Williams, Cole, and Marx

After reading Raymond Williams I found one particular sentence that seemed to be a good example of what he's trying to get at when it comes to ideology, " 'Ideology' then reverts to a specific and practical dimension: the compicated process within which men 'become' (are) conscious of their interest and their conflicts. The categorical short-cut to an (abstract) distinction between 'true' and 'false' consciousness is then effectively abandoned, as in all practice it has to be." pg. 131. I feel that this is a good example of what Raymond Williams is saying for many reasons. For starters he's taking about an indiviual movement of men in which they are to become conscience of what they are doing. He is saying that the men should be aware of what's around them, they should know both, "their interest and conflicts." If you are aware of what's going on, you are able to do somehting about it, if something needs to be done. Marxism os all about social movements and revolutions, well how do you think they all started, they started from being aware and than taking action. He than goes on to talk about how a person must abandon the distinction from what's true and what's false. I feel that he believes that this happens becuase people get caught up in the moment sometimes and forget wahts true and what's not. I don't think that he's saying this in a good way, but he's just stating the obvious of what happens in these circumstances. Williams took his main ideas from Marx, but he puts his own modern twist on things. While their are similarties between the two, Williams really has his ideas and though process, which I'm not really sure that Marx would've always agreed with.

Russell Banks, "Sarah Cole," is a perfect underlying example of Marxist ideas. At first it seems like the basic love storey of a beuatiful man falling for an ugly women who can't be with er because of the fact that he's better looking than her. Then after you start to think of it in a Marxist way you see it's like a class struggle. It's as if he's from a higher social group, and even though he wants to bewith her he acts as though he doesn't. He doesn't want the ridcule taht goes along with it. He doesn't want people to know that he really does love the ugly little "peasant" girl. This reading is a prefect example of the struggleof two diffrent classes. He feels as though he is better than her because of his looks. Just like someone in a higher class thinks that their better just because they were born into a different class. It than goes on to show you that he really does love her, and that he was wrong for abandoning her simply because she was ugly. This shows us that it's not right to put labels on people, and that no one is better than the next person. We all need to just forget about what others think and live life the way that we want.