In short, I think that texts can be subversive of the mainstream, but that their subversion contributes to the overall shape of society.

You can’t go against “society” (you’d be tightening your own noose), but you can surely go against the dominant group.

Yeah, this is essentially what I’m saying.

You have a lot more to engage with there, but I’m going to have to come back tomorrow when I’m not so tired (hopefully).

Although, yes, re: Gramsci et al, from what I’ve read as well, the marginalized never tries to set up equal terms, not really — it tries to become the new hegemony.

Interesting, I didn’t think of comedy. It’s also pretty subjective, and depends on what’s being said, but inevitably depends on how it’s interpreted: “that isn’t funny” vs. “HAHAHAHAHAH” (i.e. gay jokes). This subjective interpretation is then what situates the text.

At any rate, because it is subjective, these two models stand, now that we’re looking at things deductively. Sorry, that was my bad on that one.

Pontifus: I’d say it can exist wholly outside. Foucault says that things outside [a] discourse have no meaning. Discourses will have similarities (we’re all human) but they are autonomous by virtue of political aim, I think. Conservatives think marriage can only take place between man and women as per Jesus et al. Gays think otherwise: their difference is irreconcilable, and the similarity lies in both discourse’s oh-so-very-human desire of propelling what is “right”. Killing Jews used to be right.

Basically, from lots of things I’ve read, the marginalized group always tries to become the new mainstream by various means of overthrowing. This goes into what Gramsci said that hegemony is never permanent, new dominant groups are always established (sometimes non-violent, subdued and hard-to-notice forms).

Though that’s a good point you bring up: competing discourses of course rely on one another for meaning and purpose, and their manifested material existence is predicated upon abstract meaning. Especially with race. Race doesn’t exist without race – it’s everything and nothing.

Anyway, to go back to Foucault, things must intrinsically exist wholly outside the discourse, otherwise meaning would be pointless, indistinguishable, all jumbled up in a giant consciousness-unifying sea of LCL. For discourse to have distinguishable meaning it has to be wholly outside. Similarities are hereditary, vestigial and irrelevant to political aims. I’m kind of visualizing your thoughts like this, whereas I’m seeing it like this. In my interpretation of the new historical view of subversion (as Chuchlann puts it), these similarities constitute the bridge between discourse, the inexorable connection. In my view, similarities are unavoidable but irrelevant, they do not form the bridge, thus the bridge is burnable, and you’re left with autonomy.

The hegemonic text is situated in the dominant discourse upon the creation of its existence because it was not wrought subversively. Essentially, the hegemonic text is a product of the dominant discourse. You could view it inversely – the hegemonic text is inherently outside the marginalized discourse.

Chuchlann: Hmm I’m not really into the new historical view then. I’d say you can be subversive, but it will always be with an amount of hypocrisy (environmentalism). It seems their definition of “society” needs adjusting, as mine did. You can’t go against “society” (you’d be tightening your own noose), but you can surely go against the dominant group. Of course that becomes tricky when the subject has a complex identity, i.e. the intersection of class and race, like “oreos” or “sellouts”.

Of course, their British cousins, the cultural materialists, believe you can go against that culture, which is why I like them more.

I would recommend that we must at least take into account the genre of the work as well as the other factors, that it can provide a more stable basis of comparison than the author’s intention. Comedy is traditionally subversive, as I said, and tragedy traditionally supportive of the current hegemonic concepts. So, what is the piece in question? That is, rather than who wrote it for what reason? Is it a comedy? Does it use elements of comedy? In which places? Is it, instead, a bildungsroman (the education of a young man)? Does it incorporate tragedy? Steal elements from myth, satire, epic poetry?

But then, I always say that.