connectedness.

Macherey was an interesting read. The concepts introduced are ideas I am familiar with, but at first they seemed dense. Descartes’ belief that “there are few disposed to speak exactly as they believe…” and Macherey’s idea that “in order to say anything, there are other things which must not be said” aren’t unknown to us (15, 17). We know not everyone says what they believe and people in fact may not even know what they believe. We know furthermore that the explicit meaning is as powerful as the implicit. We all read body language; it is powerful communication of feelings. What other people don’t vocalize can be inferred from their silence or read from their behavior. It is what is silent that drives deeper thought. If everything was said, analyzing would cease. No one would wonder beyond if gaps weren’t left. The explicit and implicit words make communication. It’s hard for them to stand opposite with full understanding being transmitted.
Macherey also brings up an interesting study by Marx and Engels that “an ideological phenomenon…cannot be isolated from the movement at the economic level” (21). I’m not exactly sure on the argument here, but it seems to be an argument of connectedness. The ideological struggle cannot be understood outside the economic concepts. The economic level drives society and governs ideological frameworks. If the economic status begins to change, the ideologies running society shift. We are all on this “go green” movement, which has sort of become a value in society. Yet, most of society is also for offshore drilling and carrying around plastic water bottles that don’t biodegrade. The economics being that gas prices would drop causes a shift in values. Suddenly going green is more of a “when convenient” sort of value. Economics and ideologies are tightly linked and rule one another.
Implicit and explicit information makes communication, while ideologies and economics make society. Both of these show how connected everything is and how all are really just parts of the whole. Which is what postmodernism is all about, right?

Kelsey. Macherey.