Is not the most erotic part of the body wherever the clothing affords a glimpse?
Roland BarthesRead
Language is legislation, speech is its code. We do not see the power which is in speech because we forget that all speech is a classification, and that all classifications are oppressive.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Speech shapes our understanding and can enforce power dynamics in society.
Roland Barthes highlights the relationship between language and power, positing that language serves as a form of legislation that governs societal norms, while speech acts as its code. He suggests that we often overlook the potential oppression embedded in classifications, which can marginalize voices and reinforce hierarchies within communication.
Themes
LanguageSpeechPowerClassificationOppression
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of inclusive language in social justice movements.
More from Roland Barthes
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The gesture of the amorous embrace seems to fulfill, for a time, the subject's dream of total union with the loved being: The longing for consummation with the other.
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The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.
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I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object.
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All those young photographers who are at work in the world, determined upon the capture of actuality, do not know that they are agents of Death.
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