Analysis #4 Marxist Theory

Analyzing the idealistic American "culture" of the 1950's and surrounding ties by way of Ross and Marxist theory

I think Ross’ ideas are very relavent to today’s society. We deal with a world that is constantly throwing ideologies at us. Even though we know a lot of them aren’t true, we will still take that placebo to “lose weight and feel great” or try and handle circumstances as simply and effectively as shown in an episode of “Family Ties.” For Ross, “all you have is ideologies,” as if there is a wall of haze between the text and the reader, always there to change the truth. I associated this with believing people have rose colored eyes, permanently seeing their world through an idealistic filter. Ross says there is a false relationship we have with the world around us. I think that it is definitely dangerous to be looking around wishing and hoping for things that aren’t practical to you.
For example, envying someone that has a great job, yet your talents are elsewhere, having nothing to do with the work that this particular person does day in and day out. As she has a smile on her face due to the joy it brings her to walk our her own talent, as you are trying to follow her exact footprints to catch that happiness, so to speak, your smiles are leaving you. Another thought is pictures. Some pictures, like the ones in frames you buy at the store, containing smiles that are ready to burst through the page at you and are lathered with content happy families can be misleading. The purchaser might even buy that frame because they felt nice looking at it, and somewhere deep down wished they had a family like that. Taking a step back, how does she know they don’t get into arguments, and why is she wrapping up their whole family life into one small picture; one small joyous moment? This is an ideology we all fall into, according to what we desire.

Marxist Theory

This topic I find to be highly important. Deception, manipulation, secrecy, power, greed and selfishness all play in to the superstructures leading into religion, politics and cultures as a gateway for some key figures, such as the owner of a large company, to manipulate the tokens on the game board of their system.
As we discussed in class, something as seemingly simple as a drink we buy at Starbucks is really not that simple at all due to the labor that different categories of work forces put into it. There is the beans, which at first had to have a place to grow, and harvest, and package, and ship, and commute, and grind, and steep, and pour into your cup. This is just the bean trail. There is a “vast totality of labor” within the process. The problems we hear about are working conditions and payment to the hard labor workers out in Africa, for example. Or the bottom of the barrel office workers to a major corporation, under payed and taken advantage of, so that they receive just enough to live on, all because of numbers. All because the owner couldn’t bear to lose one cent over a less thought about process that they could have extracted more labor from, which is all the worker is to this owner; labor. It’s what he buys from them. He is a capitalist, or rather, the mother was the first capitalist; the first proletariat.

Weekly Blog #7 Phenomenology and Reader-Response Theory

Where meaning lies is a crucial question. We can theorize all day long, but if we don’t know when to stop; where it ends, what conclusion to come to and rest the brainstorming, what is the point? That is why these philosophers had to come up with some idea of where to find the truth. For Jean-Paul Sartre, the meaning ends in the reader. When these eyes hit the page, I agree that they start hypothesizing, forming opinions, testing, all the material that is in front of him and as other critics say, we are continually critiquing and judging everything that is around us and that as humans, this is impossible to get away from therefore, we conclude at the end of the passage or whatever it is that we are reading, where we stand. For Sartre, this is where the meaning rests.
This is the purpose of the literature, as a kick start to a brain’s formation of thought processes. To ignite the continual interpretation through the freedom that exists within it as he says, “in short, reading is directed creation… the book does not serve my freedom, it requires it.” In other words, we must have freedom in order for the meaning to exist. For Kant, art exists as fact and then it is seen. But for Sartre, art exists as fact when it is seen. The difference is that Kant believes things exist whether there is someone there to perceive it or not. Sartre believes that those eyes, that mind to perceive the thing actually brings it to existence.

Weekly Blog #6 Psychoanalysis

While I have heard about Freud endless times, I have not studied Lacan, but found his ideas very interesting, and speaking of mirrors, it mirrored some things I have seen in my life. The mirror stage in which there is an abstraction of self, sets a precedent of defining you from a perception of you. Now, the image in the mirror is only a signifier. It is not the real thing, or person.
This child is desiring to fulfill the mother’s desires, as Lacan says, and goes through a stage of desiring what others desire. This was the most interesting part to me because I found that it not only in child development, but lasts throughout lifetime. Whereas there are advantages and disadvantages, it is a very human characteristic varying in degrees due to personality type. To want to please others takes a desire to fulfill their needs as best possible. To know those needs best, we sometimes take on too much, trying to understand them so much that we are now in agreement, and we too desire their desires. While compassionate at the source, it is tricky at the end because we no longer are sure of what we, as individuals, desire apart from them. This is why we take the saying, “just be yourself” into account, yet we know most of the time it is inevitable to be formfitting to the person across the table, especially on a first date.

