Main Take Home Points for Folder # 3 Raymond Williams’ Study of Culture Base, Superstructure and Hegemony Incorporation, Residual and Emergent Cultures

Main Take Home Points for Folder # 3

• Raymond Williams’ Study of Culture

• Base, Superstructure and Hegemony

• Incorporation, Residual and Emergent Cultures

• What is a Sign?

• Culture as a Text

Raymond Williams’ Study of Culture

• He attempts the all important synthesis of all three ways to Study Culture (discussed last

week)

• Claims cultural analysis should be the clarification of the meanings and values implicit or explicit in a particular way of life or culture– Often leads to the analysis of elements that

are not considered culture (taken for granted) to its members


• “I would then define the theory of culture as the study of relationships between elements in a whole way of life. The analysis of culture is to attempt to discover the nature of the organization which is the complex of these relationships. Analysis of particular works or institutions is, in this context, analysis of their essential kind of organization, the relationships which works or institutions embody as parts of the organization as a whole”


• Our Texts and Institutions Embody our Culture

• Interpretations of Interpretations:– “There is the lived culture of a particular

time and place, only fully accessible to those living in that time and place. There is the recorded culture, of every kind, from art to the most everyday facts: the culture of a period. There is also,…the culture of the selective tradition” (Williams 1963)


• Histories inevitably produce Cultural Records– These are Selective

• They go through a historical selection process

– Re-interpretive (these records are also reinterpreted through time)

• This process of selection is almost always governed by a dominant class and culture

“From a whole possible area of past and present, certain meanings and practices are chosen for emphasis [and others are neglected]. [They] are also reinterpreted, diluted, or put into forms which support or at least do not contradict other elements within the effective dominant culture”

Base, Superstructure and Hegemony

Raymond Williams was deeply influenced by Marx

• Texts and Practices (Culture) must be analyzed in relation to their historical conditions of production

• Feudal System Capitalist System change the way society is organized – Ways of Obtaining the necessities of life– Social Relationships change (lord/peasant,

worker/capitalist)– Specific social institutions also change (including

cultural ones)


• At the Heart of this Theory is that the Mode of Production determines or conditions the political and cultural shape of society

Base = Mode of Production• Forces of Production: the raw materials – The Workers, The Tools and The Technology

• Relations of Production – Class Position and Worker Relations


Superstructure develops in conjunction with the Base and consists of:

• Definite form of consciousness – Political, Religious, Ethical, Cultural/Aesthetics (Specifically)

– Can be called ideology (especially the 2nd type we discussed last lecture)

• Institutions – Political, Legal, Educational, Cultural/Aesthetic (specifically)

Base and Superstructure are deeply intertwined


Base/Superstructure Relationship Twofold

1. Superstructure both expresses and legitimates the base

2. Base conditions the content and form of the superstructure (perhaps it completely determines it)

Modern American Capitalism (The Base) A Culture of Consumption (The Superstructure) and this in turn legitimates the capitalist base

What does this mean for Structure and Agency?


Hegemony: Is a ‘condition in process’ in which a dominant class, that has resulted from the base, does not merely rule a society but leads it through the exercise of intellectual and moral leadership– Necessitates Consensus

• Ruling class interests are represented as the common interest of all the members of society

• The ruling class’s ideas are given universality because they are inextricably linked to the base and the superstructure relationship– They are considered the only rational, universal

and valid ideas• E.G. international culture of capitalism (every nation-

state has to play this game)


• Hegemony is deeply engrained– Always playing by the hegemonic rules of the game

For example, the ideology of meritocracy or individual responsibility – A hegemonic superstructure or culture that, up until very recently had consensus, plays into the hands of those that are winning the hegemonic game set up by the base.

“For if ideology were merely some abstract, imposed set of notions, if our social and political and cultural ideas and assumptions and habits were merely the result of specific manipulation, of a kind of overt training which might be simply ended if withdrawn, then the society would be very much easier to move and to change than in practice it has ever been or is.” (Williams pp. 135)


Hegemony is Reinforced• In the Educational System• In the Family• In our Cultural Products• At Work• In most Social Interaction

Residual, Emergent Cultures and Incorporation

• Because of hegemony and the base superstructure relationship Williams wants to discuss cultures (or ideologies/superstructures) that might exist outside of the hegemony


Residual Cultures:• Cultures that have experiences,

meanings and values which cannot be verified or cannot be expressed in terms of the dominant culture

However,• These cultures are based on some past

“residue” of a previous social formation, ideology or culture


Emergent Cultures:• Similar to Residual cultures but these are

truly innovative – New meanings, values, practices, significances

and experiences are “continually being created”

“But our hardest task, theoretically, is to find a non-metaphysical and non-subjectivist explanation of emergent cultural practice. Moreover, part of or answer to this question bears on the process of persistence of residual practices”

• Why do you think Williams suggests this?


