Contrast Marxist and Foucauldian approaches to the study of culture

Contrast Marxist and Foucauldian approaches to the study of culture

Karl Marx is well known for his ideas about society, and how capitalism is detrimental to the people and how communism would fix all of man's woes, but he also had written about many other things. Karl Marx outlined a cultural theory, though it was never fully developed (Williams, 1983). To that end, Marx had made many comments in regard to culture in the context of different pieces of literature (Williams, 1983). Williams (1983) sums it up this way: "A Marxist theory of culture will recognize diversity and complexity, will take account of continuity within change, will allow for chance and certain limited autonomies, but, these reservations, will take the facts of the economic structure and the consequent social relations as the guiding string on which a culture is woven, and by following which a culture is to be understood" (269). In effect, Marx saw the culture as related to many of the elements of the larger society. This is in some way similar to the Foucaultian perspective, but different at the same time.

It appears, at least from Williams' observation that Marxist ideas about culture are rather flexible but rely on Marx's basic premise that the society is divided by conflict. The culture is mixed. It is not homogenous. Marx's theory of culture then is aligned with his ideas about politics and everything else. Williams (1983) goes on to argue that Marxists tend to give a high value to culture. That said, proof that culture was really necessary seems rather trivial to scholars (Williams, 1983).

On some level, culture is important to Marxists, but there are other things that tend to be more important. Yet, there is some controversy in respect to the role of art in society (Williams, 1983). Obviously, with communism in play, people would have fewer choices in terms of vocation. Thus, on some level, creativity is truncated by Marxism. If that is the case, then how can culture be considered important? One can see that it is not clear in respect to Marx's ideas about culture and its relevance in society. After all, in regard to religion—which is part of the culture—he was thought to have called it the opiate of the people. Marx would come to see religion as essentially meaningless, other than the effect it had on the behavior of people. Foucault, Kritzman & Sheridan (1990) write: " Ironically, Foucault claimed that the Islamic religion inherently possessed the ability to realize what Marx suggested that all religion could create: the spirit of a world without spirit" (xxii).

Other ideas about the culture come from Marx's ideas about how people lived. His theory of alienation for example would see a distorted worldview where no one was happy with the exception of the people making a lot of money. For Marx, alienation was a condition, which went to the core of one's being. It was not necessarily that a ...