Literary Theory - Raymond Williams - "Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory"

Raymond Williams

1.     “Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory.”

a.     Social being determines consciousness and is the starting point for Williams’s analysis.

                                               i.     Determination needs to be re-evaluated towards limits and the exertions of pressure rather controlled contents.

                                             ii.     Superstructure needs to be re-evaluated towards a range a cultural practices.

                                            iii.     Base needs to be re-evaluated from abstractions to the real actions and social conditions of men.

                                            iv.     The intent is to reconsider productive forces to better establish what the base really is.

b.     We need to understand hegemony to form opinions as to what constitutes base and what constitutes super structure.

c.     Complexity of Hegemony.

                                               i.     The traditional understanding of hegemony is of a set ideas permeating society to the level that they are considered common sense.  The ideas deeply saturate the consciousness of society.

                                             ii.     Re-evaluate of hegemony.  Hegemony needs to be considered as dynamic processes as it is subject to influence and change.

                                            iii.     Analysis of hegemony.

1.     In any society, there is a set of meanings and values that are considered dominant.  Not abstract ideas, but the real meanings formed through action and life.

2.     Hegemony is the whole body of practices and expectations of a society. A set of meanings and values as they are practiced and experienced.

a.     Social process that that affect dominant culture.

                                                                                                     i.     Education – the main source of the transmission of ideas.

                                                                                                   ii.     Family

                                                                                                  iii.     Selective traditions.  Significant past.  Dominant culture passes on culture through selecting and omitting ideas and practices wrapped in the significance of the past.

                                                                                                  iv.     Work

                                                                                                   v.     Intellectual and theoretical ideas.

b.     Definitions:

                                                                                                     i.     Alternatives to dominant cultures.  Someone finding a different way to live and wants to be left alone.

                                                                                                   ii.     Opposition to dominant cultures.  Someone who finding a different way to live and wants to change to society to it’s way.

                                                                                                  iii.     Residual culture – culture from the past that may be infused in symbols or otherwise can’t be accounted for.

                                                                                                  iv.     Emergent – New meanings that may or may not try to incorporate themselves into dominant culture.

                                                                                                   v.     It is important to distinguish between residual – incorporated; residual – non-incorporated; emergent – incorporated; and emergent non-incorporated.

3.     Class and human practice.

a.     Dominant culture selects and organizes culture, but other forces exist. 

b.     Example.  Capitalism isn’t interested in emerging ideas unless it can produce a profit.  However, if the emerging idea threatens capitalism, it will approach and attack the new ideas.

c.     Art and literature cannot be separated from social processes.

                                                                                                     i.     Literature operates in all classes and cultures.

                                                                                                   ii.     Literature contributes to dominant culture.

                                                                                                  iii.     Literature embodies residual meaning and values.

                                                                                                  iv.     Literature expresses emergent cultures and ideas.

d.     Critical theory tends to evaluate an object for it profitability or for determining its correct consumption.

                                                                                                     i.     The true relationship between value and art resides with the art’s taste or sensibilities.

                                                                                                   ii.     Art contains elements of production.  The components of art are a form of base.

e.     The question posed is art an object, or is it a practice.

                                                                                                     i.     It is both.

                                                                                                   ii.     There are objects in some, and notations in others (music, plays). 

                                                                                                  iii.     Notations require interpretation of action to be witnessed.

4.     The determination of base should expand beyond the idea of object and encompass the notion of practice.

Works Cited

Williams, Raymond. “Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory.”  The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.  Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al. 2^nd ed. New York:  W.W.Norton & Co., 2010. 1246-1261. Print.