Questions for The Marxist Critics

1. What is dialectical materialism? (163)

2. What is the base, what is the
     superstructure? How does this
     factor into our lives, by way of politics
     and art? How do we see it in the laws,
     customs and religion of a society?

3. How do the base and the
     superstructure work together to allow
     the control of the proletariat by the
     bourgeoisie, to further the ideology of
     the upper class and create a false
     consciousness?

4. How do the economic means of
     production determine/influence the art
     that surrounds our lives? (165) How
     does that influence the way that we
     look at the world, the ways by which we
     judge “good” and “bad” art, acceptable
     and unacceptable behavior?

5. Who controls and dictates the
     hegemony of a culture? (167 & 269)
     Can art truly become a revolutionary
     tool? Examine Benjamin, Gramsci and
     Althusser’s thoughts on this. (167-169)
     Think of music and how it has been a
     political tool over the last 30 to 40
     years.

6. Does literature directly reflect a
society’s consciousness? (166)

7. What is the political unconscious that
     Fredric Jameson mentions? Are you a
     practitioner of dialectical
     self-awareness? (169)