Humanistic Theories

Humanistic theories used within social work practice originated from humanistic psychology,
which developed in response to the psychodynamic and behavioral theories that focused on
human behavior and personality being determined by the unconscious or through reinforcers
from the social environment. Humanistic psychology saw that these two prominent theories
viewed individuals in response to events that they were not able to fully control and failed to
view the individual as meaning-making and purposeful. Humanistic theories stress the ultimate
good of humans and their potential, creativity, health, hope, meaning, connection, purpose, and
ability to reach self-actualization, or for individuals to achieve their full potential (Crain, 2011).
Phenomenology and existentialism are two theoretical schools of thought that
underpin humanistic theory. Phenomenology is the exploration of conscious perspectives and
experiences of phenomena and the meanings one attributes to such phenomena. Existentialism
focuses on individual existence and the meaning one gives to her/his life. The central aspect to
both phenomenology and existentialism is the lived subjective and conscious experiences of
individuals, how individuals experience and attribute meaning to the phenomena to which they
encounter, how they make sense of life, and how they make sense of their place and meaning
within the world (Sharf, 2012).
The five core values of humanistic theory include the following: (1) human beings supersede the
sum of their parts; (2) human beings have their existence in a uniquely human context, as well as
in a cosmic ecology; (3) human beings are conscious – they are aware and aware of being aware
both of oneself and in the context of other people; (4) human beings have some choice and, thus,
responsibility; and (5) human beings are intentional, aim at goals, are aware that they
cause future events, and seek meaning, value, and creativity (Greening, 2006: p. 239).
Humanistic theory can be found to underpin aspects of developmental theories, such as Maslow's
hierarchy of needs, where an individual aims to achieve self-actualization, and Erikson's later
stage of old age, ego integrity versus despair, as well as many therapeutic approaches that aim to
explore and respect the experiences of individuals as humans and the meanings they attribute to
such phenomena. Humanistic theory underpins Rogers' person-centered approach, which
highlights the importance of empathy, unconditional positive regard, and genuineness in
developing a therapeutic relationship that will lead to personality and behavioral change within
the client (Sharf, 2012).
Humanistic theories are useful to social work practice as they provide a theoretical basis for
viewing individuals, their experiences in the world, and the meanings they attribute to such
experiences. Such theories are primarily used in assessment and intervention stages of social
work practice. Using humanistic theories in the assessment stage would involve a social worker
being empathic, having unconditional positive regard, and being genuine when interacting with a
client in order to establish a relationship and fully see the client as an individual when assessing
her/his situation. The intervention stage might involve a social worker employing interventions
that would explore the client's experiences, meanings, hopes, and aspirations. Such interventions
often used in social work practice are person-centered approach, existential therapy,
counseling, gestalt therapy, hypnosis, meditation, motivational interviewing, and advocacy.
PIECE:
The Little Prince is a secular-humanist story in the way it presents people as inherently good, but
flawed. In this story, human beings are born noble, and children keep their innocence and moral
virtue, but sometimes adults lose sight of it. The story encourages us to get back in touch with
our “inner child” and presents the hopeful possibility that we can all become happier and more
ethical if we hang on to our childish innocence.

Structuralism
Another important theoretical approach to the concept of social structure is structuralism
(sometimes called French structuralism), which studies the underlying, unconscious regularities
of human expression—that is, the unobservable structures that have observable effects on
behaviour, society, and culture. French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss derived this theory
from structural linguistics, developed by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. According to
Saussure, any language is structured in the sense that its elements are interrelated in nonarbitrary,
regular, rule-bound ways; a competent speaker of the language largely follows these rules
without being aware of doing so. The task of the theorist is to detect this underlying structure,
including the rules of transformation that connect the structure to the various observed
expressions.

According to Lévi-Strauss, this same method can be applied to social and cultural life in general.
He constructed theories concerning the underlying structure of kinship systems, myths, and
customs of cooking and eating. The structural method, in short, purports to detect the common
structure of widely different social and cultural forms. This structure does not determine concrete
expressions, however; the variety of expressions it generates is potentially unlimited. Moreover,
the structures that generate the varieties of social and cultural forms ultimately reflect, according
to Lévi-Strauss, basic characteristics of the human mind.

Structures such as the human mind, grammar, and language are sometimes called “deep
structures” or “substructures.” Since such structures are not readily observable, they must be
discerned from intensive interpretive analysis of myths, language, or texts. Then they can be
applied to explain the customs or traits of social institutions. French philosopher Michel
Foucault, for example, used this approach in his study of corporal punishment. His research led
him to conclude that the abolition of corporal punishment by liberal states was an illusion,
because the state substituted punishment of the “soul” by monitoring and controlling both the
behaviour of prisoners and the behaviour of everyone in the society.

Structuralism became an intellectual fashion in the 1960s in France, where writers as different

as Roland Barthes, Foucault, and Louis Althusser were regarded as representatives of the new
theoretical current. In this broad sense, however, structuralism is not one coherent theoretical
perspective. The Marxist structuralism of Althusser, for example, is far removed from the
anthropological structuralism of Lévi-Strauss. The structural method, when applied by different
scholars, appears to lead to different results.

The onslaught of criticism launched against structural functionalism, class theories, and

structuralism indicates the problematic nature of the concept of social structure. Yet the notion of
social structure is not easy to dispense with, because it expresses ideas of continuity, regularity,
and interrelatedness in social life. Other terms are often used that have similar, but not identical,
meanings, including social network, social figuration, and social system. Starting with his work
in general sociological theory in the mid-1970s, British sociologist Anthony Giddens suggested
the term structuration to express the view that social life is, to a certain extent, both dynamic and
ordered.

The critical difference between social structure theory and structuralism is one of approach.
Analysis of social structure uses standard empirical (observational) methods to arrive at
generalizations about society, while structuralism uses subjective, interpretive,
phenomenological, and qualitative analysis. Most sociologists prefer the social structure
approach and regard structuralism as philosophical—that is, more compatible with the
humanities than with the social sciences. Still, a significant number of sociologists insist that
structuralism occupies a legitimate place in their discipline.

Recent Trends In Social Structure Theory

Currently, those pursuing research in the area of social structure follow limited but practical
goals. They focus on the development of theories, laws, generalizations, calculi, and methods
that account for structural regularities in society. They are not, however, concerned with
demonstrating the limitless structural regularities in society (such as linguistic routines, the
permanence of national boundaries, the stability of religious practices, or the durability
of gender or racial inequality).

In concrete terms, the task of structural analysis is not so much to account for poverty, for
example, as it is to account for the rates of poverty. Likewise, the analysis focuses on empirical
data such as the distribution of cities in the world, the patterns of land use, the shifts in
educational achievement, changes in occupational structure, the manifestation of revolutions, the
increase in collaboration between institutions, the existence of networks among groups, the
routines of different types of organizations, the cycles of growth or decline in organizations and
institutions, or the unintended collective consequences of individual choices.

Only a few sociologists have developed structural theories that apply to institutions and whole
societies—an approach known as macrosociology. Gerhard Lenski in Power and
Privilege (1966) classified societies on the basis of their main tools of subsistence and, unlike
Marx, demonstrated statistically that variations in the primary tools used in a given society
systematically accounted for different types of social stratification systems.

An entire specialty in sociology is built on a structural theory developed by Amos Hawley

in Human Ecology (1986). For Hawley, the explanatory variables are the makeup of
the population, the external environment, the complex of organizations, and technology.
Research has revealed that these variables account for differences in the spatial characteristics,
rhythm of activities, mobility patterns, and external relations between communities in various
parts of the world. Applying this framework to the world ecosystem, Hawley focused on the
problem of its expansion and growth. Unlike Marxist world systems theory, which emphasizes
political factors, Hawley’s work has emphasized technology as the critical factor. He argued that
the growth and spread of technology leads to population growth, burdens the land, and prompts
changes in the organization of institutions. At worst, according to Hawley, the long-term costs of
expansion would lead to polarization and inequality, urban decay, environmental destruction, and
political instability, which over time must result in a reordering of the ecosystem.

In Structural Contexts of Opportunities (1994), Peter M. Blau developed a formal

macrosociological theory concerning the influences of large population structures on social life.
He identified how different population groups relate to each other. He found that occupational
heterogeneity increases the chance for contact between people in different status groups. For
populations with multiple-group affiliations, in-group associations tend to promote intergroup
relations.

These are some examples of ways in which logically drawn abstract generalizations provide
insights about society. Such findings are approached through macrosociological or structural
theory and are not readily available through the study of individuals or isolated groups.

PIECE:
The painting This is Not a Pipe by the Belgian Surrealist artist Rene Magritte explicates the
treachery of signs and can be considered a founding stone of Structuralism. Foucault‘s book with
the same title comments on the painting and stresses the incompatibility of visual representation
and reality.

