Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Marxism and false consciousness'

While an estimated one-third of the United States population has a tattoo, tattoos are still seen as a sign of deviance. The appearance of the first tattoos in the United States were relegated to the bodies of the lower classes and outcasts of society. Over the past few decades tattoos have migrated on to the celebrity skin of today's pop culture icons. In the past twenty years, tattoos have moved from deviant subcultures to the mainstream, and yet are still considered to be a mark of the disfavored factions of society. The dominant culture continues to regard the bearers of tattoos as social deviants, while at the same time appropriating tattoos for use as fashion statements, beauty enhancements, and mechanisms for continued oppression. While tattoos make their way from the prison cell to the pop culture runway, how are they perceived by law enforcement? Are tattoos still seen as markers of deviance or has law enforcement adopted the mainstream culture's perception and view tattoos as self-expressive artwork? Do tattoos negatively influence law enforcement's judgment where individual discretion is exercised? The purpose of this study was to examine the arrest patterns of arrestees with visible tattoos using a critical theory perspective to determine if tattoos and arrest seriousness are related. This study also examines tattoo placement and type in affecting the severity of arrest charges. The data used in this study is a random sample of 2011 Pinellas County Florida arrestees (N=3,733). Numerous logistic regression models were utilized in this analysis and resulted in no consistently significant association between tattoos (visibility, placement, or type) and severity of offense charges. This provides evidence that the use of tattoos as a marker for deviance does not appear to influence police behavior any differently than other characteristics such as race.

This study focuses on the way in which Willem Boshoff aesthetically con-cretized the historical memories of Afrikaners and their influence on their notion of power and identity formation. For this purpose a selection was made of Boshoff’s language-based conceptual installations. During the colonial and apartheid eras South Africa had a long history, which was characterized by people in power who encountered other population groups from a vantage point of superiority implying subjection. This implied that the particular in-terests of the people in power were generalized across the whole of society and imposed on all population groups as generalized interests. Where the in-dividual interests did not correspond to the general interests of society in its totality, the interests of the individual were negated and ignored. It can there-fore be stated that the utopia of those in power became the proverbial hell of the other. The study emanates from Ricoeur’s plea for a critical and imaginative en-counter with history so that other perspectives on traumatic events can be developed. Such an approach creates the possibility of opening up the unreal-ized promises of the past for the present and leading to the future. It further proceeds from the assumption that if we are faithful to the past, we will also be faithful to “the more” of the past or that which transcends the past. My ap-proach is in line with that of Verbeeck, who – tying in with Ricoeur – ad-vocated an anachronistic encounter with and interpretation of history. What is meant by aesthetic concretization in this study is that Willem Boshoff conceptually expresses his artistic interpretation and visual manifestation of philosophical ideas on Afrikaners’ memories of power and identity. He makes real (real-ises) and gives shape to these philosophical ideas. For this purpose three dates in the historical narratives of Afrikaners were selected, which had an important impact on Afrikaners’ notions of power and identity formation: 31 May 1902 –The end of the Anglo-Boer War and the demise of the Boer Republics and the freedom of Afrikaners; 31 May 1961 – The formation of the Republic of South Africa under the leadership of the National Party, and 27 April 1994 – The first democratic elections in South Africa, and the Afrikaners’ total loss of power. The reading and interpretation of Boshoff’s installations were undertaken with-in the framework of Adorno’s dialectical distinction in his aesthetic theory be-tween the Inhalt and the Gehalt of works of art. Adorno regards everything that appears in the work of art, viz. everything that the artist gives form to, as Inhalt [content]. Gehalt, on the other hand, refers to the truth content of works of art, which according to him resides in the specific negation [German: bestimmte Negation] of the untruth of an inhuman society. For Adorno bestimmte Negation signifies a break both with that which exists [in other words a negation of the predominance of a false reality] and with the continuity between the present and the future [the salvation of the moment or element which holds promise of something, which goes beyond that which exists, and refers to something better]. In Adorno’s view works of art are tho-roughly historically determined. According to Adorno the history of society is sedimented in the material, the constellations and the form elements of works of art. What is meant by this is that the artistic material which an artist [in this study Boshoff] utilizes, is not only words, pigments, or rock, but is everything that is pre-formed by history that the artist uses. Because history sediments in the material and because the material of a work of art is taken from reality, but in a fragmented fashion, the work of art becomes a monad – that is auto-nomous and windowless, because the work of art, apparantly, has no links to or relationships with recognizable reality or with other works of art. I argue that the exposé of the memories of Afrikaners of cultural and political domination, with historical narratives as a source, and the influence of these on their visions of power and identity, offers a framework for the reading and interpretation of selected installations. In these selected installations, Boshoff offers immanent criticism of the above unequal power relations and con-comitant views of identity. Through striving for the harmonious and the good as ethical and aesthetic principles in his installations focused on social inter-action, he makes a contribution to the creation of a more humanitarian society.
Thesis (PhD (Art History))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

