Gasp! Something Else Pertaining to Marx....An Analysis

Communism is "not a state of the future, but the real movement which destroys the existing state of being."

                                                                        The German Ideology, by Marx

           

            When Karl Marx came up with his ideology he was probably envisioning George Orwell’s novel 1984 (to be written many years past his time). In a sense at least. Marx talked about socialism and how it came about because of the struggle between the class systems, constantly in contradiction with one another causing rifts and separations. After analyzing this system he came to the conclusion that capitalism brought about the oppression of the working class, or the proletarians that Orwell called them. These people are the ones that make up the majority of the population and are the ones that maintain the upkeep of the economy’s wealth and income.

            Althusser, a Marxist philosopher, proposed a new definition of philosophy as class struggle in theory. The struggle of the working class serving, living, creating, slaving, for the well being and selfishness of the upper class. The majority of the population is led to believe that they are happy to do things for the upper class, because the upper class are educated and smarter than they are and know what they are doing; the upper class wants the best for the working class and makes their decisions for them. Although the people in the working class are nothing more than a mere number in the work force, they are still thought about and are cared for…or so they believe. This same thing can be seen in George Orwell’s novel 1984. Big Brother is the big man in charge who makes the decisions for everyone who works for him and does what he says.

            But something went wrong in George Orwell’s world in the novel. One man decided to revolt against Big Brother and the people in power because he felt as though he was being cheated in life. Although the character in the book is actually a part of the upper class and is not revolting against the rich because he is not making just as much as they are, he is still revolting for something better. It’s a reversed revolution in the book but is still a revolution for the betterment of the self.

            Althusser uses the Marxist theory pertaining to communism and how the class system does not allow for any shifts in status. Either you are poor and in the working class or you are rich and in the upper class. You can not be promoted to the upper from the lower class. In 1984, we see this same ideology put into play. Those who are in the same position as the main character cannot go against Big Brother’s orders and creeds and if they do so and veer away from their positions and into that of the prole’s then they are to be punished. The character realizes that the life he has, has robbed him of his individuality and therefore decides to break away from it all; a sort of revolt if you will.

           

Word Count: 510

Oh Look...More Marx

             So, let’s recap. We learned that Marx believed that communism was the way to; to take down and destroy the class system and make everyone equal. He was all for massive rage revolution condoning such acts and giving the working class the ok-go and self-esteem they would need to carry out their plans. But, what else does Marx have to say about socialism, aka communism, and the class systems? Let’s all be happy…kind of.

            “Ideology as an instrument of social reproduction”…what? Let me rephrase; the worker bees are led to believe that the economic interests of the ruling class are the economic interests of the working class. The working class is taught that they are happy to work for the upper class, which is too lazy and snooty to do the work themselves and feel like they accomplished something. You are an important member of society. You help the progress of our economy, helping us help you. Lies! The hard working bee is going out into the world, where death awaits at every corner, risking his life to get to that pretty flower and collect his honey for a stupid queen who is too lazy to get up off her big heinie and get her honey herself. No, she is the Queen Bee and she has her peons to do her work for. Her workers are led to believe that the queen loves them and every task that they are given is for the betterment of their society, thus for the betterment of themselves. (I think not.)

Word Count: 275

Marxy Marx and the Funky Bunch

            Marxism is a political ideology that implements socialism; a worldview for how to change and improve society. Marx believed that social occurred because of the struggle between the different class systems within society who are constantly contradicting one another. His analysis led to the conclusion that capitalism leads to the oppression of the working classes, the proletariats, who make up the majority of the population. Not only is the working class the big chunk in the pie chart, it is also the group of people that brings home the money for the upper class, the rich snobs, the bourgeoisie.

            Marx, and his advocates, believes the only way to correct this inequality where the poor majority work and live for the rich minority (lazy pricks) is for there to be a revolution where the proles take over the government and hand over the benefits to their class. Private property is taken into government control, now run by the working class, and is transformed to benefit their class system. Essentially, this is a socialist economy, but Marx believed that this would eventually develop into a completely classless system, known as communism.

