OUGD501 - STUDY TASK ONE: AUTHORSHIP & DESIGN

One topic that was raised from the text by Barthes, R, 'The Death of the Author' was cultural authority, that the worldly public is reliant on being told what to do by society and their culture. "The author is a modern figure, a product of our society" (Barthes, R (1968). "The Death of the Author" in "Image, Music, Text" Pages 142-148, London, Fortana Press.) supports this idea that society has created this 'author' figure, and is using it to screen what is shown to the world, and hide behind, as there is no direct link between the author and our cultural society. "Literature to be found in ordinary culture is tyrannically centred on the author, his person, his life, his tastes, his passions," (Barthes, R (1968) "The Death of the Author") shows us that literature works that we read are a direct relation of the author themselves, which is controlled by authority, so what we think we are reading is literature truths from history, is really what society and culture want us to read about, but making us believe it is fact and figure and the whole truth so we won't question it.
Culture and those in authority who want to protect their status in the world, will constantly tell popular culture, normal people, that their ideas are small and mindless, which is supported by "Baudelaire's work is the failure of Baudelaire the man, Van Gogh's his madness, Tchaikovsky's his vice." (Barthes, R. (1968) "The Death of the Author"). This shows us that even great creatives in the modern world today, in their lifetime, culture shot them down, told them the were their own reasons for failure, to squelch any person breaking free from the clutches of culture and those in authority.
This cultural authority results in there being no original ideas, with authority using the term "genius" to make those in popular culture, everyday people, feel small and unworthy of anything better, or to make them feel stupid that they even thought they could have any original ideas. For example, in (Miles, S. (1998) 'Consumerism as a Way of Life', Oxford, Sage.) Miles talks about jeans as the 'designer fallacy'. That in reality jeans are not that different from one another, but the advertising makes you believe that one pair of jeans, Miles uses Levis 501's as an example, are so much better than all the others, and this makes the public follow this idea, and seek out to buy these jeans, because of what Levis promise you will feel when you own a pair of their jeans, and everybody wants to feel this way. "The desire to be oneself encourages consumers to purchase and wear the same product as everybody else" (Miles, S. (1998) 'Consumerism as a Way of Life', Oxford, Sage.) supports this idea that nobody has an original though, that culture and organisations and authority are feeding the consumer with ideas that make them believe them as facts and truths, in order to either make money or to make the public follow a certain political stance, because that party tells them if they want to feel a certain way, or if they want to change something, then they are who you should follow. But in fact this isn't the case, authority is just controlling what you read and watch, and guiding your way of thinking and beliefs in the direction that will support them staying in power over popular culture, normal people.