 In this video, I'd like to introduce the idea of Marxism as critical theory, or the critical lens through which we view things. Sometimes it's known as the Frankfurt school. So let's just take a look here and see what we mean by these things. The Marxist or Frankfurt School of Critical Theory basically examines artifacts from the perspective of class differences and the implications of the capitalist system. Now, first of all, we need to separate this idea of Marxism as a science and a critical lens, critical view from Marxism as a political and economic form of governance that was shaped through Leninism into what developed the Soviet Union and that view of communism and things like that. That's a school or an avenue of Marxism that is completely separate really from the Marxism that we're looking at. The Marxism that we're talking about is rooted more purely in the science of what Karl Marx was talking about and again examining the idea of class difference and the implications then of a capitalist system on how people view the world and how they produce artifacts and produce art, forms of expression and the impact that that can have then on either dividing or making more significant divisions in class differences or bringing them together or so forth. So again, we're using this as a critical lens based in class differences and economic implications of capitalism through which to view different artifacts. So the history of the Marxist view or the Frankfurt School really starts with the Institute for Social Research, which is founded in 1923 in, not surprisingly, Frankfurt, Germany. That's why this is known as the Frankfurt School often times when people refer to Marxism as a critical theory, sometimes they'll refer to it as the Frankfurt School because it was literally founded in Frankfurt associated with the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany started in 1923 by a person who, an industrialist who had a lot of money and wanted to explore the view of Marxism and how it impacted people on a social level, again, not as a political or strictly economic viewpoint, but from really the viewpoint of class differences and things like that. So it's grounded in that Marxist theory in the idea of socialist ideologies and initially the mission of the Institute for Social Research was to look at labor studies and actually the origins of anti-Semitism, which is really at that time not something that people were doing in Germany, looking at anti-Semitism, meaning feelings of opposition to Jewish people and to people of that faith was not something that was very popular in Germany at that time. In fact, the opposite was pretty popular. The Semitism was pretty popular. So anyway, looking at the roots of this and the origins of this anti-Semitism viewpoint was one of the original ideas of the Institute for Social Research along with looking at, again, labor studies and the differences in class grounded in, of course, in those Marxist theories, socialist theories and ideologies. So it was found in 1923. Then in 1930, we see a real shift because a guy, a good looking guy here named Max Horkeimer became the director of the Institute for Social Research. I'm really kind of changed the direction here that he shifts the focus Horkeimer did to interdisciplinary integration of social science. So really kind of, you know, he is kind of cross pollinating areas of interest, areas of focus for these different members, no longer looking at one particular, not just labor studies or anti-Semitism, but looking at all kinds of things in the areas of social science. It's looking at economics, looking at politics, looking at, looking at, you know, just, just anything that you could think of in the area of social sciences and then combining those people working together and looking across the divisions, no longer the siloed divisions of, you know, politics and mathematics and, and economics and language and so forth, but really cross pollinating those things, having them come together and, and where they intersect and how that then could be looked at through what was really the beginning of what we call critical theory and looking at things in that regard. So, so Max Horkeimer becomes director in 1930. Things really start to take off. Things really start to become interesting then with the development of this, interdisciplinary approach. Then of course, you know, if you think about that timeframe, that's when the Nazis were coming to power. That's when Germany was going through some real social upheaval. The, the, the Institute was forced to relocate from, from Frankfurt first to Geneva and then eventually to the United States where they kind of settled into New York, New York City and then eventually to, to Los Angeles had kind of a split there where some people stayed in New York and some people went to Los Angeles and created some divisions within the Institute at that time as well. But, but continue to do their work, continue to do some really good work in, in these areas, relocated to the United States in, well they really coded from Germany to Geneva in 1933 and then eventually to the United States. Then eventually along, they were in the United States for quite a few years and then in 1951 after the end of World War II and after, you know, Germany had a chance to settle down a little bit, actually return to Germany to Frankfurt. So after they relocated to the United States, then eventually returned to, to Germany in 1951 and were able to, and that's where they're located now. The Institute for Social Research is located again in Frankfurt. So again, the Frankfurt School, that's why it's called the Frankfurt School. It's where it was founded and that's where it really developed. And then even though it has strong roots in the United States, it was relocated back to Germany in 1951. So there you go. A little history about where this is all coming from. Some of the major premises of the Marxist critical view, critical theory and the Frankfurt School here are that, that economic realities are, they