In his brief passage “Hegemony” from Marxism and Literature, Raymond Williams delves into the layers of what constitutes hegemony. At the time, hegemony was compared with the concept of ideology which is simply a system of ideas and beliefs that upholds the foundation of a particular social group. On the other hand, hegemony takes this further where there is a direct exercise of power that forces people into a position of consent which is an active process. The utilization of ideology comes into play as societal norms and political regulation are established through the leader asserting dominance. By doing this, leaders or those in power are able to achieve a natural sense of culture and governance. Of course, these are only natural in appearance because they are synthetic and tailor made to suit the interests of the rulers enforcing them. This is one of the main ideas Williams tackles in the passage. He discusses how effective of a technique this is because it “corresponds much more closely to the normal  process of social organization and control in developed societies than the more familiar projections from the idea of a ruling class” (Williams 110). Historically this is something that can be observed from the likes of colonization. While colonization was much more physically forceful in nature, hegemony through this means can be seen as mentally forceful. Their major point of connection is an overarching power dynamic to gain control over a group of people. That being said, there can be an argument made for how both have a long lasting effect on people fundamentally. Through colonization cultural diffusion is bound to occur even if not by choice. Those who are impacted will continue to adhere to and perform what it is they observe from the unfamiliar cultures because oftentimes they have no choice. Perhaps the most obvious and consistent example throughout history is the enforcement of religious beliefs. Hegemony can have a similar impact on people though not through means that are as gruesome as colonization. It functions similarly to introducing a new religion into someone’s life, their perspective and mindset will shift. People will unknowingly become used to and comfortable with their living conditions. This is something that socialists such as Williams were concerned with. The normalization of the needs and desires of a small subset of people rather than the needs and desires of the overall population along with the cultural differences they share is problematic. Such a process suppresses and masks subordinate classes of people who are individuals with their own insight and opinions to provide. It will also create a cycle that maintains those of higher social status in their position and those of lower status to stay there forever. This will lead to massive inequality between various people. In our modern capitalistic society, we can see threads of this permeating through the country and affecting thousands with the ongoing homeless crisis and systemic oppression of minorities for example. As our society advances we slowly move towards an unmasking of the power dynamics being applied. However, one quickly realizes that while we may be becoming more astute and perceptive to the ways in which we are being oppressed, there are yet to be many significant changes in improving our situation which to me just puts us in an even scarier position.

In the article called The Capital explained many different metaphors used in this story. On page 670 states ”  Later on , we try to decipher the hieroglyphic, to get behind the secret of our own social products; for to stamp an object of utility as a value, is just as much a social product as language.” This  explains that what’s the secret is behind the value of an object and the secret being own social products. This also explains the social product as a languages by the values of the objects. Another quote stated on page 670 is” The recent scientific discovery, that the products of labor, so far as they are values, are but material expressions of the human labor spent in they are values, are but material expressions of the human labor spent in their productions, marks indeed, an epoch in the history of development of the human race, but by no means dissipate the mist through which the products themselves.”  This explains how the value of products and how in human labor make the productions. The value of goods shows a reflection of the human effort in making the objects. This also explains the value of produces bring tied to labor work and how much effort and time and production made in the products.

Robinson Crusoe tells us different things about commodity and market based forms of production and exchange.  On page 672 states ” Necessity itself compels him to apportion his time accurately between his different kids of work. Whether one kind occupies a greater space in his general activity than another, depends on the difficulties greater or less as the case may be, to be overcome in attaining the useful effect aimed at”. This quote explains while doing different types of tasks and activity it takes time and effort to complete. This also states that while doing different activates the more time you take the more difficult the task is. While taking more longer on the activity you become more successful. The more challenging and more effort you put into your activity the more successful and easier it is for you to complete.

Another quote stated on page 672 is ” Personal dependence here characterizes the social relations of production just as much as it does the other spheres of life organized on the basis of that production”. This quote explains that your personal experiences also effect your social relation around you. This also explains how you see different phases of life and how organized your life is. Another example Marx tries to prove is on page 672″ Here the particular and natural form of labor and not as in a society based on production of commodities, its general abstract form is the immediate social form of labor.” Marx tries to prove how there are different types of labor and how the productions is different between both labor forms. He also tries to prove the abstract form of the social form of labor between natural and society labor.

