Neo-Marxism

Neo-Marxism: Ideology, Class, and the Culture Industry

•Althusser, "Letter on Art" and “Ideology and Ideological State
Apparatuses” (NATC, 1476-1509)
•Jameson, excerpt from The Political Unconscious and “Postmodernism and
Consumer Society” (NATC, 1932-1975)
•Horkheimer and Adorno, excerpt from Dialectic of Enlightenment (NATC,
1220-40)

So we’ve just discussed Marxism and are now moving on to Neo-Marxism, which sounds pretty similar. So what exactly is the difference then? The fundamental difference between classical Marxism and Neo-Marxism is in classical Marxism’s focus on economic determinism differentiating from Neo-Marxism’s broader consideration of social and intellectual influences that perpetuate oppression of the working-class. Essentially this twentieth-century approach attempts to extend Marxist theory by incorporating critical theory, psychoanalysis or Existentialism. This new emergence on Marxism was the foundation of Neo-Marxist theory. Critics began to argue that Marx saw the economic sector as preeminent, ignoring the dialectical processes such as politics, religion, and mass-media. Neo-Marxists argued that the disregarded processes could not be reduced to something determined purely by the economy.

One Neo-Marxist critic, Louis Althusser, set out to solve how a society was able to reproduce its basic social relations, thereby ensuring its continued existence, considering “ideological state apparatuses, interpellations, imaginary relations, and overdetermination” (1477). Althusser believed that “one tactically learns the practice of obedience to authority, for dominant social order would not survive if it relied only on force” (1477). The proposal of these new adaptations to Marxist theory suggest that while Marx’s concept was restricted to the economic system, these concepts relative to all systems of society (state, law and economic) provided the social structures for one’s ‘objective character.’

Clearly, neo-Marxism was a relaxation of the economic determinism and positivism of
classical Marxist theories. It incorporated other sociological views developed after the Marx to provide a more holistic view of social class structures and dynamics with a focus more on society than the economic system alone. Critics such as Louis Althusser, Horkheimer, Adorno and Jameson offer views on the importance of both social and intellectual forces on the emergences of class-consciousness and provide insight into the dialectical process which explains why capitalism remains so pervasive in light of the people’s awareness or unawareness of their oppression.

Marxist Theory

MarxistTheory and Cultural Materialism

•Lukács, “Realism in the Balance” (NATC, 1030-1058)
•Williams, “Marxism and Literature” (NATC, 1565-75)
•Marx and Engels, all selections in NATC (759-88)


Karl Marx’s communist ideology centers around labor and labor value. Marxists are known to believe in the broad concepts of economics as well as social circumstance as to settle on religious aspects, cultural structures, including legal systems. For instance, “the diverse influence of Marxist theory has extended into fields as varied as aesthetics, ethics, ontology, epistemology, and philosophyof science, as well as its obvious influence on political philosophy and the philosophyof history. The key characteristics of Marxism in philosophy are its
materialism and its commitment to political practice as the end goal of all
thought” (1570).

One idea that revolves around Marxist theorists is theidea that capitalism is bad and that “religion is the opiate of the masses.” Thesystem insinuates that by paying the working class bare minimum, just enough tokeep them going, and continuing extensive labor, the system profits whenworking class buys back consumer goods. People become overworked laborers and are taken over as part of a larger machine. Instead Marxists suggest equal labor and between the classes for a more peaceful and productive economy. However, history shows us that it does not always work out so well, greed inevitablytakes place of good will. Progressions takes a side-step as the rich seeminglygrow richer; the rich see more and more opportunity for surplus and success andend up pushing further. Marx believes in the hierarchy. Hierarchy tends to be necessary in society. There needs to be a leader (if I learned anything from Lord of the Flies…) for there to be progress. People need a place in life. If you go to any coffee shop, college campus, church, or really anywhere with people, you will find lost souls. People who need direction. People who want to belong, have a place, and make a contribution. I feel safe making this
generality because the few people who say they don’t want to belong, have a place or make a contribution would probably not leave their house and therefore not be in any place with people, therefore excluding them from the sample group of souls. Essentially Marxism would not only provide you with a place and an opportunity to contribute, but would enforce it upon you.

Reader Response and Reception

Theories of Reader Response and Reception

• Fish, "Interpreting the Variorium" (NATC, 2067-89)
• Iser, "Interaction between Text and Reader" (NATC, 1670-82)

• Jauss, "Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory" (NATC, 1547-64)

“Central to the reading of every literary work is the interaction between someone and its recipient” (1673). Consider literature as having two poles: the artistic, and the aesthetic. If we define the artistic pole as the author’s text, and the aesthetic pole as the realization accomplished by the reader, it is somewhere between the two where Reader Response it generated. In Wolfgang Iser’s text, he proposes that there are various gaps within a text which the reader must ‘fill in,’ initiating the active role as the text’s true producer. Iser states, “the shifting blank maps out the path along which the wandering viewpoint is to travel, guided by the self-regulatory sequence in which the structural qualities of the blank interlock” (1681). Essentially this process will reveal the connection between the text’s structure and the reading subject.

While Iser viewed reading as a dialectical process between reader and text, Hans-Robert Jauss considered a reader’s aesthetic experience to be bound by time and historical determinants. Jauss developed the term ‘Horizons of Expectations’ to explain how the reader’s expectations are based on past experiences of literature. Jauss states, “The obvious historical implication of this is that the understanding of the first reader will be sustained and enriched in a chain of receptions from generation to generation; in this way the historical significance of a work will be decided and its aesthetic value made evident” (1552). Similaririly, Stanley Fish’s term ‘Interpretive Communities’ suggests that readers within and interpretive community share reading strategies, values and interpretive assumptions. Therefore, as a reader, we bring certain assumptions to a text based on our framework of ‘learned interpretive strategies,’ thus prohibiting bizarre interpretations. Consequently, we see what our interpretive principals have allowed us to see, and then we attribute what has ‘been seen’ to a text and an intention.

Poststructuralism/Deconstruction

Poststructuralism/Deconstruction
• Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lying in an Extra-moral Sense”
(NATC, 870-84)

Deconstruction is a reaction to structuralism, based on the observation that there is nothing outside the text. Therefore, a Deconstructionist critic attempts to understand a text through its relationships to various contexts. This form of theory is centered on the concept that you cannot know the intention of an author; words and media are simply chalk full of contradiction. We must therefore search for the differences within the text rather than the binary associations to avoid any self-contradictory resolutions. As a result, the meaning is not blatant and must be tapped below the surface (hence ‘deconstruction). As Nietzsche puts it, “truths are illusions of which we have forgotten that they are illusions, metaphors which have become worn by frequent use and have lost all sensuous vigour, coins which, having lost their stamp, are now regarded as metal and no longer as coins” (878). A critic must therefore accurately distinguish the essentials from all forms of “truths” being utilized in the text.

To unveil this approach we can look at the classic villain vs. hero dynamic and the appearances which the audience has been trained to receive. For instance, the blatant villain- “the supposed bad guy” is introduced early, and impressed upon the audience as the one todislike. However, his alarmingly sweet intentions for the princess suggest a dynamic that can alter the audience’s reaction. Instead of rooting for the all-buff, cocky handsome hero, they end up rooting for the villain to get the girl. The typical story would go as such: good guy defeats villain, hero gets the girl. But after deconstructing this format, a new story-line is established, one in which the villain is ‘losing the girl,’ rather than the hero ‘winning the girls affection.’ With this simple switch in perspective the value of objectivity, or truth, has taken on a new meaning and imposed itself outside the ‘typical’ context.