Deconstruction
Deconstruction, form of philosophical and literary analysis, derived mainly from work begun in
the 1960s by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, that questions the
fundamental conceptual distinctions, or “oppositions,” in Western philosophy through a close
examination of the language and logic of philosophical and literary texts. In the 1970s the term
was applied to work by Derrida, Paul de Man, J. Hillis Miller, and Barbara Johnson, among other
scholars. In the 1980s it designated more loosely a range of radical theoretical enterprises
in diverse areas of the humanities and social sciences, including—in addition to philosophy and
literature—law, psychoanalysis, architecture, anthropology, theology, feminism, gay and lesbian
studies, political theory, historiography, and film theory. In polemical discussions
about intellectual trends of the late 20th-century, deconstruction was sometimes used
pejoratively to suggest nihilism and frivolous skepticism. In popular usage the term has come to
mean a critical dismantling of tradition and traditional modes of thought.
Deconstruction In Philosophy

The oppositions challenged by deconstruction, which have been inherent in Western philosophy

since the time of the ancient Greeks, are characteristically “binary” and “hierarchical,” involving
a pair of terms in which one member of the pair is assumed to be primary or fundamental, the
other secondary or derivative. Examples include nature and culture, speech and writing, mind
and body, presence and absence, inside and outside, literal and metaphorical, intelligible and
sensible, and form and meaning, among many others. To “deconstruct” an opposition is to
explore the tensions and contradictions between the hierarchical ordering assumed (and
sometimes explicitly asserted) in the text and other aspects of the text’s meaning, especially
those that are indirect or implicit or that rely on figurative or performative uses of language.
Through this analysis, the opposition is shown to be a product, or “construction,” of the text
rather than something given independently of it.

In the writings of the French Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for example,

society and culture are described as corrupting and oppressive forces that gradually develop out
of an idyllic “state of nature” in which humans exist in self-sufficient and peaceful isolation from
one another. For Rousseau, then, nature is prior to culture. Yet there is another sense in which
culture is certainly prior to nature: the idea of nature is a product of culture, and what counts as
“nature” or “natural” at any given historical moment will vary depending upon the culture of the
time. What this fact shows is not that the terms of the nature/culture opposition should be
inverted—that culture is really prior to nature—but rather that the relation between the terms is
not one-sided and unidirectional, as Rousseau and others had assumed. The point of the
deconstructive analysis is to restructure, or “displace,” the opposition, not simply to reverse it.

For Derrida, the most telling and pervasive opposition is the one that treats writing as secondary
to or derivative of speech. According to this opposition, speech is a more authentic form of
language, because in speech the ideas and intentions of the speaker are immediately “present”
(spoken words, in this idealized picture, directly express what the speaker “has in mind”),
whereas in writing they are more remote or “absent” from the speaker or author and thus more
liable to misunderstanding. As Derrida argues, however, spoken words function as linguistic
signs only to the extent that they can be repeated in different contexts, in the absence of the
speaker who originally utters them. Speech qualifies as language, in other words, only to the
extent that it has characteristics traditionally assigned to writing, such as “absence,” “difference”
(from the original context of utterance), and the possibility of misunderstanding. One indication
of this fact, according to Derrida, is that descriptions of speech in Western philosophy often rely
on examples and metaphors related to writing. In effect, these texts describe speech as a form of
writing, even in cases where writing is explicitly claimed to be secondary to speech. As with the
opposition between nature and culture, however, the point of the deconstructive analysis is not to
show that the terms of the speech/writing opposition should be inverted—that writing is really
prior to speech—nor is it to show that there are no differences between speech and writing.
Rather, it is to displace the opposition so as to show that neither term is primary. For Derrida,
speech and writing are both forms of a more generalized “arche-writing” (archi-écriture),
which encompasses not only all of natural language but any system of representation whatsoever.
The “privileging” of speech over writing is based on what Derrida considers a distorted (though
very pervasive) picture of meaning in natural language, one that identifies the meanings of words
with certain ideas or intentions in the mind of the speaker or author. Derrida’s argument against
this picture is an extension of an insight by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. For
Saussure, the concepts we associate with linguistic signs (their “meanings”) are only arbitrarily
related to reality, in the sense that the ways in which they divide and group the world are not
natural or necessary, reflecting objectively existing categories, but variable (in principle) from
language to language. Hence, meanings can be adequately understood only with reference to the
specific contrasts and differences they display with other, related meanings. For Derrida,
similarly, linguistic meaning is determined by the “play” of differences between words—a play
that is “limitless,” “infinite,” and “indefinite”—and not by an original idea or intention existing
prior to and outside language. Derrida coined the term différance, meaning both a difference and
an act of deferring, to characterize the way in which meaning is created through the play of
differences between words. Because the meaning of a word is always a function of contrasts with
the meanings of other words, and because the meanings of those words are in turn dependent on
contrasts with the meanings of still other words (and so on), it follows that the meaning of a
word is not something that is fully present to us; it is endlessly deferred in an infinitely long
chain of meanings, each of which contains the “traces” of the meanings on which it depends.

Derrida contends that the opposition between speech and writing is a manifestation of the
“logocentrism” of Western culture—i.e., the general assumption that there is a realm of “truth”
existing prior to and independent of its representation by linguistic signs. Logocentrism
encourages us to treat linguistic signs as distinct from and inessential to the phenomena they
represent, rather than as inextricably bound up with them. The logocentric conception of truth
and reality as existing outside language derives in turn from a deep-seated prejudice in Western
philosophy, which Derrida characterizes as the “metaphysics of presence.” This is the tendency
to conceive fundamental philosophical concepts such as truth, reality, and being in terms of ideas
such as presence, essence, identity, and origin—and in the process to ignore the crucial role of
absence and difference.

Deconstruction In Literary Studies

Deconstruction’s reception was coloured by its intellectual predecessors, most

notably structuralism and New Criticism. Beginning in France in the 1950s, the structuralist
movement in anthropology analyzed various cultural phenomena as general systems of “signs”
and attempted to develop “metalanguages” of terms and concepts in which the different sign
systems could be described. Structuralist methods were soon applied to other areas of the social
sciences and humanities, including literary studies. Deconstruction offered a powerful critique of
the possibility of creating detached, scientific metalanguages and was thus categorized (along
with kindred efforts) as “post-structuralist.” Anglo-American New Criticism sought to
understand verbal works of art (especially poetry) as complex constructions made up of different
and contrasting levels of literal and nonliteral meanings, and it emphasized the role
of paradox and irony in these artifacts. Deconstructive readings, in contrast, treated works of art
not as the harmonious fusion of literal and figurative meanings but as instances of the intractable
conflicts between meanings of different types. They generally examined the individual work not
as a self-contained artifact but as a product of relations with other texts or discourses, literary and
nonliterary. Finally, these readings placed special emphasis on the ways in which the works
themselves offered implicit critiques of the categories that critics used to analyze them. In the
United States in the 1970s and ’80s, deconstruction played a major role in the animation and
transformation of literary studies by literary theory (often referred to simply as “theory”), which
was concerned with questions about the nature of language, the production of meaning, and the
relationship between literature and the numerous discourses that structure human experience and
its histories.

Deconstruction In The Social Sciences And The Arts

Deconstruction’s influence widened to include a variety of other disciplines. In psychoanalysis,

deconstructive readings of texts by Sigmund Freud and others drew attention to the role of
language in the formation of the psyche; showed how psychoanalytic case studies are shaped by
the kinds of psychic mechanisms that they purport to analyze (thus, Freud’s writings are
themselves organized by processes of repression, condensation, and displacement); and
questioned the logocentric presuppositions of psychoanalytic theory. Some strands
of feminist thinking engaged in a deconstruction of the opposition between “man” and “woman”
and critiqued essentialist notions of gender and sexual identity. The work of Judith Butler, for
example, challenged the claim that feminist politics requires a distinct identity for women.
Arguing that identity is the product or result of action rather than the source of it, they embraced
a performative concept of identity modeled on the way in which linguistic acts (such as
promising) work to bring into being the entities (the promise) to which they refer. This
perspective was influential in gay and lesbian studies, or “queer theory,” as the academic avant-
garde linked to movements of gay liberation styled itself.

In the United States, the Critical Legal Studies movement applied deconstruction to legal writing
in an effort to reveal conflicts between principles and counterprinciples in legal theory. The
movement explored fundamental oppositions such as public and private, essence and accident,
and substance and form. In anthropology, deconstruction contributed to an increased awareness
of the role that anthropological field-workers play in shaping, rather than merely describing, the
situations they report on and to a greater concern about the discipline’s historical connections to
colonialism.

Finally, the influence of deconstruction spread beyond the humanities and social sciences to the
arts and architecture. Combining deconstruction’s interest in tension and oppositions with the
design vocabulary of Russian constructivism, deconstructivist architects such as Frank
Gehry challenged the functionalist aesthetic of modern architecture through designs using radical
geometries, irregular forms, and complex, dynamic constructions.

