Important Marxist concepts (and examples from Oleanna that illustrate them)

1. Ideology: Ideologies are the changing ideas, values, and feelings through which individuals experience their societies.They present the dominant ideas and values as the beliefs of society as a whole, thus preventing individuals from seeing how society actually functions. Literature, as a cultural production, is a form of ideology, one that legitimizes the power of the ruling class. In the eighteenth century, for example, literature was used by the English upper classes both to express and transmit the dominant value systems to the lower classes.”

2. Hegemony: is a pretty complex concept, but . . . it’s a form of power, influence, and (often hidden)coercion that “[. . . ] does not just passively exist as a form of dominance. It has continually to be renewed, recreated, defended, and modified. It is also continually resisted, limited, altered, challenged by pressures not all its own”, according to Raymond Williams a preeminent Marxist theorist (his “Marxism and Literature” is one of the additional pieces of Marxist theory I posted for you in BB.)

Keep in mind that a Marxist believes that no one/no group “owns” power; it’s out there, circulating, until someone grabs it, and it’s slippery, too – one might have easily get it and even more easily lose it, and thus the need for it to be “renewed . . . altered”, etc. 

Consider John’s recognition of hegemony operating in his feud with Carol: he says, “is it not always at those points that we consider ourselves least assailable that we are the most vulnerable?” )

Hegemony is both dynamic and “. . . it attempts to neutralize opposition – ‘the decisive hegemonic function is to control or transform or even incorporate [alternatives and opposition]’" (also Williams). Hegemony is also “the necessary condition for a successful overthrow of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat and its allies”.

If you consider Carol part of the proletariat group and John as a part of the bourgeoisie who exercises social and educational hegemony, we see how this condition is operating prior to the a major shift in power dynamics.

According to another major Marxist theorist, Antonio Gramsci, “hegemony, therefore, is a process by which "educative pressure [is] applied to single individuals so as to obtain their consent and their collaboration, turning necessity and coercion into 'freedom' . . .." The "freedom" produced by instruments of the ruling class thus molds the "free" subject to the needs of an economic base, "the continuous development of the economic apparatus of production." Essentially, this is a condition/process whereby people can be manipulated and controlled so long as they are made to feel/believe that they’re free. Hegemony is further described by Gramsci as “"the "'spontaneous' consent given by the great masses of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group [i.e. the ruling class – in Gramsci's Western Europe, the bourgeoisie]; this consent is 'historically' caused by the prestige (and consequent confidence) which the dominant group enjoys because of its position and function in the world of production. For Gramsci, hegemony is exercised primarily through the superstructure. This is an important distinction as we move to the . . .

3. Superstructure: according to Williams in “Marxism and Literature”:

1. "(a) legal and political forms which express existing real relations of production;
2. (b) forms of consciousness which express a particular class view of the world;
3. (c) a process in which, over a whole range of activities, men [sic] become conscious of a fundamental economic conflict and fight it out.

A simpler definition of superstructure: “all human institutions and ideologies . . . including all social and legal institutions, all political and educational systems, all religions, and all art. These ideologies and institutions develop as a direct result of the economic means of production, not the other way around.” (this comes from Charles Bressler, who wrote the introduction to theory text I use regularly with my students). How do you think the superstructure works with regard to higher education?

4. Economic base: the economic means of production in a given society (a Marxist would suggest that the economic base of a capitalist system is exploitative and designed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

An elite university (or any college, really), the kind at which John teaches and Carol attends, has an economic base; the mighty budget controls the organization of everything: the tenure John is on the verge of getting, the tuition that Carol likely has paid for her through grants and scholarships, etc.)John, of course, hopes to attain tenure primarily for the economic value – as he admits, “I have an interest in the status quo” (as opposed to wanting tenure purely for altruistic reasons).

5. Proletariat: from the good ol’ Manifesto: "the class of modern wage-labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour-power in order to live".

Can you see how Carol might be a symbolic representation of the proletariat position?