This study analyzes and maps barriers preventing Sri Lankan female workers in Export Processing Zones (EPZs) from participating in awareness raising activities by NGOs. These barriers can furthermore be discussed as preventing them from an enhanced empowerment. The gathered data is mostly based on interviews conducted during a three-week long fieldtrip in Sri Lanka. By using both a literature analysis on the field of research together with group interviews with both female EPZ workers as well as with personnel from a women’s organization in Sri Lanka the study identifies five barriers hindering the women’s participation; time and distance; lack of motivation or interest; limited knowledge of the organization; someone opposing the choice; and fear of loosing the employment. The study derives the root-causes of the barriers to the current social norms and roles, which are internalized in the young women’s mind from their background as well as through the reproduction of them in their new environment, but also to EPZs as discouraging an improvement of the women’s situation.

Depuis des siècles, plusieurs penseurs et scientifiques ont abordé la relation entre la coopération, le langage et la cognition sociale. Parmi eux, Trần Đức Thảo (1917-1993) mérite une mention spéciale. Le but de la recherche qui suit est de présenter au lecteur la réflexion philosophique de Thảo sur le langage humain et son évolution. Nous essaierons de tracer les grandes lignes de la théorie de Thảo sur les origines du langage dans ses Recherches sur l'origine du langage et de la conscience (1973) dans lesquelles il a essayé de trouver une synthèse entre philosophie, linguistique, psychologie et anthropologie physique. La découverte du marxisme-léninisme a conduit Thảo à proposer une approche matérialiste et dialectique au problème de la relation entre corps esprit. De cette façon, Thảo a proposé une sorte de tournant matérialiste et historique de la philosophie de la conscience de Husserl qui était au cœur de ses premiers intérêts philosophiques. La théorie de Thảo met en relief la nature sociale du langage et de la cognition, de sorte que l’évolution du langage est inextricablement liée aux relations sociales. Une telle conclusion reposait sur l’hypothèse que le travail est une caractéristique exclusivement humaine qui distingue les humains des animaux. Pour lui, la genèse du langage est dans le travail humain et donc le langage se développe parmi nos ancêtres pré-humains ainsi que chez les humains en réponse aux problèmes posés par la vie matérielle. En gardant à l’esprit que le langage découle des exigences sociales et des besoins du monde matériel, selon Thảo le langage se transforme lui-même au fur et à mesure que la société humaine change. Et compte tenu des racines sociales de la pensée et du langage, la conscience évolue continuellement avec le temps. Dans ce cadre, Thảo a voulu déterminer la nature du langage et son rôle dans les sociétés préhistoriques et son évolution à travers les relations sociales
Several thinkers and scientists throughout the philosophical and scientific tradition took up the relationship between cooperation, language, and social cognition. Among them, Trần Đức Thảoʼs (1917–1993) deserves a special mention. The purpose of the following research is to introduce the reader to Thảoʼs philosophical reflection on human language and its evolution. We shall attempt to map out the main lines of Thảoʼs theory of language origins set out in his Recherches sur l’origine du langage et de la conscience (1973) that combines philosophy, linguistics, psychology, and anthropology. The discovery of Marxism-Leninism led Thảo to suggest a materialistic and dialectic approach to the mind-body problem. In this way, Thảo tried to suggest a materialist and historical turn of Husserl’s philosophy of consciousness which was at the very heart of his own first philosophical interests. Thảo’s account threw into sharp relief the social nature of both language and cognition, so that language evolution is linked inextricably to social relations. Such a view depended upon the assumption that labour is an exclusively human characteristic which sets humans apart from animals. And the genesis of language is in human labour. In this way of thinking, language develops among both our pre-human ancestors and present humans in response to problems posed by the material life. Bearing in mind that language arises from the social demands and needs of the material world, language is transformed itself as human society changes. And given the social roots of thought and language, consciousness evolves continuously over time. Within this framework, Thảo wanted to determine the nature of language and its role in pre-historical societies and its making through social relations