Influence And Criticism

In all the fields it influenced, deconstruction called attention to rhetorical and performative

aspects of language use, and it encouraged scholars to consider not only what a text says but also
the relationship—and potential conflict—between what a text says and what it “does.” In various
disciplines, deconstruction also prompted an exploration of fundamental oppositions and critical
terms and a reexamination of ultimate goals. Most generally, deconstruction joined with other
strands of poststructural and postmodern thinking to inspire a suspicion of established
intellectual categories and a skepticism about the possibility of objectivity. Consequently,
its diffusion was met with a sizeable body of opposition. Some philosophers, especially those in
the Anglo-American tradition, dismissed it as obscurantist wordplay whose major claims, when
intelligible, were either trivial or false. Others accused it of being ahistorical and apolitical. Still
others regarded it as a nihilistic endorsement of radical epistemic relativism. Despite such
attacks, deconstruction has had an enormous impact on a variety of intellectual enterprises.

PIECE:
Snow  BY FREDERICK SEIDEL
Snow is what it does.
It falls and it stays and it goes.
It melts and it is here somewhere.
We all will get there.

-look at the symbolism of snow to extract the opposite: white, cold, winter. Usually symbolizing
death so the opposite could be life. This poem then could be talking about the rebirth of humans.
What is Psychoanalysis?
Psychoanalysis is a type of therapy that aims to release pent-up or repressed emotions and
memories in or to lead the client to catharsis, or healing (McLeod, 2014). In other words, the
goal of psychoanalysis is to bring what exists at the unconscious or subconscious level up to
consciousness.

This goal is accomplished through talking to another person about the big questions in life, the
things that matter, and diving into the complexities that lie beneath the simple-seeming surface.

The Founder of Psychoanalysis: Sigmund Freud and His Concepts

It’s very likely you’ve heard of the influential but controversial founder of psychoanalysis:
Sigmund Freud.

Freud was born in Austria and spent most of his childhood and adult life in Vienna (Sigmund
Freud Biography, 2017). He entered medical school and trained to become a neurologist, earning
a medical degree in 1881.

Soon after his graduation, he set up a private practice and began treating patients with
psychological disorders.

His attention was captured by a colleague’s intriguing experience with a patient; the colleague
was Dr. Josef Breuer and his patient was the famous “Anna O.,” who suffered from physical
symptoms with no apparent physical cause.

Dr. Breuer found that her symptoms abated when he helped her recover memories of traumatic
experiences that she had repressed, or hidden from her conscious mind.

This case sparked Freud’s interest in the unconscious mind and spurred the development of some
of his most influential ideas.

 
Models of the Mind

Perhaps the most impactful idea put forth by Freud was his model of the human mind. His model
divides the mind into three layers, or regions:

1. Conscious: This is where our current thoughts, feelings, and focus live;
2. Preconscious (sometimes called the subconscious): This is the home of everything we can
recall or retrieve from our memory;
3. Unconscious: At the deepest level of our minds resides a repository of the processes that
drive our behavior, including primitive and instinctual desires (McLeod, 2013).

Later, Freud posited a more structured model of the mind, one that can coexist with his original
ideas about consciousness and unconsciousness.

In this model, there are three metaphorical parts to the mind:

1. Id: The id operates at an unconscious level and focuses solely on instinctual drives and
desires. Two biological instincts make up the id, according to Freud: eros, or the instinct
to survive that drives us to engage in life-sustaining activities, and thanatos, or the death
instinct that drives destructive, aggressive, and violent behavior.

2. Ego: The ego acts as both a conduit for and a check on the id, working to meet the id’s
needs in a socially appropriate way. It is the most tied to reality and begins to develop in
infancy;

3. Superego: The superego is the portion of the mind in which morality and higher
principles reside, encouraging us to act in socially and morally acceptable ways
(McLeod, 2013).

The image above offers a context of this “iceberg” model wherein much of our mind exists in the
realm of the unconscious impulses and drives.

If you’ve ever read the book “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding, then you have enjoyed the
allegory of Freud’s mind as personified by Jack as the Id, Piggy as the ego, and Ralph as the
superego.
Defense Mechanisms

Freud believed these three parts of the mind are in constant conflict because each part has a
different primary goal. Sometimes, when the conflict is too much for a person to handle, his or
her ego may engage in one or many defense mechanisms to protect the individual.

These defense mechanisms include:

 Repression: The ego pushes disturbing or threatening thoughts out of one’s

consciousness;

 Denial: The ego blocks upsetting or overwhelming experiences from awareness, causing

the individual to refuse to acknowledge or believe what is happening;

 Projection: The ego attempts to solve discomfort by attributing the individual’s

unacceptable thoughts, feelings, and motives to another person;

 Displacement: The individual satisfies an impulse by acting on a substitute object or

person in a socially unacceptable way (e.g., releasing frustration directed toward your
boss on your spouse instead);

 Regression: As a defense mechanism, the individual moves backward in development in

order to cope with stress (e.g., an overwhelmed adult acting like a child);

 Sublimation: Similar to displacement, this defense mechanism involves satisfying an

impulse by acting on a substitute but in a socially acceptable way (e.g., channeling
energy into work or a constructive hobby) (McLeod, 2013).

The 5 Psychosexual Stages of Development

Finally, one of the most enduring concepts associated with Freud is his psychosexual stages.
Freud proposed that children develop in five distinct stages, each focused on a different source of
pleasure:

1. First Stage: Oral—the child seeks pleasure from the mouth (e.g., sucking);

2. Second Stage: Anal—the child seeks pleasure from the anus (e.g., withholding and
expelling feces);

3. Third Stage: Phallic—the child seeks pleasure from the penis or clitoris (e.g.,
masturbation);

4. Fourth Stage: Latent—the child has little or no sexual motivation;

 5. Fifth Stage: Genital—the child seeks pleasure from the penis or vagina (e.g., sexual
intercourse; McLeod, 2013).

Freud hypothesized that an individual must successfully complete each stage to become a
psychologically healthy adult with a fully formed ego and superego. Otherwise, individuals may
become stuck or “fixated” in a particular stage, causing emotional and behavioral problems in
adulthood (McLeod, 2013).

The Interpretation of Dreams

Another well-known concept from Freud was his belief in the significance of dreams. He
believed that analyzing one’s dreams can give valuable insight into the unconscious mind.

In 1900, Freud published the book The Interpretation of Dreams in which he outlined his
hypothesis that the primary purpose of dreams was to provide individuals with wish fulfillment,
allowing them to work through some of their repressed issues in a situation free from
consciousness and the constraints of reality (Sigmund Freud Biography, n.d.).

In this book, he also distinguished between the manifest content (the actual dream) and the latent
content (the true or hidden meaning behind the dream).

The purpose of dreams is to translate forbidden wishes and taboo desires into a non-threatening
form through condensation (the joining of two or more ideas), displacement (transformation of
the person or object we are concerned about into something or someone else), and secondary
elaboration (the unconscious process of turning the wish-fulfillment images or events into a
logical narrative) (McLeod, 2013).

Freud’s ideas about dreams were game-changing. Before Freud, dreams were considered
insignificant and insensible ramblings of the mind at rest. His book provoked a new level of
interest in dreams, an interest that continues to this day.

Jungian Psychology: Carl Jung

Freud’s work was continued, although in altered form, by his student Carl Jung, whose particular
brand of psychology is known as analytical psychology. Jung’s work formed the basis for most
modern psychological theories and concepts.

Jung and Freud shared an interest in the unconscious and worked together in their early days, but
a few key disagreements ended their partnership and allowed Jung to fully devote his attention to
his new psychoanalytic theory.
The three main differences between Freudian psychology and Jungian (or analytical) psychology
are related to:

1. Nature and Purpose of the Libido: Jung saw libido as a general source of psychic energy
that motivated a wide range of human behaviors—from sex to spirituality to creativity—
while Freud saw it as psychic energy that drives only sexual gratification;

2. Nature of the Unconscious: While Freud viewed the unconscious as a storehouse for an

individual’s socially unacceptable repressed desires, Jung believed it was more of a
storehouse for the individual’s repressed memories and what he called the collective or
transpersonal unconscious (a level of unconscious shared with other humans that is made
up of latent memories from our ancestors);

3. Causes of Behavior: Freud saw our behavior as being caused solely by past experiences,
most notably those from childhood, while Jung believed our future aspirations have a
significant impact on our behavior as well (McLeod, 2014).

Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Jacques Lacan

In the mid to late 1900s, the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan called for a return to Freud’s
work, but with a renewed focus on the unconscious and greater attention paid to language.

Lacan drew heavily from his knowledge of linguistics and believed that language was a much
more important piece of the developmental puzzle than Freud assumed.