Lenin himself articulated the proletariat "As the only consistently revolutionary class of contemporary society, [the proletariat] must be the leader in the struggle of the whole people for a fully democratic revolution, in the struggle of all the working and exploited people against the oppressors and exploiters.”

 Obviously, Carol, then, is the visible face of her group, which is working toward unseating John, who’s obviously the exploiter (from Carol’s point of view, of course).

From Bressler: “Consciously and unconsciously, the ruling class forces its ideology on the working class or the proletariat, also called the wage slaves. In effect, the bourgeoisie develops and controls the superstructure. In such a system, the rich become richer, and the poor become poorer and increasingly more oppressed. The bourgeoisie’s ideology effectively works to perpetuate the system upon which it was founded. By controlling material [economic] relationships, the bourgeoisie controls a society’s ideology” (emphasis mine).

Blog Post 1 (due by Sat. 9/29)

You CAN elect to write an extended answer to one of these questions as your 10-paragraph paper. If you are considering doing so, I'd answer that question here to get a head start/develop part of your paper via your blog response.

Each time you blog, you are responsible for answering one or two questions (thoroughly and thoughtfully) and responding to at least two peer posts. Your responses to others' posts should help further develop the conversation, extend/explore ideas introduced, and/or ask the writer critical questions about his/her response in order to extend said conversation.) 

Question 1: Marxist theorist Georg Luka´cs, a Russian formalist, believed that “a detailed analysis of symbols, images, and other literary devices would reveal class conflict and expose the direct relationship between the economic base and the superstructure reflected in art. [This is] known as reflection theory. This approach to literary analysis declares that a text directly reflects a society’s consciousness . . . For these theorists, literature is a part of the superstructure and directly reflects the economic base. By giving a text a close reading, these critics believe they can reveal the reality of a text and the author’s Weltanschauung, or worldview. It is the critic’s job to show how the characters within the text are typical of their historical, socioeconomic setting and the author’s worldview.”

Using the general idea of reflection theory, explain how the characters in Oleanna reflect real-world (and American) ideas, problems, concerns, beliefs (for example, how does the play reveal anxieties about higher education? The tenure system? How does the play reflect concerns about sexual harassment in the workplace (its use as a “tool” to advance versus genuine accusation)? What does the play establish about students coming from a working class, or as Carol says, “a different social, a different economic” place and who endure “prejudices” that can be “economic” and “sexual” (among other things)? Basically, how does the play reflect the position of a lower-class student whose economic and sexual positions/preferences are outside the dominant ideal? What does the play establish about exploitation in the classroom that might mirror what can and does happen to students and professors? Etc. etc. What do you think the author’s worldview might look like based purely on Oleanna?

Question 2, which corresponds directly to definition 2 (hegemony): How, specifically, is hegemony exercised in Oleanna? Where does it begin to fail? “Unlike Luka´cs and his followers who assert that the superstructure reflects the economic base, the Italian Antonio Gramsci  . . . declares that a complex relationship exists between the base and the superstructure. How, Gramsci asks, is the bourgeoisie able to control and maintain its dominance over the proletariat? His answer: the bourgeoisie establish and maintain what he calls hegemony, which is the assumptions, values, and meanings that shape meaning and define reality for the majority of people in a given culture. . . . This shaping of a people’s ideologies is, according to Gramsci, a kind of deception whereby the majority of people forget about or abandon their own interests and desires and accept the dominant values and beliefs as their own.” How does hegemony control Carol and/or John’s assumptions, values, and meanings? (John actually explores this question implicitly when he notes that going to college became, “after the war,” a trend for those who were already part of or “aspiring to the new vast middle class”, that people have accepted a college education as a given good and a necessity but “have ceased to ask: what is it good for?” Effectively, they’ve accepted the dominant assumption that college is a must, even if it isn’t particularly necessary or important to one’s actual desires.)

