santiago - on the situation of postmodern reception in brazil

8/11/2019 Santiago - On the Situation of Postmodern Reception in Brazil

1/10

Reading and Discursive Intensities: On the Situation of Postmodern Reception in BrazilAuthor(s): Silviano SantiagoReviewed work(s):Source: boundary 2, Vol. 20, No. 3, The Postmodernism Debate in Latin America (Autumn,1993), pp. 194-202Published by: Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/303350.

Accessed: 26/05/2012 17:07

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at.http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Duke University Pressis collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to boundary 2.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=dukehttp://www.jstor.org/stable/303350?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/303350?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=duke


2/10

Reading and Discursive Intensities: Onthe Situation of

Postmodern

Reception

in Brazil

Silviano

Santiago

The

distinctionbetween

spectacle (or

cultural

vent)

and simulacrum

(or

electronically produced

mass

entertainment)

s

common

among

critics

who anchor themselves

in

classic modernistvalues in

order

to

understand

the historical moment we are

passing through,

the

moment,

that

is,

of the

postmodern.

According

to

these

critics,

in

the field of

symbolic

or

cultural

production,

postmodernity

s

the

overwhelming

and abusive

proliferation

f

electronic

images,

of

simulacra,

to

the detrimentof

spectacle.

In

FredricJameson's

image,1

the

field

of

experience

of

postmoder-

nity

is

bounded

by

the walls of

an

electronic

version

of

Plato's cave:

The

postmodern subject

no

longer

can

gaze directly,

with

its own

eyes,

at the

1. A

condensed version

of

Jameson's

postmodernism

ssay

was

published

n

Brazil

n

the

journal

Novos

Estudos CEBRAP

Sao

Paolo)

12

(June 1985),

and became one of

the focuses

forthe

wide-ranging

ebate on

postmodernity

hatensued.

(For

his, see,

for

example, my

own earlier

essay

O

narrador

osmoderno,

n

Las

malhas

da Letra

(Sao

Paulo:

Companhia

das

Letras,

1989);

Roberto

Schwarz,

Brazilian

ulture:

Nationalism

by

Elimination,

ew LeftReview 167

(1988);

LuizCosta

Lima,

Posmodernidade:ontra-

ponto tropical,

n

his

Pensando

nos

tr6picos

(Rio

de

Janeiro:

Rocco,

1991);

Roberto

Cardoso Oliveiraet

al.,

Pos-modernidade

Campinas:

UNICAMP,

988);

and

Heloisa

Buarque

de

Hollanda

d.,

Pos-modernidade

politica (Rio

de Janeiro:

Rocco,

1991).

boundary

20:3,

1993.

Copyright

1993

by

Duke

University

ress.CCC

190-3659/93/$1.50.


3/10

Santiago

Reading

nd

Discursive

ntensities

195

real

world of the

referent,

the

thing-in-itself,

but

is

obliged,

instead,

to

find

mental images of the worldon the walls of its confinement. ForJameson,

the triadic

conception

of the

sign

(signifier,signified,

referent)

remains

in-

tact. Instead

of

privileging

he

referent,

as

both

traditionaland

modernist

theories

of realism

did,

postmodernism

affirms he

exclusivity

and

omnipres-

ence of the electronic

image-that

is,

in

semiotic

terms,

of the

signifying

chain. For the theorists of

symbolic production

nthe era of late

capitalism,

reality

(if

the

concept may

be

permitted

n

the

company

of the

postmodern)

appears

more

and more

in

representations

of

representations.

The distinction between

spectacle

and simulacrum is correct

and

should be maintained.

It

carries

with

it,

however,

an

excessively

negative

evaluation of

postmodernity.

One

rapidly

becomes aware

that the

distinction

is used

strategically

to

privilege

the realm of direct

experience,

in

corpore,

and to

disqualify experience

obtained

through technologically

produced

images,

in

absentia.

Thus,

spectacle

(as

presented

in

museums,

theaters,

concert

halls,

etc.)

is

authentic

ulture,

while

simulacrum

(by

which is

meant,

above

all,

television)

is a bastard

product

of

culturalcommercializa-

tion.

Spectacle

leads to

reflection,

while simulacrum erves

only

to kill ime.