There are three key concepts of Lacanian psychoanalysis that set it apart from Freud’s original
talk therapy:

1. The Real;
2. Symbolic Order;
3. Mirror Stage.

The Real

While Freud saw the symbolic as being indicative of a person’s unconscious mind, particularly
in dreams, Lacan theorized that “the real” is actually the most foundational level of the human
mind. According to Lacan, we exist in “the real” and experience anxiety because we cannot
control it.

Unlike the symbolic, which Freud proposed could be accessed through psychoanalysis, the real
cannot be accessed. Once we learn and understand language, we are severed completely from the
real. He describes it as the state of nature, in which there exists nothing but a need for food, sex,
safety, etc. (The Real, 2002).

Symbolic Order

Lacan’s symbolic order is one of three orders that concepts, ideas, thoughts, and feelings can be
placed into. Our desires and emotions live in the symbolic order, and this is where they are
interpreted, if possible. Concepts like death and absence may be integrated into the symbolic
order because we have at least some sense of understanding of them, but they may not be
interpreted fully.

Once we learn a language, we move from the real to the symbolic order and are unable to move
back to the real. The real and the symbolic are two of the three orders that live in tension with
one another, the third being the imaginary order (Symbolic Order, 2002).

Mirror Stage

Lacan proposed that there is an important stage of development not covered by Freud called the
“mirror stage.” This aptly named stage is initiated when infants look into a mirror at their own
image. Most infants become fascinated with the image they see in the mirror, and may even try
to interact with it. But eventually, they realize that the image they are seeing is of themselves.

Once they realize this key fact, they incorporate what they see into their sense of “I,” or sense of
self. At this young stage, the image they see may not correspond to their inner understanding of
their physical self, in which case the image becomes an ideal that they strive for as they develop
(Hewitson, 2010).

PIECE;
Heart of Darkness Broken Down
“Poor fool! If he had only left that shutter alone. He had no restraint, no restraint – just like
Kurtz – a tree swayed by the wind. As soon as I had put on a dry pair of slippers, I dragged him
out, after first jerking the spear out of his side, which operation I confess I performed with my
eyes shut tight. His heels leaped together over the little doorstep desperately. Oh! He was heavy,
heavy; heavier than any man on earth, I should imagine. Then without more ado I tipped him
overboard. The current snatched him as though he had been a wisp of grass, and I saw the body
roll over twice before I lost sight of it forever.” (Conrad, 66) Context
• Scene where Marlow is going up the river to the station and the steamer is attacked by the
natives
• The Helmsman is killed
•Eyes shut – trying to hide from the evil that has happened
•However, he is also hiding from the fact that men are capable of doing this and that it could
happen to him
•The weight of the man was weighing on Marlow both physically and mentally
•The sooner that the man is out of sight, the sooner Marlow’s mental weight is lifted
•He is not dumping the body, but getting rid of the crime scene
•“out of sight, out of mind.” • Marlow thinks the Helmsman to be the heaviest man on earth
• Current pulls him away like a single blade of grass
• Weight has no meaning
• Theoretical weight means nothing to Marlow either, making it an ironic parable
• Marlow does not truly understand the severity of the actions in Africa
Feminism
The feminist perspective has much in common with the conflict perspective and throughout this
course, we will typically discuss feminist theory alongside conflict theory, although many
consider it deserving of its own classification. Whereas conflict theory focuses broadly on the
unequal distribution of power and resources, feminist sociology studies power in its relation to
gender. This topic is studied both within social structures at large (at the macro level) and also at
the micro level of face-to-face interaction. Because of this micro level study, feminist theory is
sometimes grouped with symbolic interactionism. Feminist scholars study a range of topics,
including sexual orientation, race, economic status, and nationality. However, at the core of
feminist sociology is the idea that, in most societies, women have been systematically oppressed
and that men have been historically dominant. This is referred to as patriarchy.

Feminist sociology focuses on analyzing the grounds of the limitations faced by women when
they claim the right to equality with men.

Inequality between the genders is a phenomenon that goes back at least 4,000 years (Lerner
1986). Although the forms and ways in which it has been practiced differ between cultures and
change significantly through history, its persistence has led to the formulation of the concept of
patriarchy. Patriarchy refers to a set of institutional structures (like property rights, access to
positions of power, relationship to sources of income) that are based on the belief that men and
women are dichotomous and unequal categories. Key to patriarchy is what might be called
the dominant gender ideology toward sexual differences: the assumption that physiological sex
differences between males and females are related to differences in their character, behavior, and
ability (i.e., their gender). These differences are used to justify a gendered division of social roles
and inequality in access to rewards, positions of power, and privilege. The question that
feminists ask therefore is: How does this distinction between male and female, and the
attribution of different qualities to each, serve to organize our institutions (e.g., the family, law,
the occupational structure, religious institutions, the division between public and private) and to
perpetuate inequality between the sexes?

Feminism is a distinct type of critical sociology. There are considerable differences between
types of feminism, however; for example, the differences often attributed to the first wave of
feminism in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the second wave of feminism from the 1950s to
the 1970s, and the third wave of feminism from the 1980s onward.

At the turn of the century, the first wave of feminism focused on official, political inequalities
and fought for women’s suffrage. In the 1960s, the second wave feminism, also known as the
women’s liberation movement, turned its attention to a broader range of inequalities, including
those in the workplace, the family, and reproductive rights. Currently, a third wave of feminism
is criticizing the fact that the first two waves of feminism were dominated by white women from
advanced capitalist societies. This movement emphasizes diversity and change, and focuses on
concepts such as globalization, post-colonialism, poststructuralism, and postmodernism.
Contemporary feminist thought tends to dismiss generalizations about sex and gender (e.g.,
women are naturally more nurturing) and to emphasize the importance of intersections within
identity (e.g., race and gender). The feminist perspective also recognizes that women who suffer
from oppression due to race, in addition to the oppression they suffer for being women, may find
themselves in a double bind. The relationship between feminism and race was largely overlooked
until the second wave of feminists produced literature on the topic of black feminism. This topic
has received much more attention from third wave scholars and activists.

Despite the variations between different types of feminist approach, there are four characteristics
that are common to the feminist perspective:

1. Gender is a central focus or subject matter of the perspective.

2. Gender relations are viewed as a problem: the site of social inequities, strains, and
contradictions.
3. Gender relations are not immutable: they are sociological and historical in nature, subject
to change and progress.
4. Feminism is about an emancipatory commitment to change: the conditions of life that are
oppressive for women need to be transformed.
One of the keen sociological insights that emerged with the feminist perspective in sociology is
that “the personal is political.” Many of the most immediate and fundamental experiences of
social life—from childbirth to who washes the dishes to the experience of sexual violence—had
simply been invisible or regarded as unimportant politically or socially. Dorothy Smith’s
development of standpoint theory was a key innovation in sociology that enabled these issues
to be seen and addressed in a systematic way (Smith 1977). She recognized from the
consciousness-raising exercises and encounter groups initiated by feminists in the 1960s and
1970s that many of the immediate concerns expressed by women about their personal lives had a
commonality of themes. These themes were nevertheless difficult to articulate in sociological
terms let alone in the language of politics or law.

Part of the issue was sociology itself. Smith argued that instead of beginning sociological
analysis from the abstract point of view of institutions or systems, women’s lives could be more
effectively examined if one began from the “actualities” of their lived experience in the
immediate local settings of “everyday/everynight” life. She asked, What are the common
features of women’s everyday lives? From this standpoint, Smith observed that women’s
position in modern society is acutely divided by the experience of dual consciousness. Every day
women crossed a tangible dividing line when they went from the “particularizing work in
relation to children, spouse, and household” to the institutional world of text-mediated, abstract
concerns at work, or in their dealings with schools, medical systems, or government
bureaucracies. In the abstract world of institutional life, the actualities of local consciousness and
lived life are “obliterated” (Smith 1977). While the standpoint of women is grounded in bodily,
localized, “here and now” relationships between people, due to their obligations in the domestic
sphere, society is organized through “relations of ruling,” which translate the substance of actual
lived experiences into abstract bureaucratic categories. Power and rule in society, especially the
power and rule that constrain and coordinate the lives of women, operate through a problematic
“move into transcendence” that provides accounts of social life as if it were possible to stand
outside of it. Smith argued that the abstract concepts of sociology, at least in the way that it was
taught at the time, only contributed to the problem.
Feminism and Heterosexism

The feminist perspective also criticizes exclusive understandings of sexuality, such as

heterosexism. Heterosexism is a system of attitudes, bias, and discrimination that favor male-
female sexuality and relationships. At one point, heterosexual marriage was the only lawful
union between two people that was recognized and given full benefits in the United States. This
situated homosexual couples at a disadvantage, and made them ineligible for many of the
government or employer-provided benefits afforded heterosexual married couples. However,
heterosexism can extend far beyond government validation, as it describes a set of paradigms
and institutionalized beliefs that systematically disadvantage anyone who does not fit into a
normative mold. Like racism, heterosexism can operate on an institutional level (e.g., through
government) and at an individual level (i.e., in face-to-face interactions). Feminist critiques of
heterosexism thus align with queer theory and the ideas of Michel Foucault, who studied the
relationship between power and sexuality.

