Talk: Structuralism
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If someone could fill in the missing that wouldbe great. It's been a while since I've taken it, but someone should add something about economic structuralism here. I would myself, but I'm not fully confident in my grasp of the various terminology (esp the differences in the endnote below the Balaam quote). If someone could elucidate this in the article that would be great. I'm looking at a text on International Political Economy at the moment (Introduction to International Political Economy by Balaam and Veseth) and it mentions economic structuralism.
"...Marx's analysis finds a home under the general heading of structuralism (or perhaps economic structuralism) because he views the economic structure to be the strongest single influence on society. Marx focused on the production structure inherent in capitalism, seeing in it a dynamic that produces classes, leads to class struggle, and generates crises that lead to revolution and the next stage in history. For marx it is the structure that dominates evetns, more so than ideas, nature, or military generals. Marx saw people trapped in a production structure that shaped them and that they could change only by acting collectively and heroically. ..."[Balaam 73].
The preceeding quote has an endnote which reads:
"We have used the term structuralism in a general sense here. At a more advanced level "economic structuralism" is differentiated from "political structuralism." In economic structuralism, it is the structure of economic relations that influences society most. In political structuralism, it is the structure of political power that is most influential."
Structuralism in psychology: What about Georges Lacan? --HJH
"So, implicitly, languages are not translatable into each other. This is a possibility taken up by deconstructionism."
I'm not sure from what point of view this is written, but, in my opinion, it's complete nonsense. What seems to me to be lacking, is the notion that spoken and written languages are only an intermediate stage - they try to represent the thought process that takes place within ones brain. As humans have much in common, it's possible to replace (or translate) one intermediate level of expression (a language) with another. I hope someone understand this! Dduck 19:17, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)