Marxist thoery on culture

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Amir Sheikh

Marxist theory on Culture

Anywhere and everywhere you travel around the world, you would feel a sense of different kind of cultures compared to your own. Culture can be defined as all the knowledge and values shared by a society and their way of life. There are many factors in which culture include, for example, different types of food, language, the dominant value of society, religious beliefs, etc. In British society, the majority would follow the same way of life, for example, the dominant language (English), dominant religion (Christianity), going to pubs, Shakespeare, etc. Karl Marx who was a sociologist over a century ago, he had a belief that, culture is that the most powerful members of a society, are those who live in the ruling class. These members set up the culture of a society in order to promote the interests of the ruling class and capitalism. A functionalist sociologist called Emile Durkheim argued against the theory of Marx. However, not only Durkheim but Postmodernism argues against Marxist theory on culture.

Karl Marx believed that culture focuses on the economic organisation of modern societies, the fact that societies like the UK are capitalist’s societies characterized by class inequality in wealth, income and power. Social class refers to the amount of economic power, i.e. wealth. He saw capitalist societies as characterized by class inequality and conflict. He stated that there are two groups, one group called the Bourgeoisie (known as the ruling class - owned and control means of production) and the other group are the Proletariats (known as the working class – labour used in order to make an even greater wealth). The ruling class transmit their ideas via the superstructure, i.e. media, to ensure the status quo is maintained. However, there are evidence to support the idea of religion, ethnicity and nationalism may be as important as causes of inequality. Therefore, this theory can be shown to be overemphasising social class as the main source of conflict in modern societies. Marxist also suggested that people are passive towards the ruling class. However, in modern society people are no longer passive as we see strikes and protest against pay, working condition, etc. There are also people that remain passive due to the benefit capitalism bring for them such as living standards and materialism.

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Mass culture is produced for and marketed to the mass of production. This is seen as ‘dumbed down’, trivial, bland and superficial. Examples of this include, Hollywood films, reality TV shows, newspapers, etc. Mass culture can also be referred to the cultural taste of the working class. The beliefs of the Frankfurt School are that a mainstream mass culture was emerging in which the majority consumed similar kinds of cultural products and lifestyles. So as a results of this there has been a break down of traditional cultures and little individuality. Consumerism and cultural messages are encouraged by the mass ...

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