Читать книгу Sociology of the Arts - Victoria D. Alexander - Страница 40

Marx argued that capitalists have the desire and the power to create stories that legitimize their actions. Indeed, he argues, all elites, throughout history, have created the ideas that support their ascendancy. “The ideas of the ruling classes are in every epoch the ruling ideas,” he famously wrote (1978 [1846]: 172). These ideas have been developed by more recent thinkers who talk about how art forms can function as social control. Marxists believe that the cultural “superstructure” reflects the economic “base”, as we saw in the previous chapter. A related strand of Marxism sees the superstructure as an instrument of control. The superstructure, created by capitalism, shapes workers to fit better with capitalism.