Weekly Blog #5 Structuralism and Semiotics

Ferdinand Saussure talks about the relation of signs, composed of the signifier and the signified. When we look at different magazine ads, for example, we not only see, but we sense, due to our relation from the signifier. It is safe to say that every advertiser is involved in the art of this technique. Commercializing things is not as simple as showing a product, but is as difficult as trying to evoke some part of you, the viewer, that relates to a subject in the advertisement in which you decide it would be best to buy their product. While everyone is different, we can assume that the media is doing a good job of molding the general population’s desires, so that all they have to do is look to the popular desires and work with those to try to meet their usually impractical needs. But through persuading someone that they need this product or else they won’t be successful, or smart, or happy, or healthy, we have successfully slightly been brainwashed in order for a company to raise their revenue.
As signs can be used for good or evil in this way, we see that they are what evokes meaning in to our lives. If we pass by the beach and all we really think is, beach/sand/water/umbrellas, we most likely aren’t human, but instead we think freedom/joy/fun/family, etc. due to our experiences we had with the beach. If we come across a sign that we have never experienced before it might be blank, but we are soon to fill in the white space with movement and color and opinions, hence, again, we will know that we are indeed human.

Weekly Blog #4 Formalism

To sensationalize news is an interesting concept in which Shklovsky addresses in “Art as Technique.” We of course use art in most communication, but in the news it can be a touchy subject. For a news reporter to communicate their own personal opinion is out of context and frowned upon. When the Hindenburg went down and the reporter said, “Oh the humanity,” it would be considered “sensationalized.” Yet this is humane. When we watched the clip of a comedic scene in class where a news reporter was “sensationalizing” the news, it seemed inhumane however. We can see that he had no regard for the president that got shot, as he was trying to catch our attention through his acting like a game show host or sports reporter of some sort. In this way, he was acting, but in the case of the Hindenburg, he was himself. I would have to say that if the projection of thought, emotion or opinion is real, from the heart of the person, than it would be apropos, however if it was set up for the purpose of catching the audience’s attention, it would be a rhetorical device for the use of persuasion to a certain stance, which can be debatable on the ground of ethics.
Terry Eagleton was adamant that the discipline of literature not only a recreational device, but a means of sustaining the dominant social order. If we look at today, and replace “discipline of literature” with “media” we might be able to draw the same conclusion. What better way to influence the masses than by creating a movie, for example, that is not only viewed and accepted nationwide, but worldwide? A major concern and popular topic is subliminal messages in movies due to biased beliefs within the political system. This is how movies “actively produce ideology rather than merely reflect it,” as Eagleton says. They have been the source of people’s opinions changed or stances moved, values replaced and belief systems corrupted.

Weekly Blog #3 Enlightenment Theory and Criticism

Burke talks about the sublime as did Longinus, but he calls our attention to aesthetics. He says that we don’t give up acquired taste, but we need to in order to get back to our natural taste. This concept is interesting because, as we discussed in class, everyone has their own opinions as to what is beautiful, due to our experiences which form opinions which form natural tendencies to like or dislike something, calling it beautiful or repulsive, pleasant or unpleasant. He says “the power of distinguishing between the natural and the acquired relish remains to the very last.”
So as he implies there is a difference between our natural and acquired taste. But I would interject, is it even possible that we can perceive what our “natural taste” is since from the moment we are born, we start experiencing, and so forth? Also, since each person is unique, wouldn’t each person’s “natural taste” be different as well? Burke doesn’t think so. He says that “there is in all men a sufficient remembrance of the original natural causes of pleasure, to enable them to bring all things offered to their senses to that standard, and to regulate their feelings and opinions by it.”
Hegel talks about the master and slave concept. I would have to say that the way these two would be able to be on the same level of respect would have to be their relationship. If the master befriends the slave, would the slave not respect the master and therefore, if anything, work harder and enjoy his job a little more due to his care for his master? And wouldn’t the master grow compassion and enjoyment toward his slave, thus naturally treating him humanely?

Weekly Blog #2

     Aristotle was one to combat Plato without shame or timidity. He said a lot in his works, but I will focus on a few points and what came up in class. Upon watching the allegory of the cave in a new way, animated in a youtube clip, we experience the same idea as he was explaining. This “explanation” of his allegory is even twice removed from his text, as we have a narrator paraphrasing it, plus a pictorial depiction of it, which makes me wonder, as the prisoners might have wondered, what the real story was like when he told it.

     Longinus talks about the sublime, which is a concept we use in such a different way than what I think he meant. When we see something that is beautiful, we easily say it is “sublime.” But what do we really mean? We usually use it in such a casual way, with no rhyme or reason behind the moment other than chance, luck and happenstance. But Longinus advocates that “though nature is on the whole a law unto herself in matters of emotion and elevation, she is not a random force and does not work altogether without method,” so that even the things that are out of our control have some sort of method or reason to their being; their sublimity. Here is an example of an interpretation I would consider four times removed.