French structuralism’s rise followed decolonization defeats and masked rightward political drift

Evidence

The settlement of the Algerian War then paved the way for full-scale consolidation of High Gaullism. It was at this point that the ascendancy of structuralism and then of semiotics beganfirst in fairly radical variants, in keeping with the temper of the times, and then in increasingly formalist, domesticated directions. Both Levi-Strauss and Roland Barrhes, for example, had initially indicated affinities with Marxism, claiming for linguistics, in earlier phases of their respective careers, not so much an ontological primacy as, basically,, a methodological efficacy. The real trends remained so unclear for so many years that the Events of 1968, when they burst upon the French scene, were widely viewed as the inaugural gesture of a new generation of radical, even revolutionary, intellectuals and militants, and neither as the process that propelled the worst kind of anti-communism to an hegemonic position among the Parisian avant-garde nor as the last rites for an antiquated form of capitalism which was soon to be replaced by a more efficient, more consumptionist form. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 249

Categorization

• XREF: Supports the reader’s thesis that discourse-first theory (semiotics, structuralism) functions as materially evasive — aligning with Ahmad’s Marxist critique and echoing the Foucault race-struggle motif context. — connects to: French postcolonial theory grew from the Occupation and anti-fascist struggles at home — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 245; French defeat in the colonies drove its intelligentsia rightward before structuralism rose — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 96; French Orientalism emerged from political loss, producing an imagined rather than real Orient — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 429 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• French defeat in the colonies drove its intelligentsia rightward before structuralism rose #corroborates (0.92) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 96
• Theory’s ideological shifts track the real fortunes of decolonized states #expands (0.85) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 67
• Algeria’s loss paradoxically produced a stronger postcolonial France #contradicts (0.80) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 8
• French Orientalism emerged from political loss, producing an imagined rather than real Orient #complicates (0.75) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 429
• World War I and right-wing politics drove French racism into colonial policy #expands (0.72)