The distinction

aims,

finally,

o blame the mass media forthe

contemporary

debasement of

public

life. For its

proponents,

what is at

stake is

the

preser-

vation,

at all

costs,

in

a democratic or

would-be

democratic

society,

of the

possibility

of

public opinion,

a

possibilitythey

believe can

be

attained

only

through

a

devastating critique

of the mass media and the

proliferation

of

images

they

furnishfor mass

consumption.

In

a

culturally

underdeveloped

ountry

such as

Brazil,

he

problem

represented

by

the

spectacle/simulacrum

distinction

becomes

particularly

acute. It also exists inthe advanced countries, but less so, because these

countries

developed

mass

public

education

in

the

nineteenth

century

and

underwent a

subsequent

democratization

(in

relative

terms)

of

higher

edu-

cation,

particularly

n

the

decade

of

the sixties in this

century-a phenome-

non

connected to

the cultural

radicalism

of

that

period,

which,

as

we

know,

had

as its

epicenters

Berkeley

and

the Sorbonne.

In

Brazil,

by

contrast,

not

even mass

literacy

was

instituted at

its

proper

moment-that

is,

by

the end of

the

nineteenth

century.

This his-

toricallag is at the core of ournationalclassic, Os Sertoes (1902). Itsauthor,

Euclides da

Cunha,

suggested

in

vain,

after the

crime

of

Canudos,2

that

2.

Under

the

leadership

of a

holy

man called Antonio

Conselheiro

Antonio

he

Coun-

cilor),

he

poor

peasantry

of the interior

sertao)

of

the state

of Bahia

staged

a rebellion

against

the central

government

n

the town

of

Canudos.The

military

estruction fter

a


4/10

196

boundary

/

Fall

1993

the task of reconstructionof the

ruined

sertao,

or

backlands,

be

entrusted

to teachers. He believed that

if

the

young Republicwanted to take respon-

sible

steps

in its desire to

modernize

Brazil,

it should send teachers to

all

corners

of the

country

instead of

relying

on

successive

military xpeditions.

If the conflict between

spectacle

and

simulacrum

in the advanced

countries

does

not

always

result

in

the

victory

of the

first,

it at least

pro-

duces

a stalemate.

Libraries,

museums,

theaters,

concert

halls,

and books

compete-more importantly,

oexist-with television. There exists a broad

public capable

of

paying

for

extremely expensive spectacles

like

grand

opera,

and a

larger, less-privileged (economically,geographically,

and cul-

turally)public

for the retransmissionof

opera

on television or videocassette.

The

globalization

of

culture,

a

characteristic

postmodern phenomenon

today

in

the

hegemonic

countries,

is

only

possible

thanks to the techno-

logical

means of

reproduction

of

images.

On

the other

hand,

certain

spec-

tacles

no

longer

exist as

such,

because

they

originate

in

the

first

place

as

simulacra

(that

is,

they

are

produced

solely

by

electronic

transmission).

In

Brazil,

the debate between

spectacle

and

simulacrum,

cultural

modernism

and mass consumer

society, already

has

a

history.

It

begins

with,

and

passes through,

the discussion of the

question

of the

extremely

limited

consumption

of books and literature

by

the Brazilian

public.

In an

essay published

in

1973,

when the

militarydictatorship

was

in

the

process

of

restructuring

iteracy

education,3

our

greatest

modern

critic,

Antonio

Can-

dido,

discussed the

relationship

between literature

nd

underdevelopment,

calling

attention

to the fact that

in Latin

America,

here existed a

prior

ega-

tive

condition

or the

enjoyment

of

literature,

hat condition

being

the

small

size

of the

reading public.

The modern

writerof the

underdeveloped

periph-

ery, Candidofelt, was fated to be a producerorminorities, iven that the

masses

were

marginalized

n

a folkloric ra

of oral

communication. 4

The dilemma

Candido

identifiedso

starkly

seemed to have

a corre-

spondingly

simple

solution:

Forthe market

n

books

to

improve

and

for Bra-

brutal nd

prolonged

iege

of

the

town,

whichda Cunha

witnessed

as a

militaryngineer,

was

justified

on

positivist

rounds

by

the

newly

proclaimed

Republic

as

a

question

of

civilization

ersus

barbarism.

Os sertoes has

been

published

n

English

underthe

title

Rebellion

n the Backlands

(Chicago:University

f

Chicago

Press,

1944);

the

incident

s

also the basis

of

Vargas

Llosa's

recent

novel,

The

Warat

the

Endof the World.