Nas primeiras décadas do século XX, inicialmente em Viena, depois em Berlim, na busca pela profilaxia da neurose, o psicanalista austro-húngaro Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) militou por transformações sociais. Este estudo focaliza a relação entre ação política e formação da consciência de classe no pensamento de Reich. Tendo por base formulações do historiador Dominick LaCapra, especialmente sobre contextualização e repetição variada, e utilizando o livro de Reich O que é a consciência de classe?, de 1934, como ponto de partida genealógico, foram analisados textos reichianos publicados entre 1926 e 1934. Os resultados indicaram que a proposta de militância política reichiana, afinada com o otimismo leninista e social democrata da virada do século XIX para o XX, pressupôs a capacidade natural revolucionária das massas e a necessidade de um processo recíproco de educação entre as massas e a direção revolucionária sem o qual a revolução não aconteceria
In the first decades of the twentieth century, first in Vienna, then in Berlin, in the search for prophylaxis of neurosis, Austro-Hungarian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) campaigned for social transformations. This study focuses on the relationship between political action and class consciousness formation in Reichs thought. Based on historian Dominick LaCapras formulations, especially about contextualization and varied repetition, and using the book Reich What is class consciousness?, 1934, as a genealogical point of departure, reichian texts published between 1926 and 1934 were analyzed. The results indicated that the political activism proposed by Reich, aligned with the Leninist and social democratic optimism in the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, assumed the revolutionary natural ability of the masses and the need for a reciprocal process of education among the masses and the revolutionary direction without which the revolution would not happen

This essay investigates how Bret Easton Ellis portrays Patrick Bateman as a projection of American society, in order to criticize consumerism and capitalism in his novel American Psycho. By applying Marxist theory, this essay examines Bateman's consumption patterns and class-consciousness using key Marxist terms. This essay investigates the relationship between Bateman and his commodities, through the Marxist concept of value. Furthermore, this essay suggests that Bateman's consumption pattern creates his identity and that Bateman's lust for consumption has no boundaries. Bateman quenches his thirst for consumption by consuming humans of low status on the social hierarchy, by acts of violence, rape or cannibalism.

Mindreading is the capacity to attribute psychological states to others and to use those attributions to explain, predict, and understand others’ behaviors. In the past thirty years, mindreading has become the topic of substantial interdisciplinary research and theorizing, with philosophers, psychologists and, more recently, neuroscientists, all contributing to the debate about the nature of the neuropsychological mechanisms that constitute the capacity for mindreading. In this thesis I push this debate forward by using recent results from developmental psychology as the basis for critiques of two prominent views of mindreading. First, I argue that the developmental studies provide evidence of infant mindreading and therefore expose a flaw in José Bermúdez’s view that certain forms of mindreading require language possession. Second, I argue that the evidence of infant mindreading can also be used to undermine Alvin Goldman’s version of Simulation Theory.

False consciousness was a concept originally developed by Marx and Engels in the 19th century, to explain the actions and behaviors of the bourgeoisie. In the 20th century, various political thinkers such as Lukács, Marcuse and Jost broadened its definition to explain the actions and behaviors of all members of society, including those from lower or subordinate classes. False consciousness has since been used by some Marxian political thinkers and anti-capitalist activists to make sense of people’s quiescence towards the capitalist system. This interpretation of the concept has attracted an array of critiques that have severely affected false consciousness’ legitimacy and value. These critiques demonstrate that people’s quiescence toward the capitalist system is not necessarily synonymous with false consciousness and it should not be used as an excuse for communism’s failure. Despite the severity of these critiques, Augoustinos disputes that false consciousness is not an outdated and useless concept, but that it is necessary to redefine it in order to increase its credibility. It must be situated, not in people’s mind, but within the capitalist structure, which presents itself as a superior version of what it truly is and sustains misconceptions about its real capacities and limitations. This thesis is thus an implicit defense of the validity of the Marxian concept of false consciousness.

This research challenges the hypothesis that Biko was anti-liberal and anti-white. Biko's clearly defined condemnation of traditional South African white liberals such as Alan Paton is hypothesised as a strategic move in the liberation struggle designed to neutralise the "gradualism" of traditional white liberalism which believe that racism could be ultimately superseded by continually improving education for blacks. Biko neutralised apartheid racism and traditional white liberalism by affirming all aspects of blackness as positive values in themselves, and by locating racism as a white construct with deep roots in European colonialism and pseudoDarwinian beliefs in white superiority. The research shows that Biko was neither anti-liberal nor anti-white. His own attitudes to the universal rights, dignity, freedom and self-determination of all human beings situate him continuously with all major human rights theorists and activists since the Enlightenment. His unique Africanist contribution was to define racist oppression in South Africa as a product of the historical conditioning of blacks to accept their own alleged inferiority. Biko's genius resided in his ability to synthesize his reading of Marxist, Africanist, European and African American into a truly original charter for racial emancipation. Biko' s methodology encouraged blacks to reclaim their rights and pride as a prelude to total emancipation. The following transactions are described in detail: Biko's role in the founding of SASO and Black Consciousness; the paradoxical relations between white liberal theologians, Black Consciousness and Black Theology; the influence on BC of USA Black Power and Black Theology; the role of Black Theologians in South African churches, SACC and WCC; synergic complexities ofNUSAS-SASO relations; relations between BC, ANC and PAC; the early involvement of women in BCM; feminist issues in the liberation struggle; Biko's death in detention; world-wide and South African liberal involvement in the inquest and anti-apartheid organisations.
History
D. Litt. et Phil. (History)

