ANiCO - Macherey (B4 Class)

I understood the reading more in the beginning towards the end. I couldn’t tell you anything about the “two questions.”

The only part I feel I can make a comment on is his definition(s) of criticism. I understand the concept and how he relates it to support his own argument—criticism to be there to seek out what is implied by media, and what is the relationship between the implicit and explicit—but I don’t know if his description of criticism is the end-all-be-all, an ideal, or a small aspect of itself?

He describes the point of criticism “is to speak the truth, a truth not unrelated to the book, but not as the content of its expression” and “to give it different status, or even a different appearance” (15) and how critical discourse “is in some way the property of the book, constantly alluded to, though never announced openly.” (16)

These I do not understand. How is criticism truth if it’s explicating (or implying) what was said and omitted in the text? If you can take what is not said down many different roads, how can any of it be truthful if it’s all different views on the same thing? Are all criticism truthful? Am I being truthful right now when I question Macherey’s definition of criticism? Are the people who say Obama wants to make death panels being truthful (because that’s still a form of criticism!)

Whether critiquing a movie, a book, a politician, or an idea, I feel that criticism is just another form of an opinion. A different point of view, but not something you should necessarily trust as truth.

The second quote on the property of criticism being that to what is being criticized irks me. One must always allude to something else to be able criticize it, but must an object be the owner of critical analysis over who is actually making the criticism? Is my thinking not my own, but belongs to this particular piece of text because I’m reacting to it? I don’t think so. Am I misinterpreting it? Am I still right to criticize even if I’m misinterpreting it because it’s still a form of interpretation?