Response on Christopher Craig

After reading Dr. Craig's lecture on Marxism this week it helped clarify some of my mixed up thoughts on the subject.The lecture definitely made some of the more confusing points for me more clear with the examples he used. However with that said not everything is magically all made sense and I didn't expect it to. I'm still trying to figure it all out and work things out in my head on what exactly this Marxist viewpoint is but Dr. Craig definitely helped.

I thought that it really put in perspective how such a serious threat as communism 50 years ago was now being used in a marketing scheme in a trendy store. Having it suggest that buying a pair of jeans is as radical as communism was a little ridiculous. Urban Outfitters is one of the farthest things away from radical change. Having thousands of kids across America buying into the same idea that buying clothes there is rebelling against the norm is really just conforming into what society wants. Having the Communist Manifesto on the same table as pair of jeans shows that communist thought really hasn't gone away. However it is the capitalist ruling class that is trying to downplay that idea by putting it out there so casually trying to down play the true significance. Buying the jeans is not the Marxist belief it is advertised so closely to but it its buying into the capitalist hegemonic ideal trying to make communism cool. The same thing with the Che Guevara t-shirts. The image that once stood for radicalism and rebellion now seems to mainstream in society and people don't understand the meaning.

Having a majority of the things in life such as the news told from one viewpoint that is supposedly true to them all is not. Society is giving us information as it would be important to the rich and ruling class in society not the main working class. It is basically trying to confuse the working class into thinking that things are going great for them. When in reality the ruling class is the only ones benefiting and it is their way of keeping them up and the working class down.

Even with the Marxist thought that the working man could unite and be a power this will always be a class society. It is the environment we live in and it is not going to change easily because we all play into it. There will always be a class struggle in our society that shapes our lives. It is important to see life and literature with a partial Marxist perspective because as I think Dr. Craig was saying it is always shaping our lives.

Marxism vs Liberal Humanism

Marxism is definetly a completely different way of looking at interpreting literature then liberal humanism. Having learned liberal humanism and starting to try and fully grasp that concept of looking at a text and realizing it should go past the time it was written and always be revalent. Good literature relates to human nature which no matter the period or culture it should still hold true. Going from that to now a Marxist view on literature which doesnt neccessarily transcend the time in which it was written it is very culturally specific and holds true always to that time period.

According to a liberal humaist approach to literature human nature stays the same throughout the ages. At first many would look at that in disbelief but it really holds true. No matter what time or place inhistory there are some core elements that hold true. This makes literature always relatable because human nature is not completly changing all the time. Marxism completely challenges this idea with saying that literature is written to change the human nature of the time. It keeps trying to change peoples thoughts and push the idea of a classless society and all decisions should be made to better the society. It seems like a nice idea but rather unrealistic opposed to liberal humanists.

Marxism has the belief that not only do you look inside the text to understand it as liberal humanists say you should it is also or more important to look outside of that. I do not completely agree that in order to fully understand a text you must appreciate what was going on in the political, social and economical situation of the times. That seems helpful to me but it is really not the end all be all to interpreting meaing in a text. Text shouldnt be judged better if a more educated man wrote it than if a lesser educated man did. However with that said I think knowing information such as the authors education gives the reader more insight and can help get a better understanding of the text.

Introduction and Initial Thoughts

Hi my name is Lauren I am a junior and a member of the dance team. As far as theory goes my first thoughts are rather disorderly. At this point I can't exactly form a valid opinion on most of it yet. I appreciate that it is important to understand the context in which literature was written to get a better grasp on the importance. Beyond that it seems much more opinion based and I am really not sure what mine would be on the subject.