Here are the two sides of a reality more amazing than fiction: the society of which we are members. It is impossible to state once and for all which of the two is the signifier and which the signified; both sides signifiy each other reciprocally; each one in turn becomes signifier or signified acccording to teh slant of the inquiry, and up to the moment of the inquiry there is nothing but aimless signifiers and disconnected signifieds. In this world you just do not know where you stand; you are led astray by mirages when you try to connect a signifier to a signified - declamation, declaration or propaganda by which what you should believe or be is signified. If you allow the swarms of signs to flow over you from television and radio sets, from films and newspapers and ratify the commentaries that determine their meanings, you will become a passive victim of the situation; but insert a distinction or two - for instance everday life and modernity - and the situation is changed: you are now the active interpreter of signs.