Parole,

or Why I'm Not A Liberal Arts Major.

Sometimes I think people come up with new/radical ideas just because they're new/radical. I'm studying theories so counterintuitive that I can't believe their authors actually stood behind them. It isn't hard to come up with "surprising" ideas; the hard part would be devoting oneself to a paradigm-altering ideology while (probably) knowing the only reason you're perpetuating it is just to say something new. I guess once you tell yourself something for long enough, you start believing it.

So I'm reading Saussure on linguistics, and--call me ignorant--I read his theories the same way. I'm simplifying this, but Saussure postulates that words mean nothing; that there is no relationship between the "sign" (word), the "sound" (spoken word), and the "signified" (what is meant). Okay. That's reasonable. But when he starts talking langue/parole, I get a little annoyed. Langue is what he refers to as "reversible time," the system in which all signs operate. In langue, every sign has had every meaning it will ever take on from the beginning of time. No new words can ever be created or destroyed. They all exist at all times, and none of them mean anything. A snapshot of langue is parole, or the "individual utterance." A book or a discourse is an example of parole: a string of words trapped in nonreversible time, relying on langue for all meaning/merit. Therefore, conventional literary analysis is futile. Throw out aesthetics; it's entirely pointless. There is no distinction between "good" and "bad" literature; all that matters are conclusions we can draw about langue from parole. And good luck with that, because you can't actually draw said conclusions. This is because there is no real meaning, just infinite signs and signifiers. Every concept you understand is both fictitious and functional, both shared and unique.

From this, all sorts of nebulous arguments can be articulated (thank you, liberal arts majors), all of which lead to The Inescapable, Cliche Conclusion:
There is no meaning --> There is no time --> Communication is futile --> Everything is an illusion --> Nothing is real, etc.

My response: DEAL WITH IT.
However sophisticated your rhetoric, look around you. Do you see clocks? That's time. It's not reversible. Do you see a functional society? It's not perfect, but neither are you. Do you see yourself? Most likely, you are well-fed, clothed, and educated. What keeps you alive and able to articulate such ill-defined principles are the ion concentrations in your neurons, not some metaphysical connection to universal mythemes. Look around! This is what's real. Your pompous words are just that--words. In your own terms, that's nonreversible, empty parole.
Life is linear; it progresses forever with one constant slope. Minutes pass in increments of 60 seconds. Hours pass in increments of 60 minutes. Days pass in increments of 24 hours. Always. SO GET OVER IT.

My advice: Study what's there, not what isn't. Make a physical difference with your work instead of postulating hollow, sophistic nonsense that boils down to nothing more than circular reasoning. You will drive yourself (and me) insane.