The hidden silence in narrative.

There are many who enthusiastically supports Foucault’s view that ‘homosexuality’ is a construction of Western culture that came into being only about a hundred years ago.

The task for us is learning to see the various kinds of spin and misdirection that qualify the meaning of  public pronouncements. We have to try and see them in their full social context. For as we receive information

it is the unspoken stage directions (the silence that speaks volumes) that we must on guard against. (Relax, this is not conspiracy theory )

Such an approach requiring that in studying a culture's messages and advised protocols for us once again, the silences may be just as important as (and possibly even more important than) the public statements.

So we must be vigilant about pedagogic strategies, ie say the cannon of literature promoted to your children at school.

For instance, if we look at the 'tyranny' of narratvie as some would call it , many  argue that narrative reinscribes culturally sanctioned violence against women even as it denies and conceals it. Such a reading takes narrative seriously as humanities departments and university administrators all too rarely do as a powerful ally in the cultural construction of patriarchy.

But the larger methodological issue of what we should be vigilaant about,  is whether we as readers should simply be trying to reproduce the author's meaning (if he had one) as the goal.

For if  our critical faculties are placed solely in the service of recovering and reanimating an author's meaning, then we have already committed ourselves to the premises and protocols of the author. This awareness is important say in our acceptance or non acceptance of our childrens' school curricula.

  Presently it could be argued that we are in a scarcity economy.therefore one has to be vigilant about the constraints upon both male and female discourse as well as the constructive public use to which lies and deception are put.