Death is always untimely. Time is not on the side of death. The coming of post-truth seems to have proclaimed the death of a reader. We seem to experiencing the theft of truth. Mass media has become the cheer leaders of the rulers. Critical voices are silenced. With the reader dying darkness seems to have descended on us. Critical discernment has turned it back to us. I feel there is still hope for us. The reader is not completely dead. He/ she is living in us. We can resuscitate the reader in us. We can deconstruct writings that kill the truth. Reading can become the voice of justice. Readings can be deconstructive.
Writing is a deconstruction of every voice, every point of origin says Rolland Barthes. He adds that writing is a place where identity is lost. We may also say that writing is place where truth is lost in a post-truth era. This is because through writing the author enters his own death. Once one finishes writing , writing acquires a social life beyond the author. Now with generative AI, we seem to have put the last nail on the coffin of the Author.
Author is more a modern figure, perhaps emerging from the medieval ages. Barthes says that the author emerged from the English empiricism, French rationalism and reformation that discovered the prestige of the individual. It is capitalism that gave greatest importance to the ‘person’ of the author. It is also capitalism that is out today to kill the reader.
The explanation of the textual work is thought to depend on the men and women who produced it. The voice of the single person became very central to the point of becoming despotic signifier in Deleuzean sense. With the immanent death of the reader, we seem to have entered the era of the despotic signifier which allows only one way communication. The talk-back communication is banned. The author is dead and now all preparations are made to kill the reader.
This is why maybe we have substitute language in place of the author. It is language that speaks and not really the author. Maybe we have to suppress the author in the interest of writing says Mallarme. We have do it also in the interest of the reader. it will take us to a point where language acts and performs freed from the clutches of the author. Surrealism gave jolt to author by focusing on the hand that is scribbling or writing faster than the head can follow. Barthes teaches that linguistically the author is never more than the instance of writing. Enunciation is an empty process. I is never more than instance of saying I . The subject/ author/ I are empty outside the very enunciation that defines them. In the enunciation, language holds the author together only to exhaust it.
Now the disappearing of the author allows the reader to read freely the text without getting overly concerned about the author-centric meaning . Author belongs to the past of the text and distancing the author to that past frees the present and future of the text. Thus, with burial of the author, the text is made ready to speak. The text, thus is freed from its slavery to a single theological meaning ( the message of author God). This means text is not simply a line of words releasing a singular author-centric meaning but opens a multi-dimensional space in which variety of writings none of them original blend and clash. But this condition has opened possibilities of writing without the responsibility of the author in our post-truth condition.
Author at the most can be regarded a performing a function. Foucault thinks of author as a function. He/she as author becomes a copyist. His/her task is only to mix pre-existing texts . He/ she cannot express himself/ herself. Writings exists as a dictionary and the author only copies or translates when he/ she writes. The author is dead . It is the scriptor or writer that survives him/her. Therefore, the limit that was imposed on the text is removed. Text, then becomes open. There is no final signified that closes the text. The text becomes fertile for reading without any closure. We reach the apaurusheya condition of Vedas. Vedas are considered authorless. Text as authorless become close to apaurusheya. Veda can be only read or seen by the Rishi. Vedas are eternal (anadi) or timeless.
Texts freed from the author become open for reading(s). They reach a polysemous condition. There is no secret meaning or the ultimate meaning to the text to be found. The text does not have a closed destination. All readings are only readings. Text remains open and refuses to fix meaning . Now that everything can be regarded as a text, we may have to revisit our understanding of God, Science, Law and even Truth as they depend on the closure of meaning. This need not question the death of the author. We can reinterpret God, truth , science and law. Everything can be in the coming.
The demystification of the myth of the author results into the birth of the reader. Author no longer influences an authoritative reading of a text. Like Oedipus, we have to kill the author/ the father of the text and open our play/ or love of the text. We are, therefore, freed to make a subversive reading. These subversive reading(s) can result into deconstruction of the text. But this deconstruction has to be Justice as Derrida would want it . Outside emancipation , deconstruction is in danger of becoming oppressive. It is in this context, we may have to critically address the death of author in the context of Post-truth where we have writings without any responsibility.
Soren Kierkegaard wrote in fourteen pen names yet he wrote with responsibility. Writing anonymously often in a post-truth era also un-burdens the writers of their responsibility to truth. Yet the death of author is still relevant. With the death of the author truth does not die. The reader, therefore, in the context of Post-truth becomes doubly responsible. The author being dead and it is the responsibility of the reader to critically discern the text and not to blindly surrender to the text that he/ she is reading. The death of the author has not brought about the demise of truth. It is the death of a critical reader that will bring about the death of truth.
We cannot allow the critical reader in us to die. When the critical reader dies, we will face the death of truth. In an era of propaganda and misinformation, we have the challenge to enable the reader in us to survive. The reader today has the role of breaking through the ideology of post-truth. He/ she can do it only by seeking the evidence to interrogate the claims that fake news spreads with the tools of propaganda. There is no zero-degree writing. All writing is a loaded with vested interest. Hence , the death of the reader, in a post-truth era will be indeed a disaster leading to the death of the truth.