The most important quotes that Marx states on page 672  is ” No matter then, what we may think of the parts played by the different classes of people themselves in this society, the social relations between individuals in the performance in this society, the social relations between individuals in the performance of their labor, appear at all events as their own mutual person relations”  This explains how regardless of people beliefs and whatever social class you are everyone is the same. This also tries to show how in labor or work the different interactions and relationships you have are very significant. They are very significant because everyone is human at the end of the day and have to treat everyone with respect and work with everyone. This also shows the even if you have different social class or different religion or different everything you have to build relationship and work with everyone. This is what i have learned in this passage.

As labor laws and the divisions of power become more humane, the steadfast issue with capitalism is still present. But how could this argument that Marx pursues finally get a say thats heard by the capitalist he rages against? Are there any capitalist, hiring hands, that consider the workers they alienate/objectify? I’m not sure. The worker and the employer are on two separate spheres in Marx’s writing. They hardly overlap outside of ‘animal functions’- like eating or dressing up. I understand the differentiation, as it secretes a subconscious knowing that one’s worth is gauged on another group’s standards. Those standards are literally determining your livelihood through acceptability and need-basis characteristics. 

it seems impossible to differentiate between the nature of reality and hegemony. Raymond Williams says “To say that ‘men’ define and shape their whole lives is true only in abstraction.” Hierarchy is inescapable. Class society abides by a structure that undermines every living creature. The generation of wealth is the generation of worth. Society is carefully damning each person according to status, set to that path accordingly in work. Overseers in power are placated by this system of capitalism. It was necessary and vital for Karl Marx to sound an alarm against this global travesty, yet philosophical understanding was not the intended cap. Colonization and the silencing of natives is part of the history of capitalism. Still present today are the exploits by the wealthy who live their lives under their own gaze, or worse, enforced by hegemonic ‘abstracted ideology” (Williams). 

The construct of man is always going to be forfeit to the ammunition of those in charge. The spectrum of the power house is imbued with corrosive confusion, its not just economic survival but societal forbearance that maintain this system of power. What could possibly stop hindering the masses from their rudimentary survival but an enlightenment, structured around knowing that worth is not weighted by production, job, or status? Yet, with dismantling that hard truth, what would take its place? What else could weigh it? What if you are judged by your basic familiarity and presence alone. Society has grid all its people to the understanding of an intellectualized clause between self-awareness and reality that only perpetuates more thought bound to constructs fit in the reality. There is no room for a reality that is questionable or illusive. Just structure and alienation of self. Williams’ quote beautifully summarizes how hegemony of this economic system encapsulates all those who live under it to “such a depth that the pressures and limits [of hegemony]..seem to most of us the pressures and limits of simple experience and common sense.” The two are interlocked, complicating realistic discernment. The nature of intellectualization, seen as synonymous with human qualities, will inevitably be used to hoist each culture’s hegemonic philosophy. As noted by Gramsci, intellectualization flourishes fluidly, readapting its defining perimeters to include high and low levels of behavior. Conclusively, society is always finding its civilians in hierarchical degrees, reducing many to the unproductive or lazy. 

Hegemony is defined as “political rule or domination, especially in relations between states”. Marxism elaborates on this definition and extends it to social class relations (more specifically, a ruling class). Marxist Antonio Gramsci delves deeper into the relationship between domination, hegemony, and “the ideology”. He claims that society lives off of “an ideology” that is more or less applied to both the subordinated and dominant classes; however, hegemony rejects this “ideology”, as it is one in itself. “The concept of hegemony often, in practice, resembles these definitions, but it is distinct in its refusal to equate consciousness with the articulate formal system which can be and ordinarily is abstracted as ‘ideology’ (109).” This “ideology” that Gramsci mentions is essentially just the idea that the consciousnesses of the subordinated and dominant classes directly fall under the formal societal system that has been constructed. Or rather, the societal system has been applied to the consciousnesses. This is explained briefly, “More generally, this sense of ‘an ideology’ is applied in abstract ways to the actual consciousness of both dominant and subordinated classes. A dominant class ‘has’ this ideology in relatively pure and simple forms. A subordinate class has, in one version, nothing but this ideology as its consciousness (since the production of all ideas is, by axiomatic definition, in the hands of those who control the primary means of production) […] (109).” Essentially, the dominant class “has” this ideology or state of mind. It has enveloped their consciousness; the subordinate class has nothing but this ideology because the production of ideas is in the hands of those who control it, which would be the dominant class. The story here is quite circular, production leads to consumption and application. “It is the fully articulate and systematic forms which are recognizable as ideology (109).” These forms or systems are well thought out because they equate to the culture of the classes.