The Philebus is devoted to the question what constitutes the good for a human being. Although Socrates initially favors a life of pure intelligence against the hedonist’s life of pure pleasure, he quickly concedes that some pleasures actually enhance the life of intelligence. In order to determine which pleasures deserve a place in the best life, Socrates undertakes a lengthy investigation into the nature of pleasure. Commentators have long been frustrated in their attempt to uncover a single, unified account that explains in a plausible way the extraordinary variety of pleasures analyzed in the dialogue. I argue that this search for a generic account of pleasure is misguided, because one of the main purposes of Socrates’ division of pleasure is to expose its essentially heterogeneous nature. Pleasures can be bodily or psychic, pure or mixed with pain, truth apt or not, healthy or diseased, and inherently measured or unmeasured, and there are no essential properties which all of these diverse phenomena share. The inclusion of some pleasures in the final ranking of the goods at the end of the Philebus represents a dramatic shift in Plato’s attitude towards certain pleasures, and so it is not surprising that many scholars misinterpret the force of this conclusion. Even in the Republic where the pleasures of reason are favorably compared to the pleasures of spirit and appetite, intellectual pleasures are judged to be more pleasant and real than other pleasures, but they are nowhere judged to be better or praised as genuine goods. In the Philebus, not only are some pleasures unambiguously ranked among the highest goods, but Socrates gives no indication that these pleasures are good only in some qualified or extrinsic way. Instead, certain pleasures make their own positive contribution to the goodness of the best human life, making the mixed life more valuable and choiceworthy than the unmixed life of intelligence.

I argue in my dissertation that the Marxist ethical claim against capitalism could be bolstered through: 1) a recognition of the inaccurate human ontology that capitalist theories of entitlement presuppose, 2) a reconceptualization and replacement of that old paradigm of human ontology with a concept that I call “organicism” and 3) a normative argument for why this new paradigm of human ontology necessitates a new political economy and a new way of structuring society. I use the debate between Robert Nozick and G.A. Cohen as a launching point for my case.

In his book, Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality, G.A. Cohen argues that Robert Nozick’s “entitlement theory” is unable to produce the robust sense of freedom that libertarians and capitalist proponents aggrandize. According to Cohen, the reason for this is due to the limitations and consistency errors produced by the libertarian adherence to the “self-ownership principle.” (the moral/natural right that a person is the sole proprietor of their own body and life). Namely, that the pale freedom that the proletariat enjoys within capitalism is inconsistent with the Libertarian’s own standard for freedom. So, Cohen argues for the elimination of the self-ownership principle. My project picks up where Cohen’s leaves off, claiming that the consistency errors don’t lie in entitlement theory’s use of the self-ownership principle (it is important that we don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater). Rather, the errors lie in the principle’s metaphysics - specifically in the ontology of the human being. The self-ownership principle is only faulty because it presupposes an impossible self. I show that entitlement theory heedlessly presupposes the self (or a human ontology) as a “rational, autonomous, individual.” I then deconstruct each of these three features (rationality, autonomy, and individuality) to show that this picture of the human being is not necessarily incorrect, but it is incomplete.

Although we are indeed rational, autonomous, individual creatures, these are only emergent characteristics that merely arise after the organic and socially interconnected aspects of our selves are nurtured. I encompass these latter features of our selves under the heading: “organicism”. So, my contribution is to provide a different ontological foundation of the human being – “organicism” – to replace the Enlightenment grown: “rational, autonomous, individual”. I draw heavily from Karl Marx’s philosophical anthropology, and G.W.F. Hegel’s theory of the unfolding of Geist/Spirit, with a little inspiration from Aristotle and ecological theory to construct “organicism” – a pancorporealist, naturalistic materialism. It is the theory that the human being is, in essence, an organic creature, inseparable from nature, but through the nurturing of these material, organic, symbiotic relationships (with other humans and with the ecosystem) that these “super”-natural capacities of rationality and autonomy arise along with and because of a full self-consciousness.

Finally, I infer the normative implications of this ontology of subjectivity. This organicist conception of the self has transformational effects on our notions of property and the way we structure society. So, I contend that organicist ontology then serves as the foundation for a normative theory of political economy that sees the flourishing or health (broadly speaking) of the organicist human as the primary ethical goal. I speculate on an alternative political economy that can provide the robust sense of freedom that Nozick’s entitlement theory (capitalism) was lacking because it actually produces the conditions necessary for rationality, autonomy and individual freedom.