Foundations Of Social And Behavioral Sciences Theory 1. Discussion Question: How does capitalism lead to creative destruction? What is nihilism in a Marxist context? 2. Reading Reflection: Solid ONE-page reflection paper about your thoughts on the reading. This could include a brief summary and your opinion. There are not many guidelines or format (e.g., APA, MLS style) for these weekly reading reflection assignments. But please use 12-point font, Times New Roman, and don't get ridiculous with the margin settings. Reading: Structure and Agency in Everyday Life Introduction to Symbolic Interactionism (file uploaded)Lecture: Lecture: Marx and the Cultural Geography of Modernity (file uploaded) Marx and the Cultural Geography of Modernity Week 4 & 5, Lecture 6 Outline • Karl Marx, life and times • The Communist Manifesto • What capitalism is • Creative Destruction • Nihilism • Social differentiation, spatial diffusion, and cultural de-fusion Karl Marx • 1818-1883 • Born in what is now Germany, lived most of his life in England • University of Bonn, Berlin and Jena--studied law, philosophy and history • Writer in Germany, France and eventually England • Early and Later Marx writings Karl Marx • The Communist Manifesto • Published in 1848 (“The Year of Revolution”) • A pamphlet written for the Communist League (a group of German workers in France) • Later became a general statement for international communism The Communist Manifesto • “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” • The present society is a result of the struggle between the bourgeoisie (the owners of the means of production) and the proletariat (those who own only their labor)--this is capitalism • This has led to a situation of “naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation” in which the labor of workers is used to enrich capitalists • but... The Communist Manifesto • Capitalists must compete against each other, and thus: • “The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and then the whole relations of society. Conservation of old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is sold melts into air, all that ...

1. Foundations Of Social And Behavioral Sciences Theory
1. Discussion Question: How does capitalism lead to creative
destruction? What is nihilism in a Marxist context?
2. Reading Reflection: Solid ONE-page reflection paper about
your thoughts on the reading. This could include a brief
summary and your opinion. There are not many guidelines or
format (e.g., APA, MLS style) for these weekly reading
reflection assignments. But please use 12-point font, Times New
Roman, and don't get ridiculous with the margin settings.
Reading: Structure and Agency in Everyday Life Introduction to
Symbolic Interactionism (file uploaded)Lecture: Lecture: Marx
and the Cultural Geography of Modernity (file uploaded)
Marx and the Cultural Geography of Modernity
Week 4 & 5, Lecture 6
Outline
• Karl Marx, life and times
• The Communist Manifesto

2. • What capitalism is
• Creative Destruction
• Nihilism
• Social differentiation, spatial diffusion, and cultural de-fusion
Karl Marx
• 1818-1883
• Born in what is now Germany,
lived most of his life in England
• University of Bonn, Berlin and
Jena--studied law, philosophy
and history
• Writer in Germany, France and
eventually England
• Early and Later Marx writings

3. Karl Marx
• The Communist Manifesto
• Published in 1848 (“The Year of
Revolution”)
• A pamphlet written for the
Communist League (a group of
German workers in France)
• Later became a general
statement for international
communism
The Communist Manifesto
• “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of
class struggles.”
• The present society is a result of the struggle between the
bourgeoisie (the
owners of the means of production) and the proletariat (those
who own only
their labor)--this is capitalism
• This has led to a situation of “naked, shameless, direct, brutal
exploitation”
in which the labor of workers is used to enrich capitalists

4. • but...
The Communist Manifesto
• Capitalists must compete against each other, and thus:
• “The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly
revolutionizing the
instruments of production, and thereby the relations of
production, and then
the whole relations of society.
Conservation of old modes of production in
unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of
existence for all
earlier industrial classes. Constant
revolutionizing of production,
uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting
uncertainty
and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier
ones.
All fixed,
fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable
prejudices and
opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become
antiquated before
they can ossify. All that is sold melts into air,
all that is holy is profaned,
and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real
condition of
life, and his relations with his kind.”

5. Creative Destruction
• Large scale: New economic systems rise from the destruction
of old ones.
The creation of capitalism comes from the destruction of
feudalism.
• Middle scale: Capitalists must destroy wealth in order to
create new wealth
• Small scale: Within capitalism, wealth comes from the
destruction of previous
- ways of life (rural to urban, walking to mass transit to cars)
- techniques of production (small artisinal to factory to just-in-
time)
- types of consumption (books to tv to itunes)
- types of commodities (walkman to ipod to iphone)
• Webster’s Dictionary: Nihilism - a viewpoint that traditional
values and beliefs
are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless

6. • The creative destruction of capitalism produces a cultural
tension between
progress and nihilism
‘The bourgeois, wherever, it has got the upper hand, has put an
end to all
feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations.
It has pitilessly torn asunder the
motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors,”
and has left
remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked
self-interest,
than callous “cash payment.”
The Nihilism of Creative Destruction
It has drowned the most
heavenly ecstasies
of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine
sentimentalism, in the icy water of cold calculation.
It has resolved
personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the
numberless
indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single,
unconscionable
freedom--Free Trade.’
Does such nihilism actually emerge from
capitalism?
• Capitalists cannot destroy the past so easily . . .

7. • “Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as
they please; they
do not make it under circumstances directly found, given and
transmitted
from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs
like a
nightmare on the brain of the living.
And just when they seem engaged in
revolutionizing themselves and things, in creating something
entirely
new, pricelessly in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they
anxiously
conjure up the spirits of the past to their service and borrow
from them
names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present the new
scene
of world history in this time-honored disguise and this borrowed
language.” (The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte)
Creation Destruction
Meaning Nihilism
Progress Nostalgia
Order Disorder
Tensions of Modernity
The Cultural Fragmentation of Modernity
• Social Differentiation

8. • Different “spheres” of social
action specialize and
develop according to their
own internal logic
• No single sphere as
complete dominance
• The totality of social life is
fundamentally partial, open
and fragmented
Culture
Production Science
Finance
Education
Politics
The Cultural
Fragmentation of
Modernity
• Spatial Diffