Dick Hebdige’s “Subculture: The Meaning of Style” considers the effects of a clash between ideology and semiotics: that clash being in the form of subcultures. He also discusses how the emergence of these subcultures tips the delicate social order off its axes via their grave “violations of [the] authorized codes” (2482). However, his main topic of debate appears to be how these violations and “horrendous aberrations” (2482) are transformed into desirable commodities that are sold and resold to the public until they lose all initial shock value and no longer pose a threat to a society’s conventional manner of conduct.

Through my reading of the essay, a completely unrelated image had to present itself and show some sort of correlation to what Hebdige was discussing (according to my twisted imagination, anyway). I was confronted with the image of a cut on the arm or leg – any external body part, really. The damage done to the blood vessel interrupts the entire mechanism of the body and diverts some attention to the cut. In response, the body secretes platelets and strands of fibrin through the site of the damage to form a mesh layer of sorts over the cut to form a scab and, eventually, restrict the loss of blood to a minimum. This “damage control” allows the body to resume its function. I think this connects to Hebdige’s theory of society’s reassessment of these rising subcultures to manipulate how they are perceived by the public and to “minimize the Otherness” (2487). The burst blood vessel is the emerging subculture and the body signifies community, while the scab symbolizes the restoration of conventional, every day goings on. This marketing method results in these subcultures’ “diffusion and defusion” (2483) into the conventions of society. All order and normality is thus re-established. Huzzah.

The “process of recuperation” (2484) by which the scab is formed is compressed by Hebdige into two courses of action: 1) making sub-cultural staples into mass-marketed commodities, widely desired by members of the public, and 2) marketing the deviancy of these subcultures differently than the way observers have been viewing them. These methods of “dealing with the threat” (2486) are labeled “the commodity form” and “the ideological form”, respectively. Though entirely oppressive and domineering, these are quite brilliant strategies of eliminating the “otherness”; Rather than projecting hostility towards anything that presents conflict to a particular community’s ideologies, that tension-creator is met with deceiving acceptance which will, in time, transform that controversial subculture into a negligible component of community, hereby eradicating its menace.

Fanon compares the ways in which blacks and Jews are hated, labeled, and excluded in order to bolster his bold claim that the suffering of blacks is worse than the Jews. The Jew was hunted and exterminated by the millions, but in society where the anti-antisemitism is far less brutal, Jews can go unnoticed by appearance alone. He goes so far as to refer to anti-antisemitism as a little family feud within the whites (Fanon 5). In an effort to label and exclude white (Jew) from white (non-Jew), anti-semites observe the Jews for specific tells that would reveal this other white’s Jewishness. Fanon describes this particular characteristic of separation and discrimination as “conduct” that is “perpetually overdetermined from the inside” (Fanon 5). Blacks do not share the luxury of the Jews that allows them to blend in with whites. Also, in direct opposition to overdetermination from within that the jews are subject to, savagery is attributed to blacks in what epitomizes “overdetermination from without.” Fanon believes the latter to be worse because it prejudges the behavior of an entire group of people based on their appearance. This idea is comparable to what is known as racial profiling; stereotyping all because of the supposed attributes of a few.

Later on in the paper, Fanon describes an interaction between black man and white man in which the black man has broken free from the stereotypes of overdetermination and, for once, feels like the free master of his own fate. The black man achieves this by joining and embracing the cosmic force of the world as opposed to entering an “acquisitive relation” with the world like the white man. Fanon explains how this “magic substitution” has imbued the black man with a greater poetic ability than the white man could dream of. The white man reaches into the pockets of the black man in a vain effort to reacquire the world. Despite despising blackness, the white man envies the black man’s union with the world. According the Fanon’s description of whites, it is futile to reach into the pockets of the blacks because whites refuse to share with or learn from the blacks. Before trying to share in the blacks poetic mastery of the world, the white man disregards the black man’s triumph as a stage of genetic development. This utterly deflates the speaker in Fanon’s paper who finds himself an orphan of the world who is once again subject to overdetermination from without.

In Antonio Gamsci’s “The Formation if the Intellectuals”, he primarily deals with defining what it means to be an intellectual, the different types of intellectuals and what their functions in society are. He first differentiates between the organic intellectual and the traditional intellectual. The traditional intellectual is the easiest to extract from his explanation as it includes the type of individuals we customarily associate with intellectualism. Gramsci’s examples of these intellectuals are medical men, lawyers, judges, administrators, scholars, scientists, ecclesiastics, and non-ecclesiastic philosophers. He states that they “put themselves forward as autonomous and independent of the dominant social group” (1003). In saying that this is how they represent themselves Gramsci casts doubt on the correctness of this assertion. According to Marx, there is a difference between how men think of themselves and the world around them (idealogical forms) and their “real life-processes” that are “bound to material premises” (663). Traditional intellectuals have the appearance of autonomy and independence because they pre-date the emerging “essential” social group and their existence seems resistant to political and social change. They also involve “special qualification” (1003).

The organic intellectual has a somewhat different characterization. It is the type of intellectual that is created in tandem with “every new class” (1002). Its development is also tied to the growth of this class. These organic intellectuals are described as “organisers” in different spheres of society who are tied to economic production (1002).

Besides citing the types of intellectuals, Gramsci posits that all men, including laborers that participate in physical work, utilize their intellectual capacity in conjunction with their physical capabilities. He states, “in any physical work even the most degraded and mechanical, there exists a minimum of technical qualification, that is, a minimum of creative intellectual activity” (1004). We all have to wear different hats and every individual is a kind of “renaissance man” in his own right. For some reason this reminds me of Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences (1983) that hypothesizes that there are multiple spheres of intelligence instead of just one single intelligence as standard IQ tests appeared to suggest. For example, you can have visual-spatial intelligence like an artist, musical-rhythmic intelligence like a composer and/or logical-mathematical intelligence, and so on. The idea is that you can possess more than one of these abilities to different extents. The same goes for physical and intellectual work or effort because Gramsci suggests that work is never a purely physical or intellectual practice. “Professional activity” is just weighted “towards intellectual elaboration or towards muscular-nervous effort” to different extents (1004).

Gramsci impresses upon his audience that there are only “varying degrees of specific intellectual activity” (1004). The distinction he makes between the intellectual capacities of all men is the application of them. The intellectual, in contrast with someone utilizing their intellectual capacity, has a specific social function to fulfill within society. The intellectual’s function is grounded in directive action – organizing society and participating in hegemony by reinforcing the dominant position in society or voicing dissent. They play a role in the formation of culture and counter-culture.

In Antonio Gramsci’s “The Formation of Intellectuals”, he explores the different forms of free-thinking intellectuals and how they come to perform a regulatory function in society to prevent the overarching capitalist system from stripping members of the community of their will and ability to think for themselves. However, he also highlights the need for a new form of intellectual for which “technical education…must form the basis…” (1005).

He highlights the existence of two varieties of intellectuals: the organic, a group of individuals which binds together without any express consent to steer society in the right direction politically and economically, and the traditional, whose members’ intellect has been passed down to them, if you will, from preceding generations and “[hold] a monopoly of a number of important services” (1002). After numerous readings, I have come to see that Gramsci condemns the latter variety for their passivity in their societal functions: they are not consciously aware of what they are doing and how they are going to work towards the public good. They look out for the little guy primarily because it is what their predecessors did, unaware of the extent to which their active engagement in the regulation of societal affairs could improve conditions for the faceless worker.

Gramsci calls for an “elite” (1002) to step forward and steer society in the right direction, in terms of both politics and economics. This pushed me to imagine a superhero training facility where a group of viable candidates would be technologically enhanced to take on the struggles and issues that a community faces, but instead of those issues being monsters and rogue scientists and what not, they would refer to the day to day struggles of the middle class workers whose needs are cast aside by the rapid industrialization of society.

Intellectuals supposedly consider themselves “autonomous and independent” (1003) from civil society due to their “uninterrupted historical continuity” and “special qualifications” (1003). This reigned in the superhero metaphor for me once more: These specialized individuals have the remarkable capability to separate themselves from their immediate societal surroundings and keep from blending into a certain period of time of political era. They can think and be freely without being “put down by the man”, almost. This leads to their ability to conjure up the idea of a “social utopia” (1003), where a state of perfect democracy and equality is in play. Gramsci pinpoints these intellectuals as rarities in this ability to separate themselves from the day-to-day goings on and to focus on the big picture instead.

