Literary Theory III: Class, Labour, ideology (copy)

Marxism as materialist philosophy?

Marxism is grounded in observable "material" reality, i.e. the real conditions in which people live- spirituality/metaphysics/providence are disregarded.

Marxist idea of history

History is driven by class struggle: antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat will lead to classless society, which also means the "end" of history.

Bourgeoisie

"the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labour”

Proletariat

"the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour in order to live"

Alienated labour

Manufacturing processes in industrial capitalism have been broken down into simple steps performed by unskilled workers

→ workers are alienated from the product of their labour and from themselves, i.e. they are dehumanized and reduced to being parts of a "machine"

Economic determinism

"base" (material reality: economy, production, trade, work) determines "superstructure" (the world of ideas: art, media, politics, religion, science etc.)

→ economic determinism

Ideology

a set of beliefs, Similar to Weltanschauung, "world-view", based on a set of beliefs and values

Literary theories of Marx and Engels

Marx and Engels never developed literary theories, but their ideas were adopted and transformed by literary and cultural theorists in the 20th and 21st century

Monologic texts

try to indoctrinate the reader with a single, straightforward political message or ideology → seen as artistic failures by Bakhtin

Dialogic texts

offer several ideological points of view and show the struggles between those positions; readers decide which position they find convincing

Authoritative discourse

imperative ideological discourse (moral, religious, political) forced upon readers by distant authoritative voices

Internally persuasive discourse

ideological discourse that is "half ours" and "interwoven" with our words, more easily accepted & inspiring readers to think further

Heteroglossia

Dialogic texts always contain heteroglossia: the presence of multiple, contradictory voices within a single text, e.g. through characters that represent different classes, genders, ages, professions etc. → they articulate different ideological positions

Double-voiced discourse

A situation in which two voices are present in one and the same statement

→ this co-presence of voices has a subversive effect that exposes ideology, e.g. a lower-class character who imitates a socially superior character

Ideology and the "subject"

Ideology does not exist apart from the people who believe in it and reproduce it through their actions and behaviour; ideology is not an abstract body of ideas but a lived reality

→"ideology has the function (which defines it) of 'constituting' concrete individuals as subjects

Ideology and the "apparatus"

Ideology exists always in a "state apparatus" → practice(s) of ideology: the individual behaves in a certain way prescribed by ideological state apparatuses, in the illusion that the individual has chosen its attitudes and behaviour freely - unaware of being a subject of ideology

Interpellation

individuals cannot act and express themselves outside of ideology, ideological state apparatuses force (= "call upon") individuals into subject positions

Ideological state apparatuses and power

State and social institutions reproduce and enforce ideology (religion, cultural institutions, media, education, politics)

→ state power is maintained from within, people are subjects of the state and its ideologies, and they reproduce those ideologies themselves

→ state power is also maintained through repressive state apparatuses (police,army, law courts etc.)

Precariat

"precarious" and "proletariate": a new lower class in the 21st century that faces constant economic insecurity

Result of neoliberalism since the 1970s/80s and the ongoing process of de-industrialisation in the West → "old" working class of the 19th/20th c. no longer exists sometimes seen as "dangerous" new class because of its vulnerability and susceptibility to radical political ideologies

Class vs. cultural identity

Discourses of"cultural diversity" and identity politics have replaced debates about

economic inequality and mask the evils of neoliberalism?

→ Do current debates about identity (multiculturalism, gender politics, matters of sexual orientation), which focus on the appreciation of differences, overshadow the more pressing and more fundamental issue of social inequality ?