are greater than other ideologies. That economic realities of people outweigh things like political considerations and outweigh things like social movements and things that the economic realities basically that, which are the foundations then in their perspective of the, of the class system, but those economic realities are going to outweigh any other consideration that a person might have more strongly that if you're not secure economically, then I mean, it really almost kind of comes back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You're going to need to, to, to provide for those lower level needs before you can start worrying about higher level things. So people aren't going to be interested and worried about politics and worried about social unrest and worried about, you know, equality and things like that until they have some sort of economic stability, economic advantage. Now, so those economic realities then outweigh the other ideologies and because of this, this creates a constant conflict between the classes. So constant conflict between upper class, middle class, lower class, poverty class, whatever classes you want to define economically, that there's this constant conflict because, because that economic reality weighs so heavily on people and is at the forefront of our minds at all times and this conflict and these realities are reflected in all forms of expression so that the people from them, you know, on a Marxist mindset will look at things and starting with the idea that most expressions at least in capital societies in particular are created by those who have a greater economic advantage, right? Movies for the most part aren't made by people in poverty classes. They're made by people who are fabulously rich and have, you know, have all kinds of excess money with which to pursue these interests, right, so that their expression of the ones that are really being portrayed more often than those from the lower class and so they're setting the reality that's kind of the gatekeeper function then. They're setting the reality of what we should strive for and what is good in a sense, so to speak. They're creating that reality, right? But it's reflected in all forms of expression. Marxist theory could be applied to everything from art, paintings, to music, to film, even to news broadcasts. For example, we look at news broadcasts as a great representation of class distinction and what classes are going to be interested in and getting that kind of gatekeeping function, the agenda setting function of the media that we have where they're kind of creating this reality. They don't tell us what to think, but they tell us what to think about, right? They tell us what should be in front of us. They put those things in front of us and decide what gets in front of us and what doesn't, so this is reflected in and who's making the news. That's the other thing, who's creating this news, who's deciding what goes in and what goes out. I mean, multi-millionaires, right? It's not, the news is not set by people in poverty classes. The news is created and set by and determined by people in that upper class. So anyway, these economic realities are reflected in all forms of expression. And so they really look at these pieces from that kind of class distinction. Couple of the main questions, we're going to get in more specifically to what questions are asked here and go through an example, but the first question asked is, who does this benefit? That's always at the core of what they're looking at. Who does this benefit? Is this, you know, in a sense of you want to call it propaganda, who does this benefit? Who's this piece of art? Who does this piece of news? Who does this piece of media, whatever artifact you're looking at? Who does it benefit? And then how are the lower classes oppressed? That's the other question they look at a lot here. You know, and almost kind of a slay interview, they've got this kind of preset view of, you know, the lower classes are being oppressed. How is it happening in this media? How is it represented in this media then, which is clearly not created by people in the lower class, but people in the upper class. So in what way is this artifact in some ways, you know, oppressing the lower class? So this is kind of the core, some of the core questions that folks in the Marxist school of thought and the Frankfurt School of Thought have wrestled with over the years and applied to these. So when we look at the framework that's applied to an artifact though, some common questions. And again, I think of this as a framework that we're going to lay over this, this framework of questions. We're going to lay over this artifact and view it through this lens again, through this critical lens of Marxist thought. Some of the common questions that come up in the Marxist school are, first of all, whom does this benefit? We already talked about that. Whom does this benefit? Whom does it benefit if the work or effort is accepted or successful or believed or whatever? So if this piece of expression, if this artifact is successful in reaching people and becoming popular and so forth, who benefits from it? Not just economically. Again, not, you know, does the movie studio benefit? Does the artist singing the song benefit economically and so forth, but who does this benefit in terms of if this, if the ideology behind this expression, this artifact is accepted, who benefits from that? Who benefits from people believing what this person is saying? What's the social class of the author? Who created this? That's a basic question in critical theory. No matter what lens you're looking at, who created this? And more specifically from Marxism, what is the social class of this author? Is this coming from, again, is this coming from somebody who's in a little higher class? And what kind of slight does that mean? And how does that then impact the messages you're trying to send in terms of how would this then oppress the lower classes? What are they expecting us to believe or accept as a result