What comes into your head whenever you hear the word-Western thought or Western theories? Some may associate it to the theories of “dead white men”, but many, if not all, may associate it to the logical and rational way of thinking. Logic and rationality seem to have been the modes of thinking of the scholars of Western thought. As said by our previous professors, the age of enlightenment brought about positivism in such a way that science has dominated nature. Man is now the center and not God, as highlighted by the Dark Ages, a period that emerged before the Enlightenment. From then on, science became an ideology, a set of values and beliefs, which created a culture to favor reason over faith. In relating this to Marx, ideology created false consciousness within the working class. He further said that “religion is the opium of the masses”. He said this because they operate based on their ideology which allows them to see blindly of their situation. It is much like the camera obscura, where there is a tendency to see things differently and distort reality (inversion). Furthermore, as Marx argued that there will come a time when the proletariat class will propagate a socialist revolution against the bourgeoisie. This, however, did not transpire due to capitalism, which in turn created an ideology, which was the driving force of class consciousness. With capitalism, the proletariats realized that capitalism was inevitable and therefore, succumbed to it. Based on the things that I wrote previously, ideology was the main factor of change. Ideology operates in shaping our belief systems, and constructing something of value. And in this ideology, culture plays a vital role in terms of its formation and influence. And as we further engross in the theories of Western theories, by taking a look on how ideology operates, from the ideological perspective, you can use this as a lens to see how culture, as a set of customs, traditions and basically the way you live your life, unfold since they are both products of societal forces at play. Also, you can see the role of ideology changes over time, for instance, in the Classical Marxist argument, ideology reproduces the present economic and political set-ups and is produced in high culture in earlier Marxist cultural theory; whereas in late capitalism, ideology is no longer a clear-cut text and is produced in popular culture in later Marxist cultural theory. This transformation has caused me to think why there is such a 360 degrees change in terms of the way ideology has evolved, particularly in the cultural theories of early and late Marxists thought. Maybe there was a crucial diverging point in history that may have caused one to address the needs of time in terms of how the phases of postmodernism and late capitalism took place which replaced the old way of doing things.
Western Marxism scholars such as Gramsci, Lukacs, and the Frankfurt school emphasized their ideology of class domination in the culture and the culture industry. Gramsci, for instance, used the hegemonic culture to refer to the consent of the oppressed or for some, to create its own “common sense” to be able to control the minds of the people. For Lukacs, it is the manipulation of class consciousness, whereas for the Frankfurt School, domination is seen as reification (treating one as an object). The Frankfurt School further explains the culture industry in which culture is commodified in terms of how the mass media and entertainment produce cultural commodities which manipulate people’s consciousness. At present, a perfect example of this can be the fashion industry wherein the trends all over the world are sold the same. Why you ask? It’s because they are advertised by the mass media to make you think that these are nice. The industry is manufactured to make you think that wearing otherwise can be considered deviant. In school, people wear the same things. The trending fashion now for skirts is the fitted skirt and hanging tops. For men, it is hanging pants and espadrille shoes. It is even commodified to a point that people copy it. For instance, Converse or Chucks is the famous shoes during my time when I was in high school. Through the influence of mass media, other shoes have emerged copying the style of Converse. Another example can be the Louis Vuitton bags, culture has been so commodified to the point that Louis Vuitton bags are deemed to be for the elite only. Even though, you have Hermes and Aranaz bags, which are also expensive, the masses may think that they are not for the elite because these aren’t what they see on television. For the beauty industry, from the range of beauty products, they seem to have this underlying message, “to be fair and thin is to be normal” All the Calayan and the Belo products seem to shape what is normal and not, people want to be like the celebrities who have fair skin. It’s because mass media has heightened their “desire” so to speak. These are just manifestations of how the mass media and entertainment can manufacture culture like products that can be “bought” to get what they desire. With this, it is safe agree with Marcuse and Adorno (Frankfurt School) that there is ideological and cultural manipulation, which all makes us think in a certain way, which has led culture to become popular culture which has become a powerful ideology for domination.
On the other hand, Benjamin and the later generation of the Frankfurt school added another dimension to popular culture. If before, the popular culture was dominated by the culture industries and the elites, now, the popular culture can have liberating effects. An example of this can be the jejemon language that we know of today. Through the use of their language, they are unfettered. The culture that has been manipulated by the mass media now becomes a venue for a “new culture” that has been produced. As previously mentioned, Marx believed in the ability of ideology to invert and distort reality. But because of late capitalism, there emerged a new way of thinking. Late Capitalism is when “Ideology is no longer a clear-cut text, but becomes an everyday experience manifested in popular culture”. In the old version of Marxism, culture is controlled by the dominant class and whereby culture is affirmative. In late capitalism, culture can serve as a venue for resistance. If there was hegemony then, there is counter hegemony at present. For instance, in my previous blog, I related hegemony and counter hegemony by using the Rastafarian movement. The Rastafarian movement in Africa and Jamaica served as a counter hegemony against the European colonial powers. And as highlighted, ideology is manifested in the popular culture. The popular culture that the Rastas had is their music, particularly reggae music which kept the morals of the black high when they are enslaved by the domineering whites. Through this we can see that main purpose of the ideology critique to deconstruct and demystify the dominance and hegemony in everyday life. In the Philippine setting, we can deconstruct and demystify the dominant and typical in Filipino movies. Instead of having love stories and happy endings, why not take another approach to it- just like what Metanoia RPG did. Or we can have less dramatic telenovelas like I love You Pare. Or if we have a dominant way of thinking like the West, then we must be able to deconstruct it to our Filipino way of thinking. Moreover, as we move on to late capitalism, there is a decrease in public ideologies such as religion and an increase in popular culture in people’s lives. If the earlier Marxist cultural theorists (Lukacs, Gramsci, Goldman and the first generation of the Frankfurt School) argued about the Church and religion and, the new Marxists argue about popular culture in people’s lives. If the earlier Marxists concentrated on high culture, the later cultural Marxists concentrated on popular culture. If the earlier Marxist have ideological issues about domination, the later generation of the Frankfurt school, Benjamin and later cultural studies have non-elitist cultural view about popular culture, as a critical venue for resistance and intelligence. In this juxtaposition of the earlier view of Marxist cultural theory and its latter view, there are contributing factors that led to this change such as the changing roles of ideology, culture, the period in which culture has shaped the generation, class consciousness and changing roles of people and their behavior.
Another theory that I would like to tackle is about feminism. As a female, I would like to assert my rights as an individual devoid of any prejudice. It is the time for the women to speak since they have been silenced for so many years. The silence of the women for a long period of time has its consequences, particularly the prevalence of the patriarch state of the society. I am a victim of this since the society that I live in is built on such gendered ideas. Alex, Vanessa and my groupmates realized this when we were in doing a report in Dr. Carsi Cruz’s class. We were so proud that we analyzed the “Politics of the Banana” in such a logical and rational manner. But the fact that logic and rationality is founded much on the Western ideas by men is such a bad way to analyze the complexity of the feminist ideas. As men and women narrate the world differently, our group didn’t realize that we were using the narration and the framework of men to analyze the narration of women. We didn’t make the invisible visible. We just merely touched the surface. In this aspect, we were never raised up knowing the true essence of feminist ideas. That is why I think it is essential to take “herstories” and the feminist cultural studies into consideration, not only because they are interesting and liberating but rather they offer a different take on things. Since I am also a woman, who is also judged by the society, I think it is important for me to imbibe these theories in my thoughts and in my actions.
