Gramsci

These readings are very intresting to me, I have always been interested by the thought of a revolution and what it takes to actually have a successful revolution. But the more I read about it, the more discouraged I am. The older I become the more thoughts I have that are the same "What's the point in talking about this? It can never happen." Those are the type of thoughts that circle my mind when I read about a major change in a Government. I understand that change is possible in smaller governments around the world, but something like that happening here, in America I find almost impossible. Maybe I am the reason why it never happens, my way of thinking is just what they want me to think. But I just feel that our government has become far too strong to allow any sort of uprising. No matter what the working class organizes. And it brings me to my first point in why I believe it could never happen. Capitalism was 'supposed' to fail in 1846, but the Gramsci article brought a big point, and maybe the largest point. "People can accept the prevailing order because they are compelled to do so by devoting their time to 'making a living', or because they cannot conceive another way of organising society, and therefore fatalistically accept the world as it is." I honestly believe this is one of the reasons why capitalism has not changed or failed. The society that we live in, takes work to survive and live "comfortably" in. And if you have a family, you are worried about their well being, not overthrowing a government. And as of now, America is still built on family and as long as that continues I find it hard to believe that the middle class will sacrifice their families for a new socialist government. Especially with the way Marxism and commuinsim is painted today. The everyday person doesn't know what true Marxism is, just like I don't even know what it is- to its full extent, and I'm not sure that it is better then what we have now. The government has built a machine that is almost unstopable at this point, unless we go into a severe depression and our economy collapses, I can not see any big changes in the near future. But what do I know? I'm just some college kid, who, when he graduates will be looking for a job like millions of other people.

Marxist seem to have the problem that they find that the middle class failed to be as revoultionary as Marx intended and that goes back to my first point about family. "Marx placed too much faith in the possibility of a spontaneous outburst of revolutionary consciousness among the working class." Also I believe that if an individual who was smart enough to come up with the answers to these problems, he would be sniffed out long before he had a chance to even attempt to make a change. But now I'm getting into conspiracy theories.

I think the Marixst writings are important to a literature stand point because it keeps traditions going, and traditions are an important factor in control. And if you step outside of the normal traditions, you are viewed as a weirdo, or a misfit. And that is basically what those stories do to a certain extent, I'm not sure if they were written for that point but they can be used for that. It just keeps things moving in the direction that leaders want them too. Kind of brilliant if you ask me.