Writing Degree Zero: Roland Barthes and the Politics of Language

In his controversial book "Writing Degree Zero", Roland Barthes does not offer a classical literary theory´-or-a deep textual analysis of any single work. Rather, he enacts an intellectual manifesto—a radical rethinking of the relationship between the author, language, and society. The central question that animates the entire text is this: Can writing possibly be politically ethical—or is it always compromised by myth and dominant social classes? In other words: Can the writer ever achieve true freedom beyond the constraints of inherited language, stylized conventions, and bourgeois hegemony?´-or-is writing, at its core, merely the inevitable expression of inescapable historical contradictions?

Barthes initiates his inquiry through a deconstruction of three foundational concepts: langue (language), style, and writing. Language, he argues, is no longer to be understood as a neutral instrument. Instead, it is a collective “natural ambiance”—an ambient, structural field that surrounds the writer not to provide content´-or-form, but to define the boundaries that cannot be crossed. It operates without agency: it is the system, not the subject. Style, by contrast, emerges as a genuine product of intense personal idiosyncrasy—rooted in the writer’s biological´-or-narrative history. It is a “subjective language,” a translucent yet opaque veil that obscures rather than reveals. It does not communicate-;- it confesses. It is the echo of the self, not the voice of the world.

It is here, between the impersonal structure of langue and the private resonance of style, that Barthes draws his decisive line. He isolates and defines what he calls writing: not an aesthetic choice, not a stylistic flourish, but a historical -function- and an ethical decision. Writing is the moment when the writer—consciously´-or-unconsciously—chooses a stance toward his era, his society, his history. It is commitment to historical reality-;- it is confrontation with the socio-political forces that have shaped language itself. Writing, in this sense, is no longer an isolated art. It is a field of conflict.

Barthes demonstrates how French literary history, since the seventeenth century, institutionalized what he calls “bourgeois writing.” The classical method produced a “purified,” “universal” language that presented itself as the neutral expression of reason—yet was, in truth, a tool for consolidating middle-class values and perpetuating their dominance. Here, Barthes uncovers the fundamental paradox: writing, despite its desire for liberation, is forced to operate within the very tools of myth. The classical model, epitomized by Flaubert, transforms writing into craftsmanship: the writer becomes a sculptor, laboriously polishing his text like a jewel. But he remains imprisoned within a language that endlessly reproduces the same values. Craftsmanship, Barthes argues, is a form of political abdication—a retreat from responsibility that reduces literature to aesthetic ritual, severed from life.

But Barthes does not stop at diagnosis. He seeks a solution. And here emerges the concept of writing at zero degree—the most radical aspiration toward linguistic freedom. This is not empty writing, nor silence. It is colorless writing: a mode akin to journalistic prose, employing the simple present tense (the indicative mood), avoiding rhetorical excess, mythological embellishment, and lexical distortion. It aspires to recover transparency—a -dir-ect reconnection between writer and world, between language and reality. It is an ethical endeavor: an attempt to strip language of the myths that veil it, and to return to the clean word—a word that speaks truth without disguise, without ideological sediment, without the weight of inherited convention.

Yet Barthes does not present this as a final answer. He is acutely aware of the original, inescapable paradox: even “zero degree” writing is not free of history. What is neutral today may become the dominant style tomorrow. Even the radical attempts at destruction—by Rimbaud, by Mallarmé—end not in liberation, but in silence,´-or-in the birth of a new style that, once institutionalized, reproduces the very myths it sought to destroy. The problem, Barthes concludes, is not style. It is language itself—language as a socio-historical product. And thus, the issue cannot be resolved within literature alone.

This is the tragic, profound answer to the central question of "Writing Degree Zero": ethical writing is radically impossible within the system of classical literature. Literature, as a system, is built upon myths and historical values that cannot be transcended by the writer alone. Writing, at its best, is not a revolutionary tool. It is the very incarnation of conflict—between the individual trapped in history and the longing for liberation. Writing, then, is not freedom. It is the bond that links the writer to a history that is itself in chains.

The central issue in "Writing Degree Zero" is not a literary analysis—it is a philosophical and ethical summons. It asks: What is the role of the writer in a world where liberation cannot be achieved through art alone? Can the writer be a witness—or an agent? Barthes offers no ready-made answer. He demands only that we ask the question. He proves that every written word is, simply, political. Even the most “neutral” writing is a political choice. The ethical responsibility of the author does not lie in writing a revolutionary text—but in being fully conscious of the constraints in which he writes, and in refusing to believe that myths are natural truths.

Writing, then, does not liberate.It alerts.And in a world saturated with myth, this is the highest form of resistance. The essence of Barthes’s project is not to solve the problem of writing, but to clarify it: How can we write when language itself is a jail? And his answer, resolute and humble, is this: We write—even with immense disappointment—when we write consciously. When we write with awareness of the historical truth we are part of. Writing is not an art. It is a practice. And the only freedom it offers is the courage to see clearly.

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