ABSTRACT
The previous chapters have shown how semiology and structuralism conceived of society in terms of structure and of language. We have seen various attempts to deal with social systems of signification that result from this thinking, and have indicated some of their shortcomings. However, the realms of thought upon which structuralism draws are not full and finished, they are themselves in crisis. It is not possible to think of social structure without taking account of social conflicts, of change and of revolution: in short, without accounting for the constant mutation of structures which are, at anyone moment, uneasy and are constituted by forces that are in conflict. The structures are in fact constituted by the very conflict of these forces. It is Marxist thought that has explored this 'dol,lble reality' of solid social structures which are at the same time constituted by conflicting forces. Marxism has problems of its own, problems which are not mere academic puzzles, but imply very different forms of politics in their solution. The chief problem encountered here is that of the subject: Marxist theory, implicitly or explicitly, has several conflicting conceptions of the human being which find their theoretical expression in the conception of the subject. Marxism conceives at once of a subject who is produced by society, and of a subject who acts to support or to change that society. We shall see several attempts to show how this human subject is constituted in ideology and by history, and at the same time acts to make history and change society, without having a full and selfsufficient knowledge of or control over the actions it undertakes. Marxism cannot conceive of a subject who remains outside the structure, manipulating it or acting as a mere support; if it did so, it would cease to be a revolutionary philosophy. So already we have two 'crises of thought': a social crisis, in that society is constituted by the (uneven) conflict of forces; a crisis in Marxist thought of this process, in that Marxism is forced to examine its notion of the revolutionary subject in order to know its political orientation to individuals who try to act within the social crisis.
