Twentieth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to re-examine Marx’s failed prophecy. The application of Roland Barthes’ rhetorical forms (the privation of history, and the statement of fact) is a post-structural approach, offering nuanced understanding of Marx’s failed messianic prophecy in which the proletariat rises and subverts the ruling class vis a vis revolution—and why, still, to this day, the modern-day proletariat remains enslaved—mythologized, willfully abetting in their own exploitation. Critical to our investigation, then, is our understanding of mythology and how it repurposes ideology—naturalizes, sedates, then seduces the everyday order of things. To this end, the mythology examined is the TYG, by way of Barthes rhetorical forms. For the purposes of this paper, a brief over of (1) Marx’s prophecy is offered, followed by an (2)examination of the architectonics of Barthes’ mythology and its rhetorical forms that interpolates the laborer; (3) I then discuss the mythology of TYG, and finally; (4) apply the rhetorical forms to TYG. It is through the application of rhetorical forms to the myth of capital that a more nuanced understanding of why Marx’s prophecy failed and continues to remain unrealized.