Incorporation:• Cultures believed to be outside the norm, potentially

counter hegemonic, that begin to be usurped by or used as tools by the dominant (or hegemonic) culture

• The greater the threat to the dominant culture the quicker the attempted incorporation

• Residual and Emergent Cultures can be hidden if they are not threats or purchased till after their historical time (e.g., authors who are free to write because they are not being consumed)


• Because of the threat to incorporation Williams distinguishes Alternative and Oppositional Cultures

There is a thin but important Distinction between Alternative and Oppositional Cultures

• Alternative Cultures:– A person or group of people that find a different

way to live (different meaning systems, different sacred texts) but wants to be left alone with it

• Oppositional Cultures:– Same but…does not want to be left alone rather

this culture wants to change society in its light


Examples of Incorporation

– CCR’s Fortunate Son on the Wrangler Jean Commercial• Anti Vietnam war song utilized to sell American toughness

– “Hip hop is tied up with a logo stuffed in its mouth because the masters tools will never dismantle the masters house”• Commentary on Hip hop from Ani Difranco suggesting the once counter hegemonic

culture has been completely incorporated into mainstream capitalism

– Rolling Stones’ record company making black boxes for American air force bombers during the Vietnam War• Rolling Stones were vocally anti the Vietnam war yet the sales of their records went

towards supplying the American war effort

– Most Subcultures being commodified

• I can become any subculture I want to be all I have to do is take a quick trip to the Cross gates mall and purchase the appropriate signifiers or cultural capital (two concepts we will discuss in the coming moments/weeks) in the form of clothing and accessories


On Why Williams Rails against Totality:• Totality of Culture does not exist because

his interpretation of base/superstructure and hegemony are nuanced

– Hegemonic Culture is always adapting and changing

– Hegemonic culture is always being fought and denied


• “Indeed I think that we have to give a very complex account of hegemony if we are talking about any real social formation. Above all we have to give an account which allows for its elements of constant change. We have to emphasize that hegemony is not singular; indeed that its own internal structures are highly complex, and have to be renewed, recreated and defended; and by the same token, that they can be continually challenged and in certain respects modified” (Williams pp. 135).

Williams – Final Points

• Materialism (Base) vs. Idealism (Superstructure of in the realm of ideas)– “Social Being Determines Consciousness”

• Material factors such as money condition our ideas about the world

• Base is a process it is not Static – “Dialectic”

• Not Totality – Instead we are Conditioned– “We have to revalue “determination” towards the

setting of limits and the exertion of pressure, and away from a predicted, prefigured and controlled content.”

What is a Sign?

Remember Semiotics (from Geertz):

• Semiotics: the study of signs, symbols and codes– Culture can be read like a language – it

is a system of signs

What is a Sign?• Signifier: a sign's physical form (such as

a sound, printed word, or image) as distinct from its meaning

• The word ‘Dog’

• Signified: the meaning or idea expressed by a sign, as distinct from the physical form in which it is expressed

• The meaning or mental image that word calls forth

• Sign: is the combination of the signifier and signified (like two sides of a singular coin)

What is a Sign?

• The Relationship between the signifier and the signified is completely arbitrary

• Meaning is not the result of an essential connection between signifier and signified– Dog does not necessarily equal

What is a Sign?

What is a Sign?• The Relationship between the signifier

and the signified is completely arbitrary• Meaning is not the result of an essential

connection between signifier and signified• Rather meaning arises from difference

and relationship– “Yo Dog”– Define Mother?

“Meaning is produced, not through a one-to-one relation to things in the world, but by establishing difference”

What is a Sign?

Examples of Relationality and Difference:• All of these sentences were collected from different news

outlets about the same exact event and use very similar signifiers but, as you will notice, simple differences and relationships conjure completely different meanings…

– “Terrorists carried out an attack on an army base today”

– “Anti-imperialist volunteers carried out an attack on an army base today”

– “An army base carried out an attack on terrorists

today”

Culture as a Text

• The language we speak does not simply reflect the material world- rather, it speaks the world in culturally determined ways

• We are after all interested in interpretations and verstehen (remember these concepts?)

• Language provides us with a conceptual map of cultural codes with which to impose order on what we experience

• The language we speak plays a significant role in shaping what constitutes for us the reality of the material world

• How many words of snow do you have when you look at a snowscape?

Culture as a Text• The way we interpret the world is ultimately dependent

upon the language we speak and thus the culture we have

• First level of signification (primary) is not enough to understand culture as a text

• Second level signification often leads to ideology or a body of ideas and practices, which by actively promoting the values and interests of dominant groups in society, defend the prevailing structures of power – (Hegemony in our communication)– Example Wrestling (Unstable, asocial or The Iron Sheik vs.

Hulk Hogan the representation or myth of all that is right and American)

Culture as a Text

However,• Second Level Significations are activated from an

already existing understanding of one’s cultural system

– It calls from cultural understandings and adds to it

• Ideology (myth), like hegemony, is continually confronted and countered

• Which codes that are mobilized (which interpretation that is present) will largely depend on the triple context of: the Location of Text, the Historical Moment and the Cultural Lens of the reader

Culture as a TextFour Potential Positions for reading the text:1. Buying into the symbols representation2. Rejecting the symbols representation as a

front or a defense3. Reading the text as a natural reality– The signifier and signified are seen to have a

natural relationship– Assuming Culture and Ideology are Natural• The worst kind of ideology or myth

4. The Analyst’s Position

Culture as a Text• There is Potential for variety of interpretation or

signification– But must be based on some already existent

reservoir of cultural understanding (structured!)• The store of social knowledge…• Shared codes (conscious or unconscious)

• These understandings are determined by historical context and cultural context: class, race, gender, sexuality, generation etc…

• Variations are not lawless they depend on the different kinds of knowledge - that is invested in the text by its reader– They are structured!

Culture as a Text

In the End,• There is Potentially infinite connotations:

levels of signification –second…third…fourth… – Material objects are less important than their

meanings – their connotations

“In this way, a sign can become a hypostatization (naturalize something abstract) that condenses an entire ideology in a single word or image” (What does the word America mean?)– And Stereotypes Abound

Documents

Main Take Home Points for Folder # 3 Raymond Williams’ Study of Culture Base, Superstructure and Hegemony Incorporation, Residual and Emergent Cultures