But the stereotypically branded intellectual – the artist, the theorist, the philosopher – is not the only intellectual, though. Gramsci agrees when he states, “All men are intellectuals … but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals” (1004). I cannot be sure, but I feel that he inadvertently blames the capitalist system here for forcing members of society into menial occupations just to be able to continue living a type of lifestyle they have grown accustomed to; many of these people could be out, doing what the big shot intellectuals, but monetary circumstances prevent them from doing so and thus, they are put into these compartments where their input in society is practically negligible.
The one thing that I remain totally confused about is what Gramsci says near the very end of this excerpt: “The democratic-bureaucratic system has given rise to a great mass of functions which are not all justified by the social necessities of production, though they are justified by the political necessities of the dominant fundamental group.” (1007) Does this link back to what was said earlier about the compartmentalization of workers into insignificant quadrants to keep them occupied while a handful of specialized intellectuals handles the “big boy” stuff? Since what these people are doing is “not justified by the social necessities”, what happens to the people carrying out those functions?

If we were to summarize the extract from Gramsci’s “The Prison Notebooks”, would we label it a condemnation of the capitalist system for its degradation of the governed or a calling for the need of a being to fight the system or at least keep it from usurping complete power? Or both?

There is a justified hesitance that comes with proclaiming anyone as a prophet or a genius. Perhaps it ‘s the remnants of the fear of sacriledge or the more overwhelming fear of falsely exalting someone before being truly sure of whether or not they deserve that exaltation. Whatever factors it was that stopped Karl Marx from instantly being a genius in his own era however have no doubt been destigamized to the point where we can (mostly) all agree that Marx was several steps ahead of his time.

Marx’s acheivements are too monumental to look over which is something we can safely say at this current time. Marx’s primary strong point was his ability to see everything in terms of its economic value and through that logic see everything as it pertained to the haves and the have nots. In today’s Occupy Wall Street society the concept might not seem monumental but it’s important to note that Marx was one of the few people since Adam Smith to have his philosophies on an economic system adopted in multiple countries, not taking into account the varying levels of success that those implementations were met with.

What most impressed me about the reading was Marx’s predictions in regards to come of the negative aspects of captialsim. There was something magical in reading his writing about the separation of the worker and the product. Reading his writing I can remember clearly visualizing the work of chinese factory workers with no care whatsoever for what they make and contrasting that with the “independent business owner” selling his or her wares on Etsy and the difference in quality and attention to detail that exists between the two products that we end up with at the end of the work process.

This chasm that begins to grow between the two is central to understanding Marx’s utopian ideals. As that chasm grows, so does the desire for revolution something that Marx believed to be essential. Max’s strong belief in the overthrowing of the bourgeoise in order to attain the freedom that should be afforded to the people is evident is developed stages throughout this work.

Marx’s Utopia has been given it’s fair share of criticism however, it’s been called impossible as well as not promoting upward movement in a society due to lack of incentives. One thing’s for sure however, the ability to conceptualize the world so differently from his predecessors has made Marx not only one of the most interesting economist but also one of the most interesting philosophers whose works will continue to stand the tests of time.

-Yasin Muhammad

The German philosopher turned political advocate in the “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844” Karl Marx, makes a very good, yet a little puzzled argument on “Political Economy” as he chooses to label it. In this article, Marx chooses to give us an image for us to visualize the working conditions and rigid structure the many without choice capitalist workers endured back in the midst of the 19th century. Marx says the political economy or capitalism influences human nature so drastically that the “worker sinks to the level of a commodity (A basic good used in commerce that is interchangeable with other commodities of the same type. According to www.investopedia.com) and becomes indeed the most wretched of commodities”. The labor usually creates commodities, the laborers create labor, and therefore it becomes a chain of commodities in need of each other, because if one commodity dies, the other one diminishes. The relationship between the product and the laborer is a queer one, because the object that’s produced by labor through the laborer maintains a level of estrangement, the more the laborer produces the more he alienates himself from the object, making the product and private property more powerful over himself, this makes the laborer poorer and less attached to the world he owns. It is as if Marx is telling us “the more valuable the product becomes, the more estranged he becomes and the greater the quantity he produces, the more he alienates himself from the object and reality, and the more alienation he does, the more powerful the product and private property becomes over the worker” (quote by me) to back up my quote Marx says “the worker loses reality to the point of starving to death. So much does objectification appear as loss of the object that the worker is robbed of the objects most necessary not only for his life but his work”.(765, 1st edition). I can’t write this blog without making a comparison that certainly seems almost the same as to what Marx describes in the “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844”. When reading this article my mind escapes to the era when Germany saw itself as the regional hegemon and wanted to conquer all of Europe. Hitler here can be seen as the capitalist and his armies were his laborers, and the product was creation of fear and dominance. The soldiers had to no choice but to labor someone else’s seed to produce a war. The war that had no meaningful concept or ideology, at least that’s what I like to think. The soldier was forced to fight, otherwise he will die as well, therefore the he saw himself alienated and estranged from the object. The laborer here saw the capitalist as an alien and hostile object to him, because it only used force to make him work just for the capitalist to become powerful and spread the concept of the Arian race as the dominant race to rule the rest. The seeking product or commodity here is a queer one, because “the worker becomes all the poorer [the more submissive he becomes] the more wealth [power] he produces, the more his production [the more fighting he does] increase in power and range [the more conquering of land the capitalist does]” (765, 1st edition). Germany inflicted serious injuries to the European continent when it tried to sweep the region with its dominance. When Marx wrote this article, I believe Europe, mainly England, was one of the most powerful states that used its people to increase its power at the cost of people’s labor, many who were not paid a dime, and starved to death working their asses off. Marx appealed to their suffering and wanted to communicate to the rest of the world in the coming centuries how imperialism and capitalism is inflicting serious damage to the people that should be protected by their government and instead they were used to death, just for their empire to increase.

