Marx and the War
The United State's invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, and the world- wide protests against these actions provides "fertile" material for sociological analysis, specifically from the perspective of conflict theory. Recent media attention given to the March 20th protests here in the United States and around the world, specifically an article by CNN will provide a template for a critical sociological analysis. As critical theory depends so much on the foundation laid by Karl Marx I will focus my analysis on, first a Classical Marxist analysis, then explain how it is inadequate and turn to a Neo-Marxist Perspective, then finishing with a Post- Marxist explanation of the war, occupation and the protest movements and the theoretical issues they raiseThe article I chose is entitled "Americans Demonstrate For, Against War". It summarizes protests in New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Washington DC and Los Angeles and reports on both the pro-war and anti war-activists. According to the article more than 200,000 people marched in New York City, and reported policed violence through the use of pepper spray and violent activist behavior. The article also focused on the pro-war marchers in Chicago, and their support for the troops a
Because they emphasized critique many critical theorists focused on specific aspects of modern society and sought to explore the oppressive structures hidden within them. Kellner is also slightly more optimistic than Marcuse, as he does not view television as a massive, homogenous force, but one of disparate and conflicting interests, which reinforce the dialectic. Also the protesters on both sides are not waiting for an inevitable collapse of the structures supporting war but are actively and subjectively questioning and protesting the assumptions behind it. For example we often view roads as a benign and often useful resource open to everyone but Lefebrve sees them as a means primarily constructed for furthering industrial economic efficiency and transportation, thereby promoting capitalist expansion and all of the values and consequences it implies. Herbert Marcuse focused on how technology was used for cultural and social control in our increasingly irrational society. In the later part of the nineteenth-century thinkers such as Georg Lukacs started to reexamine what was thought to be an over-emphasis on economics and positivism in Marx's work. For Lefebvre we must start to take an active role in reapportioning space, and even producing it for emancipatory means. For Lefebvre space "serves in various ways to reproduce the capitalist system, the class structure within that economic system, and so on. It is not difficult to see how Hegel's concept of the dialectic is important to conflict theory in its emphasis on opposing and ever changing structures and how they shape "ideas". Douglas Kellner also focused on technology and its effects on shaping social patterns and its role in control. In a way, Americans who were not equipped by the media with the necessary information could not make a critical analysis of Bush's justifications and were duped into supporting a war. Communicative action simply put is the way we communicate through speech, signs and symbols to one another to convey meaning in interpersonal and social contexts. The protest in Washington, like the protest in New York City took place within a sanctioned barricade and reports that the police in Washington DC and the protesters "had a stand off" when the "demonstrators departed from the route set out in their parade permit. The dialectic explains the world as rife with constantly changing forces moving in opposition to another; accordingly the world is made up of "processes, relationships, dynamics, conflicts, and contradictions.
Common topics in this essay:
Roots Hegel,
Henri Lefebvre,
Jurgen Habermas,
Herbert Marcuse,
Douglas Kellner,
Theory Critical,
Laclau Mouffe,
Antonio Gramsci,
Bush Administration,
Conflict Theory,
critical theorists,
oppressive structures,
communicative action,
conflict theory,
marx's economic,
york city,
americans demonstrate war,
material world,
anti-war protests,
classical marxist,
marx's economic determinism,
power marx,
developments marxist theory,
ideal speech situations,
analysis critical theory,
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Acceptance Essays
