Exam 3 (Karl Marx)

Question 1

What is the definition of “Critical Theory”?

Answer 1

Discursive Reflection (Communicative ability to raise questions)

Question 2

What is the problem of critical theory?

Answer 2

Hegemony, Ideology; Systematically distorted information (Power and domination prevents questioning)

Question 3

How does Deetz system model work?

Answer 3

• Uses Cybernetics and phenomenology

- How is critical theory incorporated?

Question 4

How does Deetz’s model emphasize open conversation?

Answer 4

• Need for questioning
• Inclusive participation
• Focus on issues of power - how systems block genuine conversation.

Question 5

What did Karl Marx Critique?

Answer 5

Critique of capitalism as exploitation of labor.

Question 6

What did Mac Horkheimer Critique?

Answer 6

Critique of mass culture as capitalist domination.

Question 7

Is critical theory today Marxist?

Answer 7

Much critical theory today is not Marxist, wich is the foundation. Still critiques forms of power that perpetuate injustice.

Question 8

What is Karl Marx the founder of?

Answer 8

Marxism

Question 9

Who’s works was Karl Marx influences by?

Answer 9

Influenced by Hegel’s concept of history and dialects.

Question 10

Marx as a young Hegelian, what ideas did he barrow?

Answer 10

Borrowed their idea of dialects, but reformulated it with a materialist edge.

Question 11

What are the 4 Epochs?

Answer 11

1. Communism - all work together for the better of the society
2. State/Slave Society - come together and develop a ruling class that owns slaves.
3. Fatalism - Having a ruling class that don’t necessarily own slaves, but have surfed. Ultimately there is still a king that owns all the land.
4. Capitalistic Society - Owned by a few, Instead of having people who are slaves, they give wages. You are free to who choose who pays your wages, but its a hollow freedom. The means of production, like factories are owned by a small group of people. You sell your labor, and you are simply given a wage instead.

Question 12

What is False consciousness?

Answer 12

• The idea that is out understanding of the world is shaped by out relationship to the means of the production, then we are unaware of out subjectification because it is ass we know of the world.
• The ruling ideas become your ideas.
• Further out understanding of the world is directly shaped by those in charge of the mass of production.

Question 13

Marx on ideology

Answer 13

• “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas”
• (Your perception of the world around you, are divorced form your material experience.)
• (You see the world the ruling class wants you to see the world.)
• (Those ideals, blind them to the ruth of their lived experience)

Question 14

Implications of ideological critique?

Answer 14

A need to ideology society
Ideas, meanings and even consciousness as social products.

Asks the question; how do these function in society? to whose benefit?

Ideas themselves are not neutral
They represent certain interests in society and exclude others

These lessons remain important in contemporary critical theory

Question 15

what is “Base/Superstructure”?

Answer 15

Base - Idea of technology, class structuring, and the relations.

Superstructure - Religion, Ideology, Family, Art, Entertainment.

Question 16

What is the culture industry?

Answer 16

• where culture is not merely a reflection of economic process, but its own industry - media and mass marketing.
• Culture as an industry, becomes standardized - (art, media, ideas, meanings, and individual consciousness).

Question 17

What is the culture industry characterized by?

Answer 17

Monopoly, “Mass” production, technology.

Question 18

How does the “Culture Industry” create a system of domination?

Answer 18

• Control is concentrated by fewer and fewer hands.
• All cultural products are commodities - lose any genuine meaning.
• Technology becomes a rationale for perpetuating the system.