Antonio Gramsci’s excerpt from Prison Notebooks identifies the differences between two types of intellectuals. He classifies organic intellectuals as people who are born in different communities, but come together to promote the best interest of “the people”, typically within their own social structure. According to Gramsci, this type of intellectual is an individual that is proactive in becoming involved within their community by becoming active in the duties of practical life. These intellectuals have minimal interest in becoming removed from the masses. Gramsci states that there “is a need (for organic intellectuals) to create the conditions most favorable to the expansion of their own class” (1002). Therefore, entrepreneurs, organizers, farmers, industrial technicians, specialists in political economy all fall under the category for an organic intellectual.

A traditional intellectual is classified by individuals who stand only for the dominant class to uphold the hegemony of dominant ideologies. Traditional intellectuals hold their power beginning with the aristocracy, which is bound equal to the ecclesiastics (The Pope and other Churchmen) and eventually these two categories created subcategories that began to hold their own distinctive powers within the dominant group. The subcategories of traditional intellectuals would be labeled as  “administrators, scholars, scientists, lawyers, theorists, judges and non-ecclesiastical philosophers” (1003). These intellectuals “put themselves forward as an autonomous and independent of the dominant social group” (1003). Regardless of their attempts to separate themselves, they still serve one another for their own class benefits.

Gramsci states that members of traditional intellectuals feel a sense of “espirit de corps” or feelings of loyalty, enthusiasm, devotion and strong regard for the honor of their own group. They also feel autonomous and independent, which Gramsci alludes     “this self-assessment is not without consequences in the ideological and political field” (1003). This state of thought is influenced to traditional intellectuals by a feeling of entitlement that breeds from a proceeding and uninterrupted historical continuity and economic structure. The collective identity this group shares is based solely off their power over the lesser class. Research has shown “relatively abundant resources and elevated rank afford upper class individuals increased control over their lives, reduced exposure to external influences, and more personal choice- all of which promote greater independence and self focus. Whereas, lower-class individuals, who have reduced resources, subordinate rank and reduced personal control are more interdependent and other-focused” (Piff).

This research reminded me of a Netflix documentary I viewed recently called Park Avenue. The documentary reflects on the vast differences between the wealthy individuals who live on Park Avenue in the Upper East Side contrasted with the horrific poverty that affects those who live on Park Avenue in Bronx. The filmmakers created an experiment using the economic game of Monopoly- which emulates capitalism. Two players were involved, one player was given double the bank and was able to roll two dice to move around the board and the other play was only given one. As the game progressed, the advantaged player began showing signs of entitlement and arrogance as they conquered property over the board and the disadvantaged player began showing dejectedness and an overall sense of lowered esteem. I feel that Gramsci’s examples of organic and traditional intellectuals emulate many of these characteristics. It would be almost unavoidable for the organic intellectuals to be independent of their social class because they value taking care of one another and depend on social constructs to help build mutual aid. In contrast, the traditional intellectuals are able to ignore many of the happenings  beyond their social class because they are self-sufficient in their own wealth and don’t necessarily need to rely on an outside community.