Feminism and Multiculturalism

Though the feminist perspective focuses on diversity and liberation, it has been accused of being
incompatible with multiculturalist policy. Multiculturalism aims to allow distinct cultures to
reside together, either as distinct enclaves within ostensively Western societies, or as separate
societies with national borders. One possible consequence of multiculturalism is that certain
religious or traditional practices, that might disadvantage or oppress women, might be tolerated
on the grounds of cultural sensitivity. From the Feminist perspective, such practices are
objectionable to human rights and ought to be criminalized on those grounds. However, from a
multiculturalist perspective, such traditions must be respected even if they seem to directly
violate ideas about freedom or liberty. Controversies about this have arisen with both arranged
marriages and female genital mutilation.

A diaspora (/daɪˈæspərə/)[1] is a scattered population whose origin lies in a separate geographic

locale Historically, the word diaspora was used to refer to the involuntary mass dispersion of a
population from its indigenous territories, in particular the dispersion of Jews. This has since
changed, and today there is no set definition of the term because its modern meaning has evolved
over time.
Some notable diasporas are the African diaspora including the descendants of those Africans
who were mainly transported to the Americas during the African transatlantic slave trade,
the Assyrian Diaspora which originated during and after the Arab conquest of
Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran, and continued in the aftermath of the Assyrian Genocide, the
southern Chinese or Indians who left their homelands during the coolie trade, the Irish who left
Ireland during and after the Irish Famine, the Romani from India, the Italian diaspora, the exile
and deportation of Circassians, the flight or expulsion of Arabs from Palestine,[7] the Armenian
Diaspora following the Armenian Genocide, the Lebanese Diaspora due to the Lebanese Civil
War,[8] the fleeing of Greeks after the fall of Constantinople, Expulsion of the Acadians, and the
emigration of Anglo-Saxon warriors and their families after the Norman Conquest of England.[9]
Recently, scholars have distinguished between different kinds of diaspora, based on its causes
such as imperialism, trade or labor migrations, or by the kind of social coherence within the
diaspora community and its ties to the ancestral lands. Some diaspora communities maintain
strong political ties with their homeland. Other qualities that may be typical of many diasporas
are thoughts of return, keeping ties back home (country of origin) relationships with other
communities in the diaspora, and lack of full integration into the host countries. Diasporas often
maintain ties to the country of their historical affiliation and influence the policies of the country
where they are located.

PIECE;
“PHENOMENAL WOMAN” BY MAYA ANGELOU 
If you’re into the hips swingin’, don’t-give-a-fig kind of attitude, “Phenomenal Woman” is a
poem to wear proudly. Angelou writes, “I walk into a room / Just as cool as you please… The
fellows stand or / Fall down on their knees.” The poem illustrates just how stunning and alluring
confidence is. She writes that she is not “cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size,” but she
keeps her head high and her stride strong because she knows she is a phenomenal woman.
Drama (film and television)
In film and television, drama is a genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more
serious than humorous in tone.[1] Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms
that specify its particular subgenre, such as "police crime drama", "political drama", "legal
drama", "historical drama", "domestic drama", "teen drama" or "comedy-drama". These terms
tend to indicate a particular setting or subject-matter, or else they qualify the otherwise serious
tone of a drama with elements that encourage a broader range of moods.
All forms of cinema or television that involve fictional stories are forms of drama in the broader
sense if their storytelling is achieved by means of actors who represent (mimesis) characters. In
this broader sense, drama is a mode distinct from novels, short stories, and
narrative poetry or songs.[2] In the modern era before the birth of cinema or television, "drama"
within theatre was a type of play that was neither a comedy nor a tragedy. It is this narrower
sense that the film and television industries, along with film studies, adopted. "Radio drama" has
been used in both senses—originally transmitted in a live performance, it has also been used to
describe the more high-brow and serious end of the dramatic output of radio.

Types of drama in film and television

Crime drama, police procedural, and legal drama
character development based on themes involving criminals, law enforcement and the
legal system.
Historical drama
films that focus on dramatic events in history.
Horror drama
a film that focuses on imperiled characters dealing with realistic emotional struggles,
often involving dysfunctional family relations, in a horror setting. The film's horror
elements often serve as a backdrop to an unraveling dramatic plot.
Docudrama
the difference between a docudrama and a documentary is that in a documentary it uses
real people to describe history or current events; in a docudrama it uses professionally
trained actors to play the roles in the current event, that is "dramatized" a bit. Not to be
confused with docufiction.
Comedy-drama
a film in which there is an equal, or nearly equal, balance of humour and serious content.
Melodrama
a sub-type of drama films that uses plots that appeal to the heightened emotions of the
audience. Melodramatic plots often deal with "crises of human emotion, failed romance
or friendship, strained familial situations, tragedy, illness, neuroses, or emotional and
physical hardship". Film critics sometimes use the term "pejoratively to connote an
unrealistic, pathos-filled, camp tale of romance or domestic situations with stereotypical
characters (often including a central female character) that would directly appeal to
feminine audiences".[4] Also called "women's movies", "weepies", tearjerkers, or "chick
flicks". If they are targeted to a male audience, then they are called "guy cry" films. Often
considered "soap-opera" drama.
Military drama
 focuses on the interpersonal and situational crises of characters in the military
Romantic drama
a sub-type of dramatic film which dwells on the elements of romantic love.
Teen drama
focuses on teenage characters, especially where a secondary school setting plays a role

PIECE:

The Importance of Being Earnest (By Oscar Wilde)

Farce:

Oscar Wilde’s play, The Importance of Being Earnest, is a very popular example of Victorian
farce. In this play, a man uses two identities: one as a serious person, Jack (his actual name),
which he uses for Cesily, his ward, and as a rogue named Ernest for his beloved woman,
Gwendolyn.

Unluckily, Gwendolyn loves him partially because she loves the name Ernest. It is when Jack
and Earnest must come on-stage together for Cesily, then Algernon comes in to play Earnest’
role, and his ward immediately falls in love with the other “Ernest.” Thus, two young women
think that they love the same man – an occurrence that amuses the audience
Ecofeminism
Ecofeminism, like the social movements it has emerged from, is both political activism and
intellectual critique. Bringing together feminism and environmentalism, ecofeminism argues that
the domination of women and the degradation of the environment are consequences of patriarchy
and capitalism. Any strategy to address one must take into account its impact on the other so that
women's equality should not be achieved at the expense of worsening the environment, and
neither should environmental improvements be gained at the expense of women. Indeed,
ecofeminism proposes that only by reversing current values, thereby privileging care and
cooperation over more aggressive and dominating behaviors, can both society and environment
benefit.
The notion that women's and environmental domination are linked has been developed in a
number of ways. A perspective in which women are accredited with closer links with nature was
celebrated in early ecofeminist writings, by, for example, Carolyn Merchant in the United States
and Val Plumwood in Australia. These advocated ‘the feminine principle’ as an antidote to
environmental destruction, through attributes, which nurture nature. This ‘essentialist’
perspective, often adopting an ideal of woman as earth mother/goddess, has, however, also
discredited ecofeminism and led to disaffection among some early protagonists (see, for
example, Janet Biehl). In addition to being critiqued for its essentialism, this view of
ecofeminism has also been charged with elitism through its provenance in a white, middle-class,
Western, milieu. However, Vandana Shiva's consistent and persuasive ‘majority world’ voice has
been a counterpoint to this, and arguably, gender and environment have been articulated together
more powerfully, and been more influential, in majority world settings (see, for example,
Wangari Maathai in Kenya), although how this has been done has been questioned by writers
such as Cecile Jackson and Melisssa Leach.
The late 1980s and early 1990s was a fertile time for ecofeminist writing, both from this
essentialist perspective, but also through more social economic critiques, which explained the
link between women's inequality and environmental degradation in terms of women's role in
social reproduction (see, for example, Mary Mellor in the UK and Marilyn Waring in New
Zealand).
The first major practical impact of ecofeminist thinking was felt in the 1992 United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), which women's environmental
organizations had lobbied for women's and environmental rights to be considered in tandem.
This, and the 1995 4th Women's Conference in Beijing, agreed for the first time that women's
rights and environmental rights could not be disentangled.
By the late 1990s, however, the output on ecofeminism had dropped significantly and there was
a sense of it having run out of steam, despite its arguable influence revealed through UN
initiatives. However, in the new millennium, a new generation of writers, researchers, and
activists has reinvigorated ecofeminist debates, through considerations of ecofeminist citizenship
(Sherilyn MacGregor), challenges to some earlier critiques (Niamh Moore), and insertion of
feminist concerns into environmental justice (Susan Buckingham and Rakibe Kulcur, and
Giovanna di Chiro) and political ecology (Wendy Harcourt, Dianne Rocheleau).
This article considers the heritage of ecofeminism as a multiply braided political praxis and an
intellectual position. It examines key critiques of earlier perspectives, before exploring its more
recent developments. It considers its relationship with, and potential to enhance other feminist
and environmental approaches, particularly those concerned with feminist political ecology and
environmental justice. The article concludes with a consideration of how ecofeminism is
enjoying a resurgence through a new generation of academics seeking to develop and nuance
ecofeminism from a sympathetic position, the emergence of climate change as a major global
issue, and the development of social movements in areas not previously associated with feminist
environmental action, notably in the Middle East.

