Some thoughts on “Some Thoughts on Ideology”

I really enjoyed Proffer Craig’s lecture this week. It was easy to read and it really made me think about how I always go into to Urban Outfitters and I love the atmosphere there. They have this edgy trendy feel that has appealed to me since I first walked into the store as a high school student. The one thing that has always struck me about that store is how it targets the student age, (whether in high school or college) but has prices that are someone with a good salary can afford. Whenever I go there, I can only get one thing at a time. The way that they target students like me is by using that idea of rebellion against the system. The atmosphere of the store tells its shoppers that by buying these clothes, not only are you going to look super trendy, but while trying them on in our “urban” dressing rooms, you will feel a sense of rebellion with a bit of rock and roll.

I actually remember seeing them selling the Communist Manifesto at one point. I never really thought about it at the time, but I felt like something was off about that book being in a commercial place. After reading Professor Craig’s lecture, I realized that everything he talked about is what was unsettling to me when I saw the book. I love irony, so this story and analysis was so much fun for me to read. I completely understand the point the store was trying to do; get you to buy the jeans for the rebellion of it all. However, I found it hilarious if you actually understand what the manifesto is about. I think this also shows how gullible American society is. By buying jeans because you saw this rebellious manifesto next to it, (even if you do not think you bought it because of the book) it shows how Americans do not understand Marxism in general. Students seem to think of it as a threat to their parents generation and thus, they want to use Marxism to rebel against their parents. But, in by doing so, they are contributing to the Capitalist society that Marxism is against. The irony is beautiful.

I just wanted to thank Professor Craig for writing this guest lecture. It really helped me understand what I was studying a lot more, and it made me think of how to look at my world in a Marxist way. I found in interesting to sit back and analyze my own life and how I have given into the irony of stores like Urban Outfitters. The next time I go there, or to a store like it, my eyes will be darting looking for subtle undertones like Marx’s Communist Manifesto.

Human Liberalism vs. Marxism

This past week, it has been interesting reading about Marxism right after the lectures and readings on Liberal Humanism. The two theories most definitely differ in many ways. A liberal humanist perspective says that we should not look at the text from any angle, but we should just look into the text itself to find its meanings. A Marxist view says that we should look at a text by understanding where the author ranks in society, and what is going on in society at the time the text was written. This distinct definition between the two theories shows how Marxism challenges Liberal Humanism. The idea that we should look at literature this way, comes from the tenants of Liberal Humanism. The second tenant says that the literary text contains meaning within itself. Liberal humanist believe that the reader should not be looking to any outside source to find the meaning of the text. When reading a text, you should not even try to figure out what the author was trying to convey, you should just look at what the actual text is saying.
In Marxism, you should investigate many things before trying to understand the text. Marxists look at the world around them and try to relate the text to the society that they live in. They look for class structures and how they affect the society. Also, they find out the social status of the actual author. If the author is a poor man, and in a lower class in society, the Marxist view will look at the text much differently than if the author was a rich man. They try to understand the text by understanding what was going on in the authors’ life and the society around him or her. Then, once that has been evaluated, they look to themselves and try to relate the text to their own society.
Another tenant I found that interested me was the fourth tenant: human nature does not change; it is constant. In Marxism, the point of most of the literature is to change the way that humans tend to act. The view shows humans changing for the better of the society. Change from the norm would be good in a Marxist view because then the infrastructure of society would be changed. Liberal Humanists say that human nature cannot change, and therefore neither could social classes. There will always be the rich, and there will always be the poor. In an ideal communist society, there would be no classes; everyone would get as much out of society as they put into society.
I found that overall, Liberal Humanism is much more concrete than Marxism. You do not need a society to look at a text through the Liberal Humanist view, and you do not need anything other than the text to support your opinions on the text. With Marxism, the ideas are much more abstract. The reader needs to be able to understand the social classes and the society that they live in and what the author lived in. As I go on in my studies, I am interested to find if any other theories will be able to relate themselves to Liberal Humanism instead of conflicting with it as Marxism does.

last class

During the first few classes, I was pretty overwhelmed by all of the information that was coming to me. I was worried I was not going to understand what was going on in class and generally feel like I was drowning. However, after last class, I feel a whole lot better about things, and I have more confidence that I will be able to actively participate in class and have insightful posts on my blog. I sometimes have a hard time comprehending even the most straightforward of texts; so going over the reading in Barry really helped me. By the lecture and discussion in class, I understood that New Criticism is just a close reading of a text; there is no bias in this reading, it is just what the text is, and not what the text means to anyone. During this class, I wondered what the results of reading something like the Bible in a New Criticism view would be like. Would it even be possible? While reading the Bible through this scope, one would be able to appreciate the form and art of the text, but how could one read something like the Bible and not think of it as relating to anything else. I feel like it would be very hard to just look at the text and not see any subtext. Any opinions on this one?

First Post

My name is Krista and I am a student at Emmanuel College. I am currently taking an English class called Critical Theory and the Academy. On this blog, I hope to understand theories through my own writing, and hopefully get a few other people interested in what I have to say.
In my mind theory is necessary to understand the world around you. By looking at ideas and artifacts in different ways, your mind is opened up to many different aspects of human nature. Theories allow you to see something in someone else’s eyes and maybe in a way you would have never thought of. When one criticizes and theorizes about literature or the world around them, they are able to see things from either an objective view or a smaller lense than they would normally look through.