“It is not’, writes Marx ‘the consciousness of people that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousnesses”
The things people do is what makes them aware of what they are doing. For example, the American dream. Before this class I didn’t really think of what the American dream really meant to someone. I knew it was something along the lines of freedom and money, but I didn’t realize that it was an international thing that some people striving for on a daily bases. The media and everybody in the advertising business tell us that if you have our product your life will be a whole lot better. If you live and have this much money you will be living the American dream. Well, by doing this kind of advertisement they are falsifying what America is all about. A lot of people look at America as the power house, the nation of all nations. When people actually move here and see how hard people have to work to make a living, such as, immigrant farm workers then they really come to realize that this so called “American dream” is false. This notion of falsification can relate to theorist Dorfman and Eco because their ideas are related to the falsification of real things or the imitation of cities that try to be or copy the real. I also believe that this can be related to Baudrillard and the depiction of hiding the real. For example, we are told to believe everything we see on TV. We must act like robots and if the news is done telling us what is known as “the truth” then we must go straight to bed and believe it. Ideologies is something we follow and if the ruling class has all the money in the world then there is no stopping them because that’s how we are suppose to think.
An even better quote of ideology is “The ruling ideas are nothing more than ideal expression of the dominant material relations, the dominant material relations grasped as ideas; hence of the relations which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the idea of the dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think.” People are in belief that what is the idea of the ruling class is what should be and that how things are suppose to be.
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1 comment:
You bring up some great points about how ideology functions, especially 'The American Dream.' This is something that people inside and outside of the US strive for everyday, and yet as you recognize the ideology does not match the reality. You tie this notion in very well with the other theorists, it's almost as though the exam has broadened your thinking about all the theorists, which is good! :)
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