3.

The

dictatorship

reated

something

called

the Movimiento

rasileiro

e

Alfabetizacao

(MOBRAL)

o

replace

the

popular

iteracy

workshops hampioned

by

Paolo

Freire.

4. Antonio

Candido,

Literatura

subdesenvolvimiento,

rgumento

(Sao

Paulo) Octo-

ber

1973).


5/10

Santiago Reading

nd

Discursive

ntensities 197

zilians to

emancipate

themselves

as

citizens,

it

should be

enough

for

them

to become literate.

Already

in

1973, however,

Candido found this

conclu-

sion

problematic

because of the acute and

(for

him) pernicious

interference

of

the

mass media

in

the relationbetween

literaryhigh

cultureand its

newly

alphabetized potential

audience.

At

the

time,

he

wrote:

As

they

acquire

literacy

and are absorbed in the

process

of

urbani-

zation,

[the

masses]

pass

into

the

domain of

radio,television,

comic

books,

constituting

thus the basis of mass culture....

Alphabetiza-

tion therefore does not

increase

proportionally

he

numberof

readers

of literature,as we think;rather t impelsthe newly literate,together

with

the still

illiterate,

directly

rom

the

stage

of

oral

folklore into

the

kind

of urban folklore hat mass culture

n

effect is.

In

other

words,

in

Brazil,

or

more

generally

for

Candido

in

the under-

developed

countries as

such,

the

newly

literate

or

semiliterate

masses

pro-

duced

by

modernizationwould

bypass

the

book and

literary

high

cultureon

the

way,

so to

speak,

to

television. The

costly project

of

phonetic

alpha-

betization

mounted

by

the

dictatorship

would be of

little

or

no

use

for the

social and intellectual improvementof the population.This was the mes-

sage ciphered

in

his

1973 article.

Candido's conclusion

was

anguished

and

compelling: Any

process

of

phonetic

alphabetization

will

encounter,

in

the

countries

of

the

periphery,

a

voracious and

determined

enemy,

mass

culture,

which creates what

he

called a

catechism

in

reverse. Jesuit

catechism

in

Brazil

during

coloni-

zation

depended

on

ecclesiastical drama and

spectacle

to

convert Indians

and

Africans to

Christianity

and

the

dominant Western

values;

similarly,

Candido felt, the mass media, in our own day, employs the productionof

simulacra

to

indoctrinate he

peasantry

and

urban

proletariat.

Through

ech-

niques

such as subliminal

suggestion,

the

media

impose

values which

are

in

themselves dubious and in

any

case

quite

different

rom those the

cultured

person

seeks

in

art and literature.

ince this is a catechism

in

reverse,

however,

it

was,

for

Candido,

even

less

progressive

than

its colo-

nial

antecedent,

which had the

basically positive

and

high-minded

goal

of

instilling

he

best

of

Christian

hought

and

European

high

culture.

The

cate-

chism of the media aims instead at restoring he mass of poorBrazilians o

a

state of

barbarism.

A

progressive

modernist,

Candido

believed

in

the

Enlightenment

principle

that

access

to art

works

and their

fruition

as

cultural

orms

signi-

fied

a

higher

stage

in

the

process

of human

emancipation.

Consequently,


6/10

198

boundary

/

Fall

1993

he saw:

(1)

the mass media

as the

great enemy

that

had to

be

fought

by

educators and

intellectuals

who

were

genuinely

committed to the

project

of

modernity;

and

(2)

the traditional

alues

imposed by high

culture

as

the

only

values

worth

preserving,

in

spite

of

the fact

that the

economic, social,

and

political

state of both the

contemporary

worldand

contemporary

Brazil

suggested

a

different,

and

perhaps

easier,

road. There befell the defenders

of

high

culture

such as Candido the

inglorious,

and

difficult,

ask

of

resist-

ing

the lure of the mass media

in

a

country

with

an illiterate

or

semiliterate

majority.

The sense

that this

task was

ultimately

doomed to failure

posed

a

question

Candido's article neither

posed

nor

answered

directly:

In

a

country

such as

Brazil,

was

literacy

as

such,

in

fact,

less

than useless in

producing

an informed

itizenry?

Let me

approximate

an answer via three criticisms

of Candido's

article,

abstracting

its

argument

from the historicalmoment

in which it

ap-

peared

and which conditioned

and

justified

its

language

and concerns.