            There is one flaw though; everyone wants to be equal but this is not really true. Everyone wants to be better than their neighbor, make more money then them so they can have something better: a better product, a better house, a better income, a better life. So, communism wouldn’t really work because there would be a full on riot between coworkers, feuds between friends, etc. all for the sole purpose of being better than the other. Of not really being equal. 


Word Count: 271

Revolt Against the Institution!

            In his essay, Barthes criticizes the method of reading and criticism that relies on aspects of the author’s identity. Barthes says that that to give a text an author it imposes a limit on that text. In other words, if we look at a text and say that so and so wrote it then we automatically limit our perceptions of that text.  We limit ourselves to what we let ourselves take away from the text and what we allow ourselves to imagine.

            This being said, what he reader has to do is take away any and all ownership they have led to believe of that text, forget that they were told who wrote and in what time period, and read the text that way. Each piece of writing contains multiple layers and meanings. Barthes draws an analogy between texts and textiles saying that a “text is a tissue, or fabric, of quotations drawn from innumerable centers of culture rather than from one, individual experience.” The essential meaning of a work depends on the impressions of the reader rather than the passions or beliefs and tastes of the writer. A text’s unity lies not in its creator or origins but in its audience and its destination.

            Barthes goes on to say that the author is no longer in charge, taking away its “authority” and is renamed the “scriptor”.  The scriptor exists only to produce the work, not to explain it.  The scriptor is born simultaneously with the text and is in no way equipped with a being preceding or exceeding the writing. Every text is written in the here and now and is eternal because every time it is read it is alive once again because the meaning lies exclusively in the language itself and its impression on the reader. Many critics ask the question, “How can we figure out what the writer intended?” The answer is we cannot. We can never know what the writer specifically intended because we are not the writer; we do not know what was going in their head when they sat in front of a desk and wrote the story. The purpose of “killing” the author is for the sole purpose of removing the restraints that it creates on the reader and their interpretations of the text. For example: When I read the books in the series of novels written by Sherrilyn Kenyon, I don’t know what Kenyon’s intentions were. Was it to give the reader a new grasp on mythology? Was it to give the reader a sense of self confidence? Was it to turn the reader into a crazed lunatic thinking that they can become vampire hunters and get into fights, thus eventually killing themselves? Who knows? To each reader they moral of the story is different. Each and every individual takes away something else from the text. The language of the text “speaks” to the reader a different story and lets them conceive their own ideals.

            By destroying the author we open up a whole new world of reading and interpreting a text. High school English classes drill the students to analyze a text based on what they know and what research they have done on the text’s author. Although this allows for limited answers in a classroom and guides the students to certain definite answers, it doesn’t allow for interpretations beyond what the teacher has said. This method doesn’t allow the students to further examine what the text could possibly mean, therefore barring their development into how their individual minds work and how they as individuals perceive things.

Word Count: 597

Dreams Define the Dreamer

                In his writings and findings about dreams that he discusses in his book The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud analyzes his own dreams as examples to proves his of the psychology of dreams. He makes a distinction between the surface level or “manifest” dream content and the unconscious or “latent” dream thoughts expressed through the special language of dreams. He poses the idea that all dreams represent the fulfillment of wishes and on the part of the dreamer and maintains that even dreams about anxiety and nightmares are expressions of unconscious desires. Freud goes on to explain that the censorship in dreams causes a distortion of the dream content and that through the process of analyses the details that seems trivial and unimportant can be shown to express a coherent set of ideas. Freud proposes that the ultimate value of dream analyses may lie in the revealing the hidden workings of the unconscious mind.

            Taking what Freud has to say about dreams and the meanings that they hold in the dreamer’s subconscious mind, we can assume that when we have the most bizarre of dreams and wake up thinking My mind must be on ten levels of crazy to come up with that dream, our subconscious is telling us, or showing us, something that we wouldn’t have let ourselves perceive while awake. If someone has a nightmare about being chased around by a giant spider then that dream can either mean (in my own personal perception) that, obviously, the dreamer is deathly terrified of spiders and being anywhere near them or two, that the dreamer has a wish for adventure and thrill and the want to overcome their fear of spiders.

Word Count: 280