PIECE:

Solar Storms by Linda Hogan

With the vast majority of ecofeminist works being analytical position arguments and naturalistic
poetry, it is uncommon to come across a novel that masterfully captures ecofeminist praxis while
maintaining an entertaining and captivating narrative. Solar Storms follows the first-person
perspective of a young woman with a past of physical abuse and abandonment as she is
reconnected with her ancestral roots not only as a Native American, but also as a woman.
Through her newly found self-actualization, she and her family endeavor to prevent the
construction of a dam which existence threatens the ecological wellbeing of the region and in-turn
their way of life. This illuminating novel evokes in the reader a sense of responsibly to actively
oppose the oppressive power structures that subjugate women and serve only to ravish the
surrounding environment for materialistic purposes and monetary gain.
What is Marxism? A Bird's-Eye View
By Bertell Ollman

A young reporter asked a leading capitalist how he madehis fortune. "It was really quite
simple", the capitalist answered. I bought an apple for 5 cents, spent the evening polishing it, and
sold it the next day for 10 cents. With this I bought two apples, spent the evening polishing
them,and sold them for 2O. And so it went until I amassed 80. It was at this point that my wife's
father died and left us a million dollars". Is this true? Is it fair? What does it all mean? There are
no more hotly contested questions in our society than why some are rich and others poor—and
whether things have to be this way.

Karl Marx sought the answers to these questions by trying to understand how our capitalist
society works (for whom it works better, for whom worse), how it arose out of feudalism and
where it is likely to lead. Concentrating on the social and economic relations in which people
earn their livings, Marx saw behind capitalism's law and order appearance a struggle of two main
classes: the capitalists, who own the productive resources, and the workers or proletariat, who
must work in order to survive. "Marxism" is essentially Marx's analysis of the complex and
developing relations between these two classes.

1 ORIGINS

The main theories that make up this analysis—the theory of alienation, the labor theory of
value, and the materialist conception of history—must all be understood with this focus in mind.
Even Marx's vision of socialism emerges from his study of capitalism, for socialism is the
unrealized potential inherent in capitalism itself (something our great material wealth and
advanced forms of organization makes possible) for a more just and democratic society in which
everyone can develop his/her distinctively human qualities.

Some socialist ideas can be traced as far back as the Bible, but Marxism has its main
intellectual origins in German philosophy, English political economy, and French utopian
socialism. It is from the German philosopher, Hegel, that Marx learned a way of thinking about
the world, in all its fluid complexity, that is called "dialectics." The British political economists,
Adam Smith and David Ricardo, provided Marx with a first approximation of his labor theory of
value. From the French utopians, especially Charles Fourier and the Comte de Saint-Simon,
Marx caught a glimpse of a happier future that lay beyond capitalism. Along with the paradox of
an Industrial Revolution which produced as much poverty as it did wealth, these are the main
ingredients that went into the formation of Marxism.

*A shortened version of this essay appeared in the Academic American

Encyclopedia (Arete" Publishing Company, Princeton, NJ., 1981), and was republished
in Monthly Review (New York, April, 1981).
2 MARXIST PHILOSOPHY

Marx's study of capitalism was grounded in a philosophy that is both dialectical and
materialist. With dialectics, changes and interaction are brought into focus and emphasized by
being viewed as essential parts of whatever institutions and processes are undergoing change and
interaction. In this way, the system of capitalism, the wider context, is never lost sight of when
studying any event within it, an election or an economic crisis for example; nor are its real past
and future possibilities, the historical context, ever neglected when dealing with how something
appears in the present. Whatever Marx's subject of the moment, his dialectical approach to it
insures that his fuller subject is always capitalist society as it developed and is still developing.
The actual changes that occur in history are seen here as the outcome of opposing tendencies, or
"contradictions", which evolve in the ordinary functioning of society.

Unlike Hegel's dialectic, which operates solely on ideas, Marx's dialectic is materialist.
Marx was primarily concerned with capitalism as lived rather than as thought about, but people's
lives also involve consciousness. Whereas Hegel examined ideas apart from the people who held
them, Marx's materialism puts ideas back into the heads of living people and treats both as parts
of a world that is forever being remade through human activities, particularly in production. In
this interaction, social conditions and behavior are found to have a greater affect on the character
and development of people's ideas than these ideas do on social conditions and behavior.

3 ALIENATION

Marx's specific theories are best understood as answers to his pointed questions about the
nature and development of capitalism. How do the ways in which people earn their living
affect their bodies, minds and daily lives? In the theory of alienation, Marx gives us his answer
to this question. Workers in capitalist society do not own the means—machines, raw materials,
factories—which they use in their work. These are owned by the capitalists to whom the workers
must sell their "labor power", or ability to do work, in return for a wage.

This system of labor displays four relations that lie at the core of Marx's theory of
alienation: 1) The worker is alienated (or cut off) from his or her productive activity, playing no
part in deciding what to do or how to do it. Someone else, the capitalist, also sets the conditions
and speed of work and even decides if the worker is to be allowed to work or not, i.e. hires and
fires him. 2)The worker is alienated from the product of that activity, having no control over
what is made or what happens to it, often not even knowing what happens to it once it has left his
hands. 3)The worker is alienated from other human beings, with competition and mutual
indifference replacing most forms of cooperation. This applies not only to relations with the
capitalists, who use their control over the worker's activity and product to further their own profit
maximizing interests, but also to relations between individuals inside each class as everyone tries
to survive as best he can. 4)Finally, the worker is alienated from the distinctive potential for
creativity and community we all share just because we are human beings. Through labor which
alienates them from their activity, product and other people, workers gradually lose their ability
to develop the finer qualities which belong to them as members of the human species.

The cutting of these relationships in half leaves on one side a seriously diminished
individual physically weakened, mentally confused and mystified, isolated and virtually
powerless. On the other side of this separation are the products and ties with other people,
outside the control and lost to the understanding of the worker. Submitted to the mystification of
the marketplace, the worker's products pass from one hand to another, changing form and names
along the way—"value", "commodity", "capital", "interest , rent "wage"—depending chiefly on
who has them and how they are used. Eventually, these same products—though no longer seen
as such—reenter the worker's daily life as the landlord's house, the grocer's food, the banker's
loan, the boss's factory, and the various laws and customs that prescribe his relations with other
people.

Unknowingly, the worker has constructed the necessary conditions for reproducing his own
alienation. The world that the worker has made and lost in alienated labor reappears as someone
else's private property which he only has access to by selling his labor power and engaging in
more alienated labor. Though Marx's main examples of alienation are drawn from the life of
workers, other classes are also alienated to the degree that they share or are directly effected by
these relations, and that includes the capitalists.
4 THEORY OF VALUE

What is the effect of the worker's alienated labor on its products, both on what they
can do and what can be done with them? Smith and Ricardo used the labor theory of value to
explain the Cost of commodities. For them, the value of any commodity is the result of the
amount of labor time that went into its production. Marx took this explanation more or less for
granted. His labor theory of value, however, is primarily concerned with the more basic problem
of why goods have prices of any kind. Only in capitalism does the distribution of what is
produced take place through the medium of markets and prices. In slave society, the slave owner
takes by force what his slaves produce, returning to them only what he wishes. While in
feudalism, the lord claims as a feudal right some part of what is produced by his serfs, with the
serfs consuming the rest of their output directly. In both societies, most of what is produced
cannot be bought or sold, and therefore, does not have any price.

In accounting for the extraordinary fact that everything produced in capitalist society has a
price, Marx emphasizes the separation of the worker from the means of production (whereas
slaves and serfs are tied to their means of production) and the sale of his or her labor power that
this separation makes necessary. To survive, the workers, who lack all means to produce, must
sell their labor power. In selling their labor power, they give up all claims to the products of their
labor. Hence, these products become available for exchange in the market, indeed are produced
with this exchange in mind, while workers are able to consume only that portion of their
products which they can buy back in the market with the wages they are paid for their labor
power.
 "Value", then, is the most general effect of the worker's alienated labor on all its products;
exchange—which is embodied in the fact that they all have a price—is what these products do
and what can be done with them. Rather than a particular price, value stands for the whole set of
conditions which are necessary for a commodity to have any price at all. It is in this sense that
Marx calls value a product of capitalism. The ideal price ("exchange value") of a commodity and
the ways in which it is meant to he used ("use value") likewise exhibit in their different ways the
distinctive relationships Marx uncovered between workers and their activities, products and other
people in capitalist society.

