post class 10/24

On Thursday in class, we discussed readings by Karl Marx and Louis Althusser. There were many things that we talked about that struck my interest. The first is the notion of ideology and class. Marx states, “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas. The class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, consequently also controls the means of mental production” (Marx, 39). The notion that whoever controls what is produced in a society creates the ideas that society lives around. We related this to our society as Americans and consumerism. The ruling class wants us to spend in order to keep production going. The ruling class encourages us to buy because in our society, the way you are looked at in society depends on the value of the “stuff” that you own.

Another concept of ideology that I found interesting was the idea of an ideology vanishing when another ideology threatens it. Marx also says, “Within this class this cleavage can even develop into a certain opposition and hostility between the two parts, but whenever a practical collision occurs in which the class itself is endangered they automatically vanish” (Marx, 38). The way we related this concept in class was by comparing it to the September 11^th attacks on the twin towers. We talked about the picture of congress linking arms. The interesting part about it was both republicans and democrats are linking arms. The ideology of republicans and democrats running the country different ways vanished because the terrorist’s ideology collided bringing an ideology of togetherness and the country coming together as one.

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