The way hegemony differs from this is that it’s not a socially constructed system or structure; it is just “a realized complex of experiences, relationships, and activities, with specific and changing pressures and limits (112).” It’s very complex and unlike a socially constructed system, it “does not just passively exist as a form of dominance. It has continually to be renewed, recreated, defended, and modified. It is also continually resisted, limited, altered, challenged by pressures not all its own (112).” Dominance, when it comes to hegemony, needs to be renewed consistently and molded around the expanding experiences of the consciousnesses of the subordinated and dominant classes.

 In “The Rhetoric of Video Games,” Ian Bogost explores the impact of video games on our culture and thinking. One game that exemplifies this influence is “Animal Crossing,” a seemingly simple game that offers players valuable insights into the world around them.

At first glance, “Animal Crossing” appears to be a lighthearted game about managing a virtual town, interacting with animal villagers, and engaging in different activities. However, beneath its exterior, “Animal Crossing” subtly addresses issues such as community building, environmental stewardship, and the value of time and labor.

By playing “Animal Crossing,” one can learn about the importance of community and the impact of individual actions on a larger ecosystem. The game encourages players to think about resource management, economic principles, and the consequences of unchecked consumption. Additionally, “Animal Crossing” introduces players to concepts of social responsibility and the value of maintaining relationships with others.

Bogost, drawing on Salen and Zimmerman, defines “play” as “the free space of movement within a rigid structure in order to draw connections between the rhetoric of video games and other forms of art.” In other words, it is a voluntary activity removed from ordinary life and governed by rules defining the experience. This definition differs from common-sense understandings of play, which often emphasize leisure and amusement. Bogost connects playing video games to other forms of “playful” culture, such as the literary experiments of the OULIPO group, highlighting how both involve structured and rule-based activities that generate creative outcomes.

Bogost introduces the concept of “procedural rhetoric,” which combines the terms “procedure” and “rhetoric” to describe how video games use rules and systems to make arguments and influence players’ thinking and behavior. By manipulating game mechanics, developers can create experiences that convey specific messages or perspectives, shaping players’ understanding of complex issues.

Video games are ideological in that they reflect and reinforce certain beliefs and values. Bogost argues that video games can serve as both expressions of ideology and sites for critique of ideology. For example, games like “The McDonald’s Videogame” and “America’s Army” explicitly engage with political and social issues, offering players opportunities to explore and challenge dominant ideologies.

Bogost emphasizes the importance of “procedural literacy” in the 21st century, as digital technologies increasingly shape our lives. He calls for educators, parents, and students to understand and critically engage with the procedural aspects of media and technology. A more procedurally literate society can better navigate and critique the complex systems that govern our world.

In conclusion, “The Rhetoric of Video Games” offers a very different understanding of the power and influence of video games. By examining games like “Animal Crossing” through Bogost’s text, we can appreciate how even simple games can provoke deep reflections on the world around us

From Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 by philosopher Karl Marx is a piece of political theory that delves into the increasing alienation of human labor to the human themselves. It explores capitalism in its heyday while critiquing the morbid effects it has had on human existence, particularly concerning himself with exploitation and devaluation behind mass labor. 

As I read Marx’s inquiry on the inherent detachment the modern day wage slave laborer has to the product they create, I couldn’t help but imagine mindless humans, both mass producing and mass consuming these items, devoid of any critical thinking. Through this robotic lens that Marx provides, I found the underlying themes in his manuscript mirrored the underlying themes in one of my favorite Pixar movies, Wall-E. Despite the time difference of Wall-E being set in a post-apocalyptic and futuristic setting, it still manages to encapsulate consequences of rampant industrialization, reflecting the theories of Marx. 

One of the central ideas in the manuscript is alienation. Marx refers to the estrangement of laborers from the very nature that makes them human under the capitalist reign. Marx argues that these workers are despondently detached from their sense of individualism, from the fruits of their labor, from the action of labor itself, and from each other. This method of alienation is conceptualized in Wall-E where these futuristic humans have become completely and utterly disengaged from nature and their own sense of humanity. They live in a futile and artificial environment which is simultaneously a consumerist utopia. The Axiom spaceship of Wall-E is fully reliant on the ultramodern technology and devoid of any authentic relationship or creative labor. 

