Three

Dr. Craig's post really cleared things up on Marxist criticism. The part when Dr. Craig mentioned how the American ruling class brainwashes the working class into thinking that they are fighting the system by purchasing certain commodities, makes the working class seem so pathetic.

Here we are (and I say "we" because I would put my pennies down on the fact that no one reading this is part of the ruling class), going about our day to day lives, some of us struggling to buy books, or pay rent, or concerned about being in $160,000 in debt within the next one or two years, unable to change any of it. Most are aware of the ruling class that has so much money they don't know what to do with it, but there are often the rebellious folks who attempt to fight it. In high school, my boyfriend at the time was one of these rebels. He would criticize me for my Uggs, or Northface, or anything else with a brand, for "feeding the corporations". He was doing the same thing when he bought CDs, concert tickets and his Vans slip ons.

Even the CDs that my boyfriend bought were singing about the war, the economy, how people need to "stand up for what they believe in" all gave back to the ruling class. These bands were signed onto big record labels and most of the money gained from CD, concert and t-shirt sales was ulitmately given back to the owners of the label and became another social contradiction that still has not been resolved.

Two

Marxist criticism on literature seems kind of lame at first saying that all that "we" have created has been influence by the outside world and is basically economically determined by capitalism in the US. It says that nothing can come from spirituality or our inner self. With a majority of religious Americans, it almost seems unreasonable to think that nothing could be shaped or formed by the individuals' beliefs like in the ten tenets of liberal humanism, where it states that individuality is something securely possessed within each of us as our unique essence.

Marxist literary criticism then begins to fall into place making sense in that people learn from what is around them, with what they grew up with, forming their "own" beliefs that are inevitably the same of most of their peers/community/family/friends.

For example, people who grow up with Christianity may believe in Jesus and the Bible may continue to believe and act in life according to the religion, but throughout life, a lot of moral decisions will be based off of Christianity because it was drilled into them growing up. I think that some people tweak their beliefs a bit but only in a certain range to the extent of their knowledge and what is acceptable in the society.

So... that's it.

one

I don't like introductions and my initial thoughts are usually wrong and boring.

From my past experience with theory, thanks to Dr. DeGooyer, I can never look at ads the same way again and I am a walking advertisement 24/7.

Short and sweet.