Introducing Critical Theory: A Graphic Guide (Graphic Guides Book 0)

Society always consists of an economic base or infrastructure, and a superstructure. The superstructure comprises everything cultural – religion, politics, law, education, the arts, etc. – which is determined by a specific economy (slave-based, feudal, mercantile, capitalist etc.).

In deconstruction, we move from system-building to system-dismantling. Derrida’s major concern is to direct our attention to the many gaps in our systems of discourse which, try as we may, we can never quite disguise. Deconstruction is a philosophy which very self-consciously sets out to deflate philosophical pretensions about our ability to order

Alienation is a process by which mind – as the consciousness of a subject (thesis) – becomes an object of thought for itself (antithesis). And thereby the human mind constantly progresses to the next higher stage of synthesis and self-consciousness.

The essential idea for critical theory is that there is nothing accidental in a text – in the widest sense of text as production. Every indication of what is hidden, repressed or displaced in its structure can be traced back to the “textual unconscious”.

In Benjamin’s view, this opens up art to the masses in a way that has never been possible before, enabling them to escape from the clutches of tradition – a highly desirable outcome for the revolutionary-minded Marxist.

Being critical is being political: it represents an intervention into a much wider debate than the aesthetic alone, and that is surely something to be encouraged.

Marxian dialectics and Freudian psychoanalysis equally emphasize a hidden agenda beneath our surface dimension – things are not what they seem. Critical theory follows them in attempting to tease out that agenda.

The inheritances of Marxism in critical theory are: 1. Tension of idealism versus materialism (the autonomy versus social construction of a text). 2. A hidden or camouflaged unconscious. 3. Interventionism: a sense that critical theory can make a difference.

Once again, we notice Marx’s critical insistence on the hidden: religion, politics, law, etc. – everything cultural that we “live by” – disguises and renders perfectly natural an economic means of production that is unnatural.