In The German Ideology, Carl Marx and Friedrich Engels write, “….in his work therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy, but mortifies his body and ruins his mind” (659). This resonates to the environment aboard the Axiom spaceship. Humanity in this spaceship preserves only through a sedentary life, where people are constantly indulging in instant gratification which results in the deterioration of their physical and emotional state. These humans, from birth, lack the emotional touch and warmth of human connection and any sense of originality. 

Furthermore, Marx continues to delve into the bourgeois class, who inherently benefit from the profit surplus stemming from the mind numbing and zombie-like state consumers spiral into. This exploitation is explained in Wall-E through the anonymous and faceless corporation of Buy and Large (BnL) acting almost as a religious entity. BnL directly profits from this overconsumption and it’s waste that planet Earth has succumbed to which humble workers such as Wall-E, the robot, have to clean up without any agency or benefit. 

This alienation from the core value of what makes a human an unique individual results in a rather dystopian society, filled with spiritual poverty and only artificial fulfillment  which ultimately echoes Marx’s critique of a post-capitalist world.

How does a worker become “alienated” from his labor? According to Marx and Engels: “[…] [the] labor is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his essential being; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not feel freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind” (659). They go further: “[…] the external character of labor for the worker appears in the fact that it is not his own, but someone else’s, that it does not belong to him, that in it he belongs, not to himself, but to another” (659). Even though the worker produces things, they do not do so out of love but out of the mere necessity to make ends meet. This alienates them from their work. They exert themselves physically and mentally, only for other people to make huge profits at their expense. In addition, Marx and Engels argue that the rise in the value of products is inversely proportional to the value of the people producing them (657). Therefore, the value of products does not guarantee an increase in the value/condition of the worker but the other way around.

We can see a real-life example of the alienation of labor in the case of fast fashion. Fast fashion refers to the section of the fashion industry that is focused on churning out clothing items faster and at a lower cost of production. The lower cost translates to lower prices for consumers, making clothes more affordable. In the article “The Truth About Fast Fashion” (published in The Guardian), Hannah Marriott writes: “In 1970, for example, the average British household spent 7% of its annual income on clothing. This had fallen to 5.9% by 2020. Even though we are spending less proportionally, we tend to own more clothes.” People are buying more clothes as they are now more affordable, but how is the affordability made possible? Workers in low-income countries with fewer labor regulations are paid much less than they would have to be paid in wealthy countries like the United States. Many American and European fashion companies have shifted their production to poorer countries, where they can get away with paying their workers low wages.

While the people working for the fast fashion industry are poorly paid, it is quite evident that profits are being made. In a Guardian article on garments workers in Bangladesh demanding higher wages, Annie Kelly and Redwan Ahmed quote a protesting worker: “The leggings I make retail for more than my entire month’s salary… To us, it is clear that there are huge profits being made on our backs.” The authors further report that the wages the workers earn are not enough for them to even feed their families.

Even though fast fashion ensures huge profits for the owners and CEOs of fashion companies and lower prices for consumers, the workers barely earn enough to make ends meet. This is an example of alienation of labor in action. Even though there is now a larger supply of clothes available for consumers, the value of the worker has gone down. The worker has little connection to what they are producing, causing them to be alienated from their work.

Link to The Guardian articles that have been cited:

Workers for fast fashion brands fear starvation as they fight for higher wages | Global development | The Guardian

The truth about fast fashion: can you tell how ethical your clothing is by its price? | Fashion | The Guardian

Reading the “Economic and Political Manuscripts of 1844” gave me a new perspective on Marx’s views on workers and the tolls they endure from a growing capitalist state. Marx explains the problem presented to workers is this growing sense of alienation. His first point explains the feeling of disconnect between the laborer and the object of production. As the laborer works hard to make this product, at the end of the day, the results is just an object. Thus, the laborer realizes that their “product of labour is labour which has been congealed in an object, which has become material,” and by seeing it as so, the worker devalues themselves (657). They no longer gain any satisfaction in working and in some part, lose themselves by working constantly towards every new product made. He further adds how awful it feels that everything they produce isn’t even something they can receive. A guy that works on making phones can’t necessarily afford to buy himself the latest brand (which is ironic since he literally made it!) I actually seen something alike this happen. My parents used to work as food vendors selling Mexican food. I remember how we used to order take out on the weekends, however, it was anything but Mexican food. The thought of cooking up the same stuff over and over just bored them to the point that the product itself decreased in value for them to no longer want anything to do with it.