Question 4: What kind of social class conflicts does the text reveal? That is, what sort of conflict will likely arise when a member of the working class and the middle/upper middle class collide? (An example from Oleanna: Carol confronts John again and again about his language, or jargon, consistently asking him to define his terms. John uses academic jargon without even noticing he’s doing so; his complicated lexicon is so internalized that he seemingly doesn’t notice that he may be excluding students by failing to explain terms. Thus, the class conflict at hand involves the use of specialized language, usually acquired only via a college education, versus the use of the vernacular (everyday, ordinary language). Is John’s jargon elitist? Exclusionist? Does it afford him a particular kind of power? Would Carol or someone like her (since we know that, ultimately, she understands John just fine) be considered oppressed by the language of the dominant educated elite? Another possibility: the “group’s” ideology versus John’s/ideology of the university.)

***Several of the articles I posted deal particularly with language and power in Oleanna.

Question 5: According to the author of the scholarly article “PC Powerplay: Language and Representation in Oleanna”, The inhabitants of Mamet's plays
find their identity, and thus their personal power, through language.”  Explain this process as you see it happening in the play. If you choose this question please read and quote from my essay titled “Language and Its Discontents” and Connections to Oleanna”. (Mine is grouped with the other critical essays in BB).

Question 6: Scholar Richard Badenhausen (“The Modern Academy Raging in the Dark: Misreading Mamet's Political Incorrectness in Oleanna"), acknowledges that “In discussing the 1992 debut of David Mamet's Oleanna, audiences and critics tended to highlight two features of the play: its indictment of political correctness on college campuses in America and its treatment of sexual harassment, an issue made more potent then by the just-concluded October, 1991, Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings.¹ Both of these timely themes allowed spectators of varied political persuasions to take up the cause of the Left or Right via the play's two characters, characters polarized not only in their gender, but physically, generationally, and educationally.”

However, he argues that, “Oleanna ultimately explores the perils of inferior teaching and the subsequent misreadings that necessarily follow in a pedagogical environment that tacitly reinforces (instead of collapsing or bridging) hierarchical differences amongst its participants. In fact, this is more a play about teaching, reading, and understanding: how to do those things well and the consequences of doing them poorly. As such, Oleanna offers an ominous commentary on education in America and more particularly functions as a dire warning both to and about those doing the educating.”

Do you agree with his reading? Is the play a cautionary tale meant to warn both would-be and current students and professors? Do you disagree? Be sure to use clear textual examples to support your answer.

Question 7: J.K Curry (“David Mamet's Oleanna as Commentary on Sexual Harassment in the Academy”) asserts that "The problem with Oleanna is that it is not really, or not primarily, about sexual harassment at all but  rather about false allegations. Or, perhaps more accurately, about exaggerated or distorted claims of harassment, for John actually has said or done many of the things in Carol's report, though in slightly different context. The work obscures the issue of sexual harassment by suggesting that sexual harassment is really a ploy of militant feminists to disempower and destroy whilte, middle-class, male academics." (The article as a whole offers a Marxist/feminist analysis of the play.)

Do you agree with Curry? If so, how and where does the play argue that sexual harassment is simply a tool of disempowerment meant to destroy those with more power and cultural cache (white educated males being a major such group)? Be sure to quote directly from the article.

Question 8: In well known feminist theorist Elaine Showalter’s indictment of Oleanna ("Acts of Violence: David Mamet and the Language of Men"), “In making his female protagonist a dishonest, androgynous zealot, and his male protagonist a devoted husband and father who defends freedom of thought, Mamet does not exactly wrestle with the moral complexities of sexual harassment. What he has written is a polarizing play about a false accusation of sexual harassment, and that would be fair enough--false accusations of harassment, rape and child abuse indeed occur--if he were not claiming to present a balanced, Rashomon-like case. The disturbing questions about power, gender and paranoia raised in Oleanna cannot be resolved with an irrational act of violence.

Essentially, Showalter is saying that the characters are drawn so extremely that the play doesn’t accomplish what Mamet suggested it should (he tells us that, no matter who’s side your on, you’re “wrong”, which suggests their perspectives are presented fairly and in a balanced manner). What do you think?