"Exchange value" reflects a situation where the distinct human quality and variety of work
has ceased to count. Through alienation, the relations between workers has been reduced to the
quantity of labor that goes into their respective products. Only then can these products exchange
for each other at a ratio which reflects these quantities. It is this which explains Smith's and
Ricardo's finding that the value of a commodity is equal to the amount of labor time which has
gone into its production. While in use value, the physical characteristics of commodities—
planned obsolescence, the attention given to style over durability, the manufacture of individual
and family as opposed to larger group units, etc.—give unmistakable evidence of the isolating
and degraded quality of human relations found throughout capitalist society.

Surplus-value, the third aspect of value, is the difference between the amount of exchange
and use value created by workers and the amount returned to them as wages. The capitalist buys
the worker's labor power, as any other commodity, and puts it to work for eight or more hours a
day. However, workers can make in, say, five hours products which are the equivalent of their
wages. In the remaining three or more hours an amount of wealth is produced which remains in
the hands of the capitalist. The capitalists' control over this surplus is the basis of their power
over the workers and the rest of society. Marx's labor theory of value also provides a detailed
account of the struggle between capitalists and workers over the size of the surplus value, with
the capitalists trying to extend the length of the working day, speed up the pace of work, etc.,
while the workers organize to protect themselves. Because of the competition among capitalists,
workers are constantly being replaced by machinery, enabling and requiring capitalists to extract
ever greater amounts of surplus value from the workers who remain.

Paradoxically, the amount of surplus value is also the source of capitalism's greatest
weakness. Because only part of their product is returned to them as wages, the workers cannot
buy a large portion of the consumables that they produce. Under pressure from the constant
growth of the total product, the capitalists periodically fail to find new markets to take up the
slack. This leads to crises of "overproduction", capitalism's classic contradiction, in which people
are forced to live on too little because they produce too much.

5 HISTORICAL TENDENCIES

How did capitalism originate, and where is it leading? Marx's materialist conception of

history answers the first part of this question with an account of the transformation of feudalism
into capitalism. He stresses the contradictions that arose through the growth of towns,
population, technology and trade, which at a certain point burst asunder the feudal social and
political forms in which production had been organized. Relations of lord to serf based on feudal
rights and obligations had become a hindrance to the further development of these productive
forces; over an extended period and after a series of political battles, they were replaced by the
contractual relation of capitalists to workers. With capitalists free to pursue profits wherever they
might take them and workers equally "free" to sell their labor power to the capitalists however
they might use it, the productive potential inherent in the new forces of production, especially in
technology and science, grew to unmeasured proportions.

However, if maximizing profits leads to rapid growth when rapid growth results in large
profits, then growth is restricted as soon as it becomes unprofitable. The periodic crises which
have plagued capitalism from about 1830 on are clear evidence of this. Since that time, the new
forces of production which have come into being in capitalism, their growth and potential for
producing wealth, have come increasingly into contradiction with the capitalist social relations in
which production is organized. The capitalists put the factories, machines, raw materials, and
labor power all of which they own into motion to produce goods only if they feel they can make
a profit, no matter what the availability of these "factors of production", and no matter what the
need of consumers for their products. The cost to society in wealth that is never produced (and in
wealth which is produced but in forms that are anti-social in their character) continues to grow
and with it the need for another, more efficient, more humane way of organizing production.

Within this framework the actual course of history is determined by class

struggle. According to Marx, each class is defined chiefly by its relation to the productive
process and has objective interests rooted in that relation. The capitalists' interests lie in
securing their power and expanding profits. Workers, on the other hand, have interests in
higher wages, safe working conditions, shorter hours, job security, and—because it is
required to realize other interests—a new distribution of power. The class struggle involves
everything that these two major classes do to promote their incompatible interests at each
other's expense. In this battle, which rages throughout society, the capitalists are aided by their
wealth, their control of the state, and their domination over other institutions—schools, media,
churches—that guide and distort people's thinking. On the workers' side are their sheer numbers,
their experience of cooperation—however alienated—while at work, trade unions, working class
political parties (where they exist), and the contradictions within capitalism that make present
conditions increasingly irrational.

In capitalism, the state is an instrument in the hands of the capitalists that is used to repress
dangerous dissent and to help expand surplus value. This is done mainly by passing and
enforcing anti-working class laws and by providing the capitalists with various economic
subsidies ("capitalist welfare"). Marx also views the state as a set of political structures
interlocked with the economic structures of capitalism whose requirements—chiefly for
accumulating capital (means of production used to produce value)—it must satisfy, if the whole
system is not to go into a tailspin. And, finally, the state is an arena for class struggle where class
and class factions contend for political advantage in an unfair fight that finds the capitalists
holding all the most powerful weapons. An adequate understanding of the role of the capitalist
state as a complex social relation requires that it be approached from each of these three angles:
as an instrument of the capitalist class, as a structure of political offices and processes, and as an
arena of class struggle.

In order to supplement the institutions of force, capitalism has given rise to an ideology, or
way of thinking, which gets people to accept the status quo or, at least, confuses them as to the
possibility of replacing it with something better. For the most part, the ideas and concepts which
make up this ideology work by getting people to focus on the observable aspects of any event or
institution, neglecting its history and potential for change as well as the broader context in which
it resides. The result is a collection of partial, static, distorted, on&sided notions that reveal only
what the capitalists would like everyone to think. For example, in capitalist ideology, consumers
are considered sovereign, as if consumers actually determine what gets produced through the
choices they make in the supermarket; and no effort is made to analyze how they develop their
preferences (history) or who determines the range of available choices (1arger system). Placing
an event in its real historical and social context, which is to say—studying it "dialectically," often
leads (as in the case of "consumer sovereignty") to conclusions that are the direct opposite of
those based on the narrow observations favored by ideological thinking. As the attempted
separation of what cannot be separated without distortion, capitalist ideology reflects in thought
the fractured lives of alienated people, while at the same time making it increasingly difficult for
them to grasp their alienation.

As the contradictions of capitalism become greater, more intense, and less amenable to
disguise, neither the state nor ideology can restrain the mass of the workers, white and blue
collar, from recognizing their interests (becoming "class conscious") and acting upon them. The
overthrow of capitalism, when it comes, Marx believed, would proceed as quickly and
democratically as the nature of capitalist opposition allowed. Out of the revolution would emerge
a socialist society which would fully utilize and develop much further the productive potential
inherited from capitalism. Through democratic planning, production would now be directed to
serving social needs instead of maximizing private profit. The final goal, toward which socialist
society would constantly build, is the human one of abolishing alienation. Marx called the
attainment of this goal "communism".

6 MARXISM TODAY

Capitalism has obviously changed a lot in the hundred years since Marx wrote. In the basic
relations and structures which distinguish capitalism from feudalism and socialism, however, it
has changed very little, and these are the main features of capitalism addressed in Marx's
theories. Workers, for example, may earn more money now than they did in the last century, but
so do the capitalists. Consequently, the wealth and income gaps between the two classes is as
great or greater than ever. The workers' relations to their labor, products and capitalists (which
are traced in the theory of alienation and the labor theory of value) are basically unchanged from
Marx's day. Probably the greatest difference between our capitalism and Marx's has to do with
the more direct involvement of the state in the capitalist economy (primarily to bolster flagging
profits) and, as a consequence of this, the expanded role of ideology to disguise the increasingly
obvious ties between the agencies of the state and the capitalist class.
 From its beginnings, Marxism has been under attack from all sides, but the major criticisms
have been directed against claims that Marx never made. For example, some have mistakenly
viewed Marx's materialism as evidence that he ignored the role of ideas in history and in people's
lives. Viewed as an "economic determinism", Marxism has also been criticized for presenting
politics, culture, religion, etc. as simple effects of a one-way economic cause. (This would be
undialectical.) Viewed as a claim that labor is the only factor in determining prices (equated here
with "value"), the labor theory of value has been wrongly attacked for ignoring the effect of
competition on prices. And viewing what are projections of capitalism's tendencies into the
future as inviolable predictions, Marx has been accused of making false predictions.

Some, finally, point to the anti-democratic practices of many Communist countries and
claim that authoritarianism is inherent in Marxist doctrine. In fact, Marx's theories concentrate on
advanced industrial capitalism with its imperfect but still functioning democratic institutions and
he never thought that socialism could achieve its full promise in relatively poor, politically
underdeveloped nations.

