The Death of the...Person?

This semester in Spanish Linguistics class, we learned an important distinction between the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity and the vision of cognitive linguistics: while the Sapir-Whorf theory holds that language determines our way of seeing the world, cognitive linguists believe that our way of seeing the world determines the language that we use. To me, this distinction seems difficult to determine, almost in the same way as the old adage: "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Do we first have cognition, or a way of seeing and understanding the world, or do we first have language which then shapes the way that we see and understand the world? Roland Barthes in his essay, "The Death of the Author" seems to firmly plant himself in the Sapir-Whorf camp, suggesting that language is our point of origin. Not only does language determine our perception of the world, in Barthes' opinion, language precedes the author. Barthes desperately attempts to recreate the way in which we talk about the author; it is not that he strips the author of all importance by boldly pronouncing his death, but rather that he refuses to continue subordinating both the text and the reader to the author. Instead of limiting the meaning of a work to the life, passions, tastes, and vices of the person who produced it, Barthes believes we must conceptualize the author as merely a location or "instance writing," a thing which "creates" language only in that it utters the words in the here and now.

I find it difficult to embrace Barthes' radical ideas about the death of the author given my situated-ness in a cultural context which, due to its capitalist ideology, has glorified the author as an individual who "reigns in the histories of literature, biographies of writers, interviews [and] magazines." My instinctive response is, "If we don't have the author, than what works exist to be read? If we don't have the author, who through his or her creativity and perseverance has put forth a work to be analyzed and understood, than what are we left with but a colorful, mismatched swirl of cultural elements, forces, and influences that shape our unique time and place?" At the same time as I feel put immediately on the defensive by Barthes' assertions, I can appreciate his arguments. Is it not true that authors are "eternal copyists" who can only mix writings from their already-formed dictionaries? Is it not true that every person is immeasurably shaped by a variety of factors- parents, friends, relatives, peers, society, class, race, nationality, language, religion, media, geography, education, etc, etc? How capable is anyone of "expressing himself", and as Barthes suggests, is he or she not essentially expressing the infinite well of influences which his or her life has unquestionably drawn from? Is then the author no more than a channel, a means through which pre-formed ideas can be re-paired and compared?

As I was reading Barthes, I found myself questioning whether or not Barthes believes the author to be capable of self-awareness. Since the whole focus of his essay is upon the author's death, or the non-consideration of the author in literary theory, this question may be beside the point, but I think the question of whether or not any one of us can be fully cognizant of the cultural forces that shape our identities is interesting. Is it possible that an author could pinpoint the influences that form how he or she thinks and writes? If this were possible, than could an author reach that elusive mark of true originality? Is it possible for us to distinguish what we believe from where those beliefs originated, not unconsciously claiming them as our own? Do we not already do this to some extent, attributing ideas that we have to things that we've read or thinks that we've seen on TV? Or are we more absorbers than creditors? I think that Barthes might suggest that no person or author is capable of complete self-awareness which could produce authenticity, and I tend to agree with him. I have come to realize that I am incapable of ever fully disengaging from the aspects that I dislike about the culture in which I was raised. They shape me on a subconscious level, and thus, as Barthes says, the process of knowing who I am is more of a disentangling for influences than a deciphering for meaning.