to the Chair of LiterarynSemiology at the College de France; henpresented his inaugural lecture innJanuary 1977. In it, he provided a reviewnof his career (it was to last just three morenyears). Barthes said in the address: “Itnseemed to me (around 1954) that anscience of signs might stimulate socialncriticism. . . . It was a question, in short,nof understanding (or of describing) howna society produces stereotypes, i.e.,ntriumphs of artifice, which it then consumesnas innate meanings, i.e., tri-nIn the forthcoming issue of Chronicles of Culture:nIdeology & Our Daily Breadn”A specter is haunting the Amcriian leh—the specter of conservatism Onnevery front—political, social, cultural—left-liberals arc m retreat, shakennby a series of reverses and embittered because many of their quondamncomrades, impressed more by the arguments of neoconservatism than bynthe platitudes of socialism, have defected to the enemy And even thosenwho have not wavered m their tommitment to the left seem to benconvinced that there will be no liberal revival until the totalitarianntemptation, to which so many left-wing intellectuals have succumbed, isnfinally overcome.”n—from “Smoke Gets in Their Eyes”nby Lee Congdonn”Plato envisaged the detline of the ideal s(Kiety as related to a flaw innbreeding and in education. . . the latter is most suggestive. Is it possiblenthat the young rebels of the 60′”! and 70’s were conditioned by theirnupbringing for the role they would play? Perhaps the children of ihtnWorld War II generation—sheltered from the Depression and warnexperience of their patents—were sheltered from life itself . . Nothingnwas too good for this generation; ‘no’ was not in its vocabulary Butnperhaps it failed to learn discipline, restraint, self-control, and limitnPerhaps it failed to grasp the tragedy of human existence ‘”n—from “The Historical Tricycle”nbyDanielJ. O’NeiinAlso:nOpinions & Views—Commendables—In FocusnPerceptibles—Waste of Money—The American ProsceniumnStage—Screen—Art—Music—CorrespondencenLiberal Culture—Social Register—JournalismnIn My Solitude—Polemics & Exchangesnnn