Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

identity construct #2: class 107
reer, serving fi rst as senator from North Carolina and then launching his
candidacy for president in 2004. Although his goal of being the Democratic
candidate failed, he gained widespread support in the party and was selected
by Senator John Kerry to serve as his running mate. Much of Edwards’s
political campaign revolved around his personal story and his hope that
every American would have the opportunity to succeed as he did. While no
one should begrudge Edwards his achievements or his heartfelt concern for
others, semioticians might point out that some of the factors that allowed
him to excel had more to do with discursive constructs than his own inner
drive for success. For instance, had Edwards been black or female, his
opportunities in life might have been circumscribed. He would have confronted
discursively constituted meanings of what a lawyer or a politician
is and what being black or female mean. Had he not been a white male, the
likelihood that he would have been a vice presidential candidate is virtually
nil. Closer examination of his biographical history might reveal other,
more practical advantages, however seemingly inconsequential at the time,
that allowed him to excel but would not have necessarily been available to
someone else.
Semioticians challenge the idea that inequality should be justifi ed by
a belief in the existence of a unique, individual essence. They see this
notion as identical to the idea of the rational Cartesian subject and challenge
it as an idea rather than an ontology. They see the modern rational
actor emerging at a particular moment in history, in a particular place,
and for particular reasons. Modernists believed they had found the true
nature of humanity, but semioticians argue that they have constructed
the idea of the rational subject in accordance with their discursive norms,
just as their premodern predecessors constructed ideas about human nature.
Semioticians defi ne human beings as discursively constructed entities
whose identities and ideas are being constantly redefi ned. Therefore,
rationalizations for social inequity based on the principle of an unyielding
individual essence can only be dubious. Semioticians argue that the qualitative
values we place on individual essences are saying much more about
the discourses we use to defi ne our world, rather than being an objective
truth.
Essentialists also believe that class consciousness originates in objective
economic criteria. Briefl y, this approach posits that people who occupy a
particular economic position in society will share common interests and
that they will enter into the political arena collectively to defend those
interests. In short, they share a class identity or class consciousness. Essentialists
see economic classes as objective entities and the consciousness