Marxism

In his writings “Ruling Class and Ruling Ideas,” and “Base and Superstructure,” Karl Marx explores the issue of class conflicts and their relation to popular culture. In “Ruling Class and Ruling Ideas,” Marx points out that the material rulers are also – at the same time – the intellectual rulers. Because the ruling class is not trapped in the vicious work-force oppression, they are the main source of creativity and ideas; therefore, their ideas are the ideas that determine the culture – and the culture they create is always in their best interest. According to Marx, popular culture seems to be a result of the ruling class expressing its own interests as the interests of the general population, and it is a way to maintain their dominance and control over the working class. These ideas are further explained in “Base and Superstructure,” as Marx establishes that the “base” refers to means of production within society, whereas the “superstructure” is comprised of a framework of social institutions. It is when “men become conscious of this conflict” that fighting begins and social revolution arises.

The issue of high culture vs. low culture arises in many of the approaches to cultural theory that we have studied so far. On one hand, Arnold, Leavis, Hoggart, Stuart, and Whannel all seem to share the opinion that low culture is detrimental to society; while on the other hand, Williams and Thompson seem to recognize the divisions between high culture and low culture, but do not necessarily believe that low culture is toxic to humanity. However, with the Marxist lens, popular culture seems to possess no dichotomy (high vs. low) because all mass culture is created by the ruling class as a tool to protect their personal interests and control the working class. The hegemony approach views popular culture as a “compromise equilibrium,” and since contradictions are acceptable and recognized, it is the least “disabling” approach to this subject.

In this chapter, I found the section “The English Marxism of William Morris” to be a very interesting approach to Marxism. Since Morris seems to possess a notably different background than the other intellectuals we’ve learned about (formerly a poet and designer), he offers up ideas from a new perspective – an artist’s point of view. In his opinion, capitalism physical exhausts workers and denies their creativity, and – in order to compensate for this – workers seek easily accessible creativity (pop culture) outside of their work to compensate. Morris views art as the substance of what makes us human, and it is a necessity; to him, capitalism threatens humanity’s sense of fulfillment – and this idea, to me, seems to have a ring of truth.