Marxism, as defined here, has had its main influence among workers and intellectuals in
capitalist countries, especially in Europe, who have used it as a major tool in defining their
problems and constructing political strategies. In the Western countries, even non-Marxist
intellectuals, particularly sociologists and historians, have drawn considerable insights from
Marx's writings. In the Third World, Marxism—considerably modified to deal with their special
mixture of primitive and advanced capitalist conditions—has clarified the nature of the enemy
for many liberation movements. In the Communist countries, selected doctrines of Marx have
been frozen into abstract principles to serve as the official ideology of the regimes. The influence
of these three varieties of Marxism is as different as their content.

In American capitalism's latest crisis, the combination of growing unemployment and

worsening inflation has confounded all the usual experts. The most powerful nation in history
cannot erase poverty, provide full employment, guarantee decent housing or an adequate diet or
good health care to its people. Meanwhile, the rich get richer. Only Marxism, as an account
ofthe rational unfolding of a basically irrational capitalist system, makes sense of our
current chaos. In class struggle, it also points the way out. The rest is up to us.

Naturalism
The term “naturalism” has no very precise meaning in contemporary philosophy. Its current
usage derives from debates in America in the first half of the last century. The self-proclaimed
“naturalists” from that period included John Dewey, Ernest Nagel, Sidney Hook and Roy Wood
Sellars. These philosophers aimed to ally philosophy more closely with science. They urged that
reality is exhausted by nature, containing nothing “supernatural”, and that the scientific method
should be used to investigate all areas of reality, including the “human spirit” (Krikorian 1944,
Kim 2003).
So understood, “naturalism” is not a particularly informative term as applied to contemporary
philosophers. The great majority of contemporary philosophers would happily accept naturalism
as just characterized—that is, they would both reject “supernatural” entities, and allow that
science is a possible route (if not necessarily the only one) to important truths about the “human
spirit”.
Even so, this entry will not aim to pin down any more informative definition of “naturalism”. It
would be fruitless to try to adjudicate some official way of understanding the term. Different
contemporary philosophers interpret “naturalism” differently. This disagreement about usage is
no accident. For better or worse, “naturalism” is widely viewed as a positive term in
philosophical circles—only a minority of philosophers nowadays are happy to announce
themselves as “non-naturalists”.[1] This inevitably leads to a divergence in understanding the
requirements of “naturalism”. Those philosophers with relatively weak naturalist commitments
are inclined to understand “naturalism” in a unrestrictive way, in order not to disqualify
themselves as “naturalists”, while those who uphold stronger naturalist doctrines are happy to set
the bar for “naturalism” higher.[2]
Rather than getting bogged down in an essentially definitional issue, this entry will adopt a
different strategy. It will outline a range of philosophical commitments of a generally naturalist
stamp, and comment on their philosophical cogency. The primary focus will be on whether these
commitments should be upheld, rather than on whether they are definitive of “naturalism”. The
important thing is to articulate and assess the reasoning that has led philosophers in a generally
naturalist direction, not to stipulate how far you need to travel along this path before you can
count yourself as a paid-up “naturalist”.
As indicated by the above characterization of the mid-twentieth-century American movement,
naturalism can be separated into an ontological and a methodological component. The
ontological component is concerned with the contents of reality, asserting that reality has no
place for “supernatural” or other “spooky” kinds of entity. By contrast, the methodological
component is concerned with ways of investigating reality, and claims some kind of general
authority for the scientific method. Correspondingly, this entry will have two main sections, the
first devoted to ontological naturalism, the second to methodological naturalism.
Of course, naturalist commitments of both ontological and methodological kinds can be
significant in areas other than philosophy. The modern history of psychology, biology, social
science and even physics itself can usefully be seen as hinging on changing attitudes to naturalist
ontological principles and naturalist methodological precepts. This entry, however, will be
concerned solely with naturalist doctrines that are specific to philosophy. So the first part of this
entry, on ontological naturalism, will be concerned specifically with views about the general
contents of reality that are motivated by philosophical argument and analysis. And the second
part, on methodological naturalism, will focus specifically on methodological debates that bear
on philosophical practice, and in particular on the relationship between philosophy and science.
What is Narrative Theory?
Narrative theory is currently enjoying a major burgeoning of interest in North America and
throughout the world, with especially strong activity in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France,
Germany, Scandinavia, Belgium, Israel, and China. Narrative theory starts from the assumption
that narrative is a basic human strategy for coming to terms with fundamental elements of our
experience, such as time, process, and change, and it proceeds from this assumption to study the
distinctive nature of narrative and its various structures, elements, uses, and effects.

More specifically, narrative theorists study what is distinctive about narrative (how it is different
from other kinds of discourse, such as lyric poems, arguments, lists, descriptions, statistical
analyses, and so on), and how accounts of what happened to particular people in particular
circumstances with particular consequences can be at once so common and so powerful. Thus a
key concern is whether narrative as a way of thinking about or explaining human experience
contrasts with scientific modes of explanation that characterize phenomena as instances of
general covering laws. Narrative theorists, in short, study how stories help people make sense of
the world, while also studying how people make sense of stories.
 
To this end, narrative theorists draw not only on literary studies but also on ideas from such
fields as rhetoric, (socio)linguistics, philosophical ethics, cognitive science (including cognitive
and social psychology), folklore, and gender theory to explore how narratives work both as kinds
of texts and as strategies for navigating experience. Narratives of all kinds are relevant to the
field: literary fictions and nonfictions, film narratives, comics and graphic novels, hypertexts and
other computer-mediated narratives, oral narratives occurring during the give and take of
everyday conversation, as well as narratives told in courtrooms, doctors' offices, business
conference rooms—indeed, anywhere. Because of the pervasiveness of narrative in our culture
and the diversity of the texts, media, and communicative situations narrative theory examines,
narrative theory constitutes an exciting new frontier of English Studies, one that promises to
bring English Department faculty and students into closer contact with their counterparts in a
variety of social-scientific, humanistic, and other disciplines.

PIECE:
THE ADVENTURE OF HUNKLEBERRY FINN
What makes the scene most striking, for me anyway, is Huck’s ultimate acceptance of hell rather
than betraying Jim. (There is, of course, no pretense of theological correctness here, but it’s a
memorable conclusion.) And what leads to Huck’s decision is his view of the person—of the
specific person of Jim. Their trip down the river has led Huck to see Jim as a person and as an
equal, despite what society and the laws of the time have taught him. He sees the person, and
understands the person, and this understanding leads him to the truly moral course of action. It is
the human person, created in God’s image, that shows us the reality of ethics and of laws, which
if understood rightly will always promote man’s true good. Huck’s realization of this leads to his
drastic conclusion.
Postmodernism
Postmodernism, also spelled post-modernism, in Western philosophy, a late 20th-century
movement characterized by broad skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism; a general suspicion
of reason; and an acute sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political
and economic power.
Postmodernism And Modern Philosophy

Postmodernism is largely a reaction against the intellectual assumptions and values of the

modern period in the history of Western philosophy (roughly, the 17th through the 19th century).
Indeed, many of the doctrines characteristically associated with postmodernism can fairly be
described as the straightforward denial of general philosophical viewpoints that were taken for
granted during the 18th-century Enlightenment, though they were not unique to that period. The
most important of these viewpoints are the following.

Part of the postmodern answer is that the prevailing discourses in any society reflect the interests
and values, broadly speaking, of dominant or elite groups. Postmodernists disagree about the
nature of this connection; whereas some apparently endorse the dictum of the German
philosopher and economist Karl Marx that “the ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas
of its ruling class,” others are more circumspect. Inspired by the historical research of the French
philosopher Michel Foucault, some postmodernists defend the comparatively nuanced view that
what counts as knowledge in a given era is always influenced, in complex and subtle ways, by
considerations of power. There are others, however, who are willing to go even further than
Marx. The French philosopher and literary theorist Luce Irigaray, for example, has argued that
the science of solid mechanics is better developed than the science of fluid mechanics because
the male-dominated institution of physics associates solidity and fluidity with the male and
female sex organs, respectively. Because the established discourses of the Enlightenment are
more or less arbitrary and unjustified, they can be changed; and because they more or less reflect
the interests and values of the powerful, they should be changed. Thus postmodernists regard
their theoretical position as uniquely inclusive and democratic, because it allows them to
recognize the unjust hegemony of Enlightenment discourses over the equally valid perspectives
of nonelite groups. In the 1980s and ’90s, academic advocates on behalf of various ethnic,
cultural, racial, and religious groups embraced postmodern critiques of contemporary Western
society, and postmodernism became the unofficial philosophy of the new movement of “identity
politics.”

PIECE:
Gravity’s Rainbow (Thomas Pynchon)

To faithfully describe this novel is to end in failure: a pastiche of paranoia, pop culture, sex and
politics that turns narration on its head with subtle metaphorical discipline, as the lives of several
people center around the parabolic venture of the rocket “0000.” Comparisons of the novel and
its symbols to Ulysses and Moby-Dick do not do justice to its singularity.