符号-物、虚像与大众文化批判——巴特《流行体系》解读

Symbols——Thing, False Image and Criticism of Popular culture——Interpretation of Fashionable System by Barthes

2 0世纪 4 0年代之后 ,对大众文化的批判构成当时欧洲思想界的一个重要主题 ,巴特是其中一位重要代表。与法兰克福学派从思辨角度批判大众文化不同 ,巴特主要从索绪尔结构语言学方法入手 ,揭示经过大众传媒这一中介后 ,大众文化如何将自己建构为一种符号机制 ,并在日常生活中将人们吸收到这个体制的过程。巴特认为 ,这不再是人直接被物所支配 ,而是人被符号创造出来的虚像所支配 ,这是现代意识形态的重要特征。《流行体系》是巴特结合结构语言学方法分析大众文化的代表作。

Criticism of popular culture has become an important the m in the ideol ogical realm of Europe since the 1940's with Barthes as one of the important fi gures. Different from the criticism of popular culture from the logical and reas oning perspective of the Frankfurt School, Barthes sets out from the structural l inguistic method of Saussure and reveals the process of how popular culture tur ned itself into a symbolic mechanism and how it absorbs people into this mechani sm through the medium of mass media. Barthes maintains that man is no longer go verned by the thing, rather, man is governed by the false images created by man, which is an important feature of modern ideology. Fashionable System is a repres entative work in the analysis of popular culture by Barthes using structural lin guistic methods.