unconscious imitation. The last two characteristics are the most interesting
for us: in ideology, language is indefatigable (Barthes notes the link between
dire, dicterand dictateur) and it produces the ‘idiosphere’ – i.e. the individual
subject – in the form of internal language. Even if we must regretfully conclude
that Marxism is only one ideosphere among others (I had already observed
that it sticks to me like chewing-gum), the set of theses that I am defending
is present here, at least implicitly; and it has become impossible to separate
language and ideology in that they fulfil the same function, which is the
production of subjects-speakers.
It is evident that the two aspects of my thesis are not equivalent. ‘Ideology
is linguistic’ is to be construed as a development of the Althusser ’s second
theory of ideology – the theory of subjectivation (he would say ‘subjection’)
via interpellation. ‘Language is ideological’ refers instead – and this is clear
in Barthes – to the common meaning of ideology, whose main characteristic
is a pejorative conception of ideology (as the opposite of science or as false
consciousness). This conception is too rooted in our common sense for us to
be shot of it by theoretical fiat: it is at least a symptom and it too tells us
something about the operation of language. But I cannot help regarding the
development that led Althusser from his first to his second theory of ideology
as an advance, or, at least, as a clarification.
Since all this is highly abstract, I would like to end this section with a short
example, by way of illustration. Take the highly innocent-looking sentence,
‘the cat is on the mat’. It has everything to please linguists: it is a simple,
active and declarative sentence; out of such building-blocks are splendid
grammars constructed. It will also please philosophers: it is unambiguous; it
expresses a proposition whose reference is amenable to verification by assuring
ourselves of its conformity to the facts. With it we might believe ourselves
to be in the intellectual universe of Tarski: ‘”the cat is on the mat” if and only
if the cat is on the mat’.
This innocence and philosophical good health are confirmed by the fact
that the sentence is used as the first part of the formulation of what is called
‘Moore’s paradox’: ‘the cat is on the mat, but I don’t believe it is’. Moore
wants to get us to see that claims presuppose beliefs and he does it with this
grammatically correct and semantically bizarre sentence. A hint of anxiety
emerges here, for if even the most innocent sentence can find itself mixed up
in the shady business of paradox, we cannot be certain where the drift towards
semantic incoherence is going to stop.
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