Bleh.

I had intended, for the last few days, to opine about societies stress on the idea of a positive attitude and have twice pulled a short essay when I decided it wasn't very well done. This is a bit of an issue for me, because I think the idea that we should be happy and positive all the time is a toxic one. Being cross about our situation is a bit like pain's role for our bodies; it's a state that tells us that something may be wrong with that situation. Being able to be cross in the workplace, I believe, is critical. Not being able to do so inhibits worker's rights in a subtle but pervasive way. I'd like to get into that a little more when my concept is worked out more cohesively. 

Today, I'd like to come back to a subject where my understanding is not complete but, I believe, I am capable of discussing it a little anyhow. That is, I have read some about the concept known as 'the death of the author', and I see a disturbing amount of uncritical opinions engaged against it.

I guess the problem is, when I try to write something about the death of the author, I feel like I'm stating the obvious. It's a problem any student of literature runs into at some point and has to come to terms with. In addition, we all know that people are unreliable, so just asking the author (providing that they indulge us with a response) isn't really always helpful. How do you, by way of example, get a reliable answer from a question like 'does this have racist elements' or 'isn't this actually hateful towards women'? So we have Death of the Author. You obviously can't just assign any old reading to a text, but people keep saying that you can, and that's disingenuous. The only people saying that are people who are opposed to the concept in general. I have never seen a serious post-modern reading critic argue that you can assign any damn reading at all to a text. So, I guess I'm looking into that as well.