Talk:02 Tuesday Feb 22

Katrina Hobbs' Notes for February 22
Tuesday’s classes revolved around Karl Marx’s idea of Capitalist and Pre-Capitalist Societies and Louis Althusser’s idea of Ideology. Our class found an example of the difference between the two types of societies. We also discovered ideologies within current day events and our own composed example. Our class created an example to describe the differences of Capitalist and Pre-Capitalist Society. Imagine you are a weaver with three apprentices. You and your staff work together on looms to make cloth for the market. Marx would consider the means of production to be the looms; the commodity is the cloth, and the relation of production to be the Weaver with his/her three apprentices. At this point in time the Pre-Capitalist society for the Weaver is a CMC, Commodities Market Commodities. Once this Weaver transforms into a Capitalist Society the equation becomes a MCM, Market Commodity Market, where the end goal is not to create more commodities but instead more capital. In replace of looms, a factory would be built to labor 50-100 workers. This setting creates a large shift in Relation of Production and Means of Production. In relation to Walt Whitman’s poem “I hear America singing” Marx also plays a role in its deconstruction. The class determined Whitman was Romanticizing wage labor and creating a false consciousness by removing the factors of money and labor from these physical labor jobs providing the commodity. Whitman continues to idealize by displaying the enjoyment from everyone doing his or her job. The class went on to describe their own personal wage labor jobs, and other jobs that could relate to Ideologies. We found a great example was the retail market. Many people go out and buy a specific brand when the same product can be found elsewhere. It is thought that these high priced brands, such as Hollister and Abercrombie, are sought after more because they are believed to have better quality. Regardless of some beliefs the same amount of work and effort goes into each product. Society acts on these ideas, when we purchase products, and even go to college, we are constantly engaging in ideological practices and we don’t even realize it. From a young age we are taught education is the way to succeed in life. The idea of what you do in the classroom is suppose to assist you in obtaining a job, the exchange value. There are also implicit beliefs of what a classroom should look like and how it should act. Students are found sitting at their desks listening to the teacher standing at the front of the classroom. These ideologies govern the classroom. Our class discussed that if someone where to get up and start dancing or yelling it would not not be accepted. Class on Tuesday took the ideas of Karl Marx and Louis Althusser and found many examples demonstrating their effectiveness. We left class that day with the notion that we are always in ideology that cannot be interrupted and sometimes we don’t even realize it.