of this? So what's the social class of the author we need to know from where this is coming, from whom this is coming and how that ideology might affect the expression in that artifact? Who does this work claim to represent? If we know what the social class of the author is, if they're an upper class, if they're a higher class person, but they're claiming to be the working class, they're claiming to be poverty or express something from the view of somebody in the poverty class, who do they claim to represent? Who does, you know, what class are they trying to represent here? We need to understand their perspective on that as well and what their intention is. What values does it reinforce? What is it that they're trying to represent here and tell us, what is it that they're trying to tell us is good and right and desirable and that we should be working towards and we should want, right? What values does this reinforce? Conversely, then, one of the next questions is what values does it subvert? The opposite of that. If they're trying to tell us that something is good, are they also trying to tell us that something else is bad or undesirable or something that we should not want or something that we should work against in our lives? What conflict can be between the values of the work, values that the work champions and those it portrays, right? So is there a conflict here between what they're telling us and what they're telling us is good and what they're actually portraying? Then is there some sort of dichotomy there? What social classes do the characters represent? Especially if you're talking about a piece of literature or a story of that nature. What social classes do the characters represent and whose perspective is the story being told from and so forth and so we need to understand the characters represented there as well. And then how do characters from different classes interact or conflict? Is there interaction between characters from different classes? If so, how are they represented? And particularly from the Marxist standpoint they'd be looking at things like is the upper class represented as superior to the lower class in some way, right? So these are some of the common questions that are asked when somebody's viewing an artifact through that Marxist lens, that Frankfurt School of Thought, right? So I want to take it just a quick journey and this is going to be like the most shallow critical theory examination of an artifact ever because this is just a quick representation of what this may look like here. So I want to just take a quick look at one artifact and honestly all I did was go to the Billboard Hot 100 chart. I decided to do a song and I just went to the Billboard Hot 100 chart and I thought what's the number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 right now and I picked it. And I watched the music video and I tried to get some minor assessment of what this is and right now when I'm recording this video the number one song in the Billboard Hot 100 chart is What's Next by Drake and I will admit I really know nothing about Drake. I'm not a fan of his music and I'm not familiar with this song. So I did go in though and I watched the video. I did a little basic research on Drake just to get an idea of who he was and I watched the video and so again this is going to be a mile wide and an inch deep type of critical analysis, not really deep or thorough, not a very good representation but I just want to give you an idea of what this might look like through the Marxist lens. So let's take a look at What's Next by Drake from the Marxist standpoint. First of all, who this is benefit if it's accepted or believed? You know, first of all, benefit Drake in terms of his reputation, his public presence and not only his bank account too but a benefit Drake. It also benefits that kind of lifestyle I guess that he's promoting. So the idea of striving for more and not really being committed to anything that's my interpretation of the song is that it's about what's next? It's not about I'm not here long-term. I'm not interested in getting entangled in anything long-term. I'm always looking for what's following this. So the message then is kind of move on. Don't get stuck on any one thing. We got to keep moving like a shark, right? If we stop then we die. So who does this benefit? It benefits people who have that viewpoint, benefits people who have a mindset that nothing is permanent and we got to keep moving and keep going for what's next. And we always ought to be unsatisfied with where we're at and ought to be working for the next big thing, I guess. What's the social class of the author? Well, certainly right now, he's very much upper class, very much higher class in terms of economics. He's known to have a great deal of money. He owns a record company. Not only he's a successful artist but owns his own record company. He owns a piece of the Toronto Raptors. I'm not saying it's a huge part and certainly not a majority part but enough to invest a little bit in the Toronto Raptors which I know he's a great fan of the Toronto Raptors basketball team. But everything about him is upper class. He's a mega star in the music world. He's an actor. He's all over the place. So he is definitely an upper class person at this moment. Although the next question is interesting. What class does the work claim to represent? The work definitely claims to represent upper class and higher class. But when you look at Drake's life, he's done a great deal to kind of downplay his upbringing in terms of class. He talks a lot about how his father was not involved in his life, that his mother struggled and it seems like they were at the very least lower middle class. I mean, they weren't on the streets or anything like that. That was had a home and lived in nicer neighborhoods but his claim is that, yeah, we lived in a nicer neighborhood but lived in a house that was basically a duplex. We lived in downstairs and somebody else lived upstairs. So it wasn't like we were in this fancy house all by herself