Chapter 5

In Chapter five, Jonathon Culler questions the thoughts and ideas of Freud, Saussure, and Durkheim. He does not understand why these three men think behavior is based off of individual actions. His search is for a system that explains why there are signs and why there are semiotics and meanings to what we do. He figures that there must be a society that interprets signs. Unlike the three men previously mentioned, Culler focuses on society, rather than the individual. He states that individuals are not the creators of society and and you need a society for individuals to exist ("to learn how to speak a language and to learn what signs mean").

We learn that individuals come from a society from a book called Ideology and Utopia, by Karl Mannheim.  In the portion of the book included in this chapter, we know that Mannheim focuses on society as a whole. He relays the importance of thinking "further what other men have thought before". This means that it is impossible to think as an individual. This theory came from a French sociologist Emile Durkheim. Durkheim claimed that there is a "complex relationship between individuals and society: individuals are in society and society is in individuals." This means that we may have our own individual thoughts, but our thoughts come from society. This is known as individualism. Individualism is a term created by Alexis de Tocqueville i his book Democracy in America. He claimed that American society has a egalitarian nature because we forget about our social institution and tend to focus on individualism.

After adopting some of these ideas, Culler criticizes Saussure, Freud, and Durkheim for praising individualism and its benefits of making communication successful with the ability to create unique ideas within individuals. Culler argues that this "self-made" non-societal image is an illusion because society is what teaches individuals what signs and language mean. Individuals may enlighten themselves with new ideas, but these ideas come from society. Social institution is what truly makes a person distinctive.