Aims
- to introduce a critical definition of ideology
- to introduce some of the basic principles of Marxist philosophy
- to explain the extent to which the media constitutes us as a subject
- to introduce 'culture jamming' and the idea of design activism
What can designers do to change the world that we live in or alter the situation that we find ourselves in?
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it" - Marx, K. (1845) 'Theses On Feuerbach.
Praxis - a unification of thought and action.
Marxism is: was both a political manifesto which outlines what Marx saw as a better way of organising society, and described the road to achieving that. As well as politics describes how workers will always be in conflicts. A physiological method. It lead to the rise of the soviet union.
What is Capitalism?: This is the stage of which we live in, the society in which we live in. It's a society where control of the means of production is held by a few individuals, therefore a few individuals makes loads of money.Everyone else works for these individuals. Everything is bought and sold. People are commodities in the way of shoes. Our interactions evolve around the logic of a market. It's a system which makes us compete, and says that if you end up at the top of society it's probably because you deserve to be. Compete against each other for grades, jobs, etc.
The evolution of humanity
1. Primitive Communism - society would change and hierarchies would emerge
2. Slave Society - someone had something someone else didn't
3. Feudalism - develop the ruling class
4. Capitalism - capitalists are the ruling class
5. Socialism - people will gain class consciousness, overthrow the capitalists and take control over the state.
6. Communism - people who own the ability to own money
The materialist conception of society.
Marx argues that society can be broke into teo sections - first is economic, the base. At any given moment society will have certain technology/tools/skills etc. This has relations of production, and develops things like employer and employee sides. Certain relations emerge.
Everything is a result of the forces of production and everything that surrounds that production.
Everything can be traced back to issues of class, gender politics, racial polotics. Anything can be read as a certain political attitude.
Capitalism produces laws, culture, politics, education, art that reflects that attitude.
pic of boat
The base determines the content and form of the superstructure which then reflects the form of and legitimises the base, and so on.
Education - the base are ones of bosses and workers, the boss telling the worker what to do. The education emerges. This then makes people think where workplace relations where the boss is like do this, do that is acceptable.
house image
We're forced into situations that we don't really have control of.
image of pyraid thing
The ruling class.
Ideology - it has a double meaning. One can have an ideology of beliefs. The way in which a certain system of ideas distorts the power of relations, through creation of 'false consciousness'. We don't understand things the way we could, but how could we. We wouldn't let it happen.
Ideology usually emerges from the ruling class, and represents their world view. The exploited class then start to think that this is also their world view.
There's all sorts of forms of ideology.
- Art is about one persons expression, yet it's never been like that. In classical art, the only people allowed to be artists were the people who could afford to be educated, so you had to be rich.
- Women weren't allowed to be artists, just white rich men making art.
- A culture is then developing by rich people for rich people.
- Looking at art and thinking about art can influence you into thinking the way that the artist wants you to think.
image of gorilla woman
Ideology is not just something produced by society, but also a relation.
Theres various different apparatus in society.
Education isn't about freeing you up, it's about training you up to turn how how you're expected to be.
All media outlets are owned by super rich people, and what the media does is reflect ideology that is in the world already and creates a false consciousness.
No comments:
Post a Comment