This example also works with Marx second point: the alienation between the worker and the process of work. My parents, despite the constant stress, liked cooking. It’s a nice feeling, the process and work that is put into the food and more so that satisfaction that everyone else enjoys it too; but I know they definitely wouldn’t be too happy working in a restaurant. This new environment is different because the majority of times the food and ingredients are pre-prepared for you to use. There’s also a greater, constant pressure to keep up with loads of cooking and serving to people you won’t even see. Marx explains this as the process of work becoming no longer enjoyable but more stressing and this notion that you are being constrained to just work to work. Further, he argues how capitalism is devolving away from that essence of being part of a “natural process”, the process of making things out of nature’s resources and producing with it. He explains, “ But as nature provides labor with the means of life… it also provides the means of life in the more restricted sense— the means for the physical subsistence of the worker himself,”. Moving away from the natural way, makes the worker feel less attached, control and so, “[deprived] himself of means of life,” (657-658). I could see how this argument comes from the Industrial Revolution. Of course machines make production faster and efficient, but to whom does that benefit really? The worker is the one working with these machines which the use of it makes it feel unnatural and more like robots pushing buttons.

I do find this theory interesting and made me realize what Marx is saying, is still happening today, especially towards factory workers. Basing off of Marx, I do wonder if there is a way in which we can make this alienation feeling go away? Or is it just something we are to continue throughout the working industry?

For Marx, ideology is a distorted production of ideas that reflect a relationship between men and their circumstances, and ultimately is what keeps us following the status quo. Ideology is like a “camera obscura” in this way, because it is a reflection of something that does exist in real life, but does not necessarily not exist. According to ideology, for instance, “consciousness is taken as the living individual” (Marx, 660). Religion is an example of an ideology following this pattern, where we arrive to “men in the flesh” after looking at what men “say, imagine, and conceive”. After we look at the fantastical power of the church and its teachings–like we discussed in class: “last shall be first and first shall be last”–we arrive to men in the flesh who accept awful working conditions and painful labor. Like in a camera obscura, it is true that men exist in the flesh and certainly they imagine and speak; however, the idea that life is determined by consciousness is the upside down, not-untrue-but-not-entirely-true interpretation. Marx suggests that  it is our responsibility to identify our position in this camera obscura, and change the lens to give a more accurate reflection, or potentially even break the box. Using the same example, he says that consciousness is determined by life, and we must start with real, living men rather than obscure concepts.

We know Marx uses this analogy mainly to push his communist agenda–which might be a form of changing the “camera obscura”.  In Capital, Marx talks more about commodities and how they fit into this schema of reality. Commodities are odd things because their actual value and the labor behind their existence that stamps them as a commodity actually are totally unrelated. We give commodities a life of their own, a result of a sort of “fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labor” (Marx, 669). He gives an example of wood, and how a table remains a piece of wood simply refashioned until we give it this enigmatic force that decides its value. The relation between a human and his coffee table, for example, is a person-object relationship that our culture has given a person-person relationship to. One way we do this is by socializing the coffee table in a way that places a value on the “social character of the labor that produce[d]” it. Products of labor are really just util items that end up gaining a mystical social status through exchange and our interpretation of the work put into creating it. And so suddenly, there is this really weird hierarchy that arises where a sports car, for example, has more “value” as a commodity than, say, drinking water, because more socialized labor was put into the process that created the car than in some random independent hiker wandering in the woods and finding a fresh pond. However, when looking at the sports car, there is no necessary relationship between the person who buys the commodity (the car) and the group of people who make all the different parts. Nevertheless, by fetishizing or creating a relationship between the producer and the purchaser we seem to be protecting ourselves from alienation. Marx brings up alienation, especially when talking about how industrial capitalism is not only ruining any (existing or falsely existing) relationship between the producers and the products they are producing, but even alienating workers from their own lives. The distorted reality that we uphold in this camera obscura is that some aspect of the bourgeois society is somehow connected to some aspect of that of the proletariat, and they need each other in some fundamental way. Really there is no intrinsic connection here. We push the narrative that the production process is some fantastical power, but there is nothing inherently magical about it. Regardless, aside from the “capitalism is a disease” theme, fetishism of commodities seems to be a protective factor we’ve created to keep us from the different kinds of alienation created by our own system.