or whatever. But and there's some other people that would claim, you know, he had a decent life. Not they weren't claiming that he was rich or whatever, but they were, you know, solidly middle class, lower middle class. Anyway, so let's say that he's lower middle class. So, but this work claims to kind of represent the upper class, right? I'm in the whole video. He's not only at an airport, presumably by a private jet, but he's in this really fancy car doing doing donuts and driving around. He's at clubs. He's wearing fancy clothes and so forth. So he claims to represent the upper class and maybe that's a rags to riches type story that he's trying to tell that you can get here if you just keep moving, that if you don't get stuck on any one thing and or any one person that you can, you can get here as well. You just got to keep, again, moving forward like that shark. Well, values doesn't reinforce the idea of wealthiness. Really values and the value of, I want to say individualism. I don't want to say selfishness, but, but I mean, you could construe it that way because it is all about, you know, I'm not going to get stuck here with you. I'm not going to get stuck here on this one thing or with this one person. I'm always looking at what's next. That's the whole idea of the song. So, so what vies is reinforced, reinforces not getting too entangled in any one thing. It values the individual that I am. I need to put myself at the forefront and so that I can continue to grow, continue to achieve, continue to climb that ladder, so to speak. Well, values is a subvert. It subverts the idea of, I don't know, I guess monogamy or just overly serious relationships of really any kind, not just inner, not just romantic, but other kinds as well. It makes it clear that he's not getting stuck anywhere with any one person or one thing. And it subverts the idea of, in my mind, loyalty kind of sticking to one thing if that's the right term, but really just kind of get the most out of something and then move on. So it subverts the idea of commitment and loyalty to one thing. And so what conflict can be seen between the values, the work champions and those it portrays. Well, you know, it kind of champions the idea of, again, lack of commitment, lack of loyalty, but we know that those things are also important to Drake. He's very loyal to the Toronto Raptors, for example, and that's led to partial leadership and our ownership of that team. In certain respects, you have to look at relationships and see what's important to those people as wise. He's valued these relationships over the years. He talks about his relationship with Kanye West, for example. And he was an inspiration and then had the chance to work with him a little bit. His relationship with Lil Wayne, who signed him on his first record contract and things. So you have to have some degree of loyalty to those people who've helped you get there, but at the same time, the work champion is something that is, you know, don't be beholden to somebody. Don't be whatever. So there's some conflict there, I guess. Social classes do the characters represent. I mean, really not a lot of characters in a music video. So, and again, he represents the upper class for sure and the cars that he's driving, the way that he's dressed and things like that. So definitely an upper class representation here. And not a lot of interaction between people of different classes. Again, this is fairly limited. This artifact is limited in that regard. There's not a lot of interaction. It's a music video. So not a lot of interaction there, but really everything expressed here is in the upper class level. So anyway, interesting to look at it from that lens and, you know, interesting to hear what's next by Drake. That's not something I was familiar with, but anyway, again, these are the things that you can do with really any kind of work looking at it through the Marxist viewpoint and looking at it through the Frankfurt School critical lens. We look at it in terms of how are these classes represented and what does this say to us? What this says to us really is that you don't want to be in the lower class. You want to be in the upper class and to do that, you got to keep moving, got to keep swimming, got to keep pushing forward and that's what's desirable. So anyway, interesting to look at these and this is what we're going to do in some of these other videos is consider other schools. So Marxism very much concerned with class and economic differences and how the classes are represented and how all of this work then kind of oppresses lower classes and makes them seem less desirable. Certainly the case in the Drake video, I think that, you know, everything about that video says you do not want to be poor. Do not be in that poverty class. Get up to the supper class. It's undesirable to be where you're at, which is, you know, interesting a lot of ways, but so as we continue to look at critical theory in general and specifically the Marxist and Frankfurt school, just remember, dig deep here, dig deep and certainly deeper than I did with the Drake video, but get to know these artifacts, get to know where they're coming from and then apply that framework of the Marxist school, right, which is how does this, how does this represent the different classes and what's the ultimate outcome here? So really start to dig in very deeply on some of these things. If you have questions about the Marxist or Frankfurt school of critical theory and critical thinking or anything else related to literary media criticism, please feel free to email me. I'd be happy to chat with you via email. In the meantime, again, get out there, start viewing things through that lens, not the only lens, but an interesting lens to view things through this Marxist viewpoint and look at things through class distinction, which certainly has come more and more into light during recent days here. I think this is, you know, the school of thought, this Frankfurt school is really more relevant now than it has been in many decades.