My

dialogue

here is

with

my

contemporaries,

although

the

current defenders

of

Enlightenment

values

in the

underdeveloped

world have not come

up

with a

more

devastating

rationale than Candido's. The

acquisition

of liter-

acy, as they understandthis, was, indeed, the pathof humanemancipation

a

century ago,

when the access

to modern

knowledge

depended

crucially

on

the

degree

of

reading

skills

an individual

possessed.

In the nineteenth

century,

and

at

the

beginning

of our

own,

there

was no access

to

even

the bare

minimum

of information

necessary

for an

understanding

of the

variety

and

complexity

of human societies and

their current

and historical

configurations

without books

or

magazines.

This situation

began

to

change,

however,

with the advent

of

film

newsreels seen by millions of spectators in differentparts of the world;it

changed

even

more

with

the

documentary

(it

is

enough

to mention

the im-

portance

of

this

paradidactic genre

in

a

country

such

as

England

in the

1930s,

and

the

role

played by

the Brazilian

Alberto Cavalcanti

in

its

pro-

duction);

and

it

changed

once

and for

all with

the

massive introduction

of

television

into the households

of the

literate, lliterate,

nd semiliterate

alike.

Granted

this

point,

however,

there arises

a

double

task for

those

of us

who

propose

to

go

beyond

an

Enlightenment

model of cultural

citi-

zenship: on the one hand, rethinkingwhat is meant by literacy in a mass

society

such

as

Brazil,

which

did not

go

through

compulsory

alphabetiza-

tion

at the

appropriate

stage

of its national

development

and

which,

by

the

same

token,

did not

participate

n

the

expansionary

boom in

higher

educa-

tion

in the

sixties;

on

the

other

hand,

determining

what is

meant,

or should


7/10

Santiago

Reading

nd Discursive

ntensities

199

be

meant,

by reading today,

when

it is the texts urnished

by

the

mass

media that are the main form of cultural

consumption.

A

person

of

good

faith,

a

citizen,

even

one who

is

illiterate,

has

a

quantity

of

informationat his or her

disposal today

that

exceeds,

by

far,

the

quantity

of informationavailable

to a

person

of

good

faith,

a

citizen,

even one who

was

literate,

ifty

years

ago.

The

problem-then

and

now-is

knowing

how to transform

his

excessive,

anarchic,

and

always

biased

infor-

mation into

knowledge,

how to

channel it so that

the

person-citizen

can use

it

to

understand and to

intervene

in

the

society

and world he or

she lives

in.

What

we now

know is that in

the

underdeveloped

world,

his willnot

happen

through

the

immensely

difficult

trategy

of

phonetic alphabetization

alone.

A

second

criticism

ollows from

the first and has to

do with a

contra-

diction

in

the

contemporary

field of

aesthetic

judgment

itself.

High

culture

(that

is,

the

culture of the

writtenbook

or

text,

of

the

unique,

r

original,

artwork)

ncreasingly

valorizes and

incorporates

cultural

products

that less

and

less

depend

on

the

distinctions

between

elite and

pop,

original

and

copy,

oral

and

written. It

would be

impossible,

for

example,

for a

reader to

capture

accurately

the

sense

of

Manuel

Puig's

fiction

without

a

knowledge

of radiosoap operas (Boquitaspintadas) or Hollywood B ilms (The Kiss

of

the

Spider Woman).

As

Jameson

and other

theorists of

postmodernism

point

out,

it is

becoming

increasingly

difficult o

make

out the

dividing

ine be-

tween

avant-garde high

cultureand

commercial art.

The

artists

themselves

are

investing

their

creative

imaginations

n

new

areas:

They

are

discovering

that

they

have

to

develop

new

ways

of

reading

ultural

productions

that

are not

embodied

in

writing,

understanding

that

there

exists in

the

mass

dissemination of

simulacra a

universe that

needs to be

explored

in

order

to develop an aesthetic sensibilityand strategies that are relevantto the

present.

They

are,

in

effect,

telling

their

readers,

You

have

to

learn

to

appreciate

other

forms of

'reading,'

as

we

did,

in

order to

be

our

contempo-

raries.

You

should

approach

pop

culture with

fewer

preconceptions.

The

absence of

preconceptions

is the

condition

sine

qua

non

of

any

aesthetic

experience

whatsoever.

A

third

criticism of

the

defenders of

cultural

modernism

concerns

a

symptomatic

problem

in

their

analysis

of

television.

They

confuse the

medium as such with the ways it is being used by foreign and Brazilian

cultural

industries.

There is in

this

a

veiled form

of

obscurantism,

prop-

erly

pilloried

in

some of

Pynchon's

novels,

which,

in

effect,

amounts

to a

prejudice

against

technological

progress

as

such,

as if it

were a

matter

of

being against

the

airplane

because it

permitted

he

dropping

of

the

atom


8/10

200

boundary

/

Fall

1993

bomb on Hiroshima.

What

deserves our

total,

unlimited

disapproval

is the

atom bomb and the fact of its

being used against a civilianpopulation. By

contrast,

the

airplane

is a

vehicle that

can be used

to

help

more

quickly

the

victims of a

disaster.)

In

the case of the mass

media,

the

confusion between

product

and

medium derives

from the

privileging

n

modernist

criticism

of

the

analysis

of the

production

of

cultural commodities

rather than of their

reception.

First,

the medium

is a

priori

devalued,

although

the

problem

of

quality,

in

many

cases,

has to do

with the

product.

Second,

and

even more

important

and

disheartening,

with the criticaldevaluation of

the

product,

its

reader

is

also

a

priori

devalued.

The current heorists of classical

modernism

are

prone

to state

categorically

that

only

a second-class

spectator

or

an illiter-

ate could

be

interested

(in anything

but an ironicor distanced

way)

in this

type

of

product.

Medium,

producer, product,

and

spectator

are

thus con-

fined

to a

low-quality

ghetto,

in

a total communication

ystem

that,

in

turn,

s

viewed

with

complete pessimism

by

these theorists.

Fromthe confusion

of

medium

and

product,

it follows that the simulacrum

s

nothing

more than

a

diabolical

part

of this

system,

which,

by

contagion,

also becomes

diabolical.

As the

popular

saying

goes:

If

you stop

here,

you

must dance here

(vacilou,

dancou).

Let

me take

as an

example

of this confusion

the case of

a

Catholic

Mass

(spectacle)

that is broadcast on

television

(simulacrum).

If

we

em-

phasize

the

mode

of

production

of the

simulacrum,

we

will

see

a team

of

technicians

who,

with their

lights

and

equipment

and their

loud

voices,

are

disrupting

he service

and

distracting

he fervor

and contrition

of the church-

goers.

If

we

emphasize

its mode

of

reception,

however,

we

will

observe

that

manyof the participantsncorpore are not that interestedor involvedin the

service,

are there

perhaps

only

for status

reasons. On the other

hand,

there

is

nothing

to

prevent

marginal

and

economically

or

geographically

underpri-

vileged

sectors

of

the

population

rom

participating

with

genuine

conviction

and

feeling,

through

the

broadcast,

in a

religious

ritual

hat would

otherwise

have

been

restricted

to the

congregation

in the cathedral

in the

city.

Only

through

the

simulacrum

s

what Walter

Benjamin

called

the

experience

of

the

poor

possible

today.

Itis a question, then, of locatingthe tonic of possibilityin the act of

reading.

This should

be understood

as

an

activity

that transcends

the ex-

perience

of

knowledge

transmitted

by phonetic

writing.

n a mass

society

of

peripheral

capitalism

such

as

Brazil,

we

should look

for the

ways

to

improve

the

interpretation

of both

spectacles

and simulacra

by

ordinary

citizens.


9/10

Santiago

Reading

nd Discursive

ntensities

201

This

means that the

production

of

meaning

ceases

to be a

monopoly

of

restricted minoritieswho are, in conditions of inequality,bettertrainedand

thus

more

sophisticated.

With that

change,

the

singular,

or

authoritarian,

interpretation

made

by

a

legitimizinggroup

(traditionally, rofessional

critics

or

experts)

also

disappears.

Meaning

in

symbolic

and/or

cultural

produc-

tion

becomes

plural

and

unattainable

n

its

plurality.

he total

meaning

(or

the

totality

of

meanings)

becomes the

product

of a

purposiveness

that

is

no

longer

necessarily

articulated

by

the

traditional

nstitutionsof

knowledge

and their

acolytes.

This

shift

in

perspective

involves more than a

theoretical

question

that can be

resolved

simply by

taking hought,

above all

because we still

situate ourselves as

intellectuals

n

the hermeneutics

of

profundity

nstituted

by

modernity.

I

limit

myself

here, then,

to

simply

suggesting

that

it

is time

for

us

to

rethink

radically

he

problem

of cultural

enjoyment

and

evaluation

in

mass

society.

More

immediately,

however,

we

need

to

confrontthe edu-

cational

propaganda

of

the

current

government

in

Brazil,

which

retains an

Enlightenment

model

of

literacy. I

am

referring

here

to

the

literacy

program

that Collor's

Ministry

of

Education tried to

implement

before

his

impeach-

ment, whichfounda

powerful

ally

inBrizola, he social democratic

governor

of

the state of

Rio de

Janeiro.)

It

is

unthinkable hat the

head of a house-

hold,

a

worker,

who

every

night

informshimself or

herself

(well

or

badly)

via

TV

news about what

is

happening

in

Brasilia,

or

Berlin,

or

Moscow,

or

the

Persian Gulf-it is

unthinkable

hat such a

person

should be

pressured

in

the adult

stage

of

his or her life to

become

literate

n

order

to

qualify

as an

emancipated

citizen.

Such a

person

cannot

be

compared

with the

Citizen

of

the Future

posited

at the end

of

the nineteenth

century.

Adult

literacy

training,in the formthat was promoted by Collor'sMinistryof Education,

represents

a

step

away

from,

rather

han a

means

of access

to,

full

citizen-

ship.

Literacy

courses taken at

home

after an

exhausting

workday,

with

the

television

on,

are a

waste of

time,

pure

and

simple.

What s

needed,

instead,

is to

find

ways

to turn

the adult

worker nto a

more

conscious reader of

his

or

her

symbolic

and

cultural

universe,

of

the walls of

the

electronic cave. On

these

are

printed

he

evening

news

as well as the

novel,

the

broadcast

of a

classical

music concert as well

as a debate

about

public

policy

among

intellectuals on educationaltelevision.

Finally,

we

should be aware

that

simply

demanding

a

priori

better

quality

from

the

cultural

producers

of

simulacra is not

going

to

advance

things

much.

Better

programs,

given

a

public

that is not

prepared

o

receive

them,

won't work. A

ailurewith

the

public,

he

Ibope (Brazil's

version

of


10/10

202

boundary

/

Fall

1993

the Nielsen

Index)

will

say,

and

everyone

will

echo this. Nor

will

the

im-

provement

of the

quality

of

mass

culturalproductscome fromthe pressure

of

the

state

(this

particular

ne,

or even

one that is more

progressive

politi-

cally)

on

the

groups

that control

their

production,

or from

the transference

to the

state,

by

the

state,

of

that control. It will

come, instead,

from the

im-

provement

in

the level of taste of the

spectators,

of the

consumers,

and this

must be the task of an education

oriented to our

times.

The

spectators-

that

is,

the

new

readers,

more or

less

literate,

more or less

demanding,

more or less

expert

in their

experience

of mass media-are who

will

define

the standards of

excellence

in

the

future,

as

the criticalestablishment

and

the

university

did

in

the

past.

It is not

a

question

of

excluding

criticism

and the

university

but of

taking

away

the

authority

hat

they

imagined

con-

ferred on

them,

the sole

or

final

power

of

judgment.

Every literary

riticknows that a bad book can

produce

a

good

read-

ing,

and a

good

book

a

mediocre one.

Hardlyanyone

insists

anymore

that

only

the

classics

should

be read. The

political

discussions

of the 1980s

taught

us that so-called universal values

are

bound

up

with

ethnic, social,

sexual,

et

cetera,

centralisms.

The

struggle

of subalternand

minority roups

for their own

identity

and

rights passes

necessarily

through

the search for,

and

recovery

of,

cultural

objects

that have been

judged

inferior

by

the

mod-

ern tradition

on the basis of its own centered

( objective )

tandards

of

taste. The

value

of

a cultural

object

itself,

however,

depends

on the sense

that it

is

given by

a new

reading,

above all

if

this deconstructs

priorreadings

that are based

only

on

prejudice

and inertia.

Spectacle

and

simulacrum

are, therefore,

neither

good

nor bad in

themselves.

It

depends.

They

are there

for

the

impassioned

reason

of the

citizen-reader.Orthey are not.

santiago - on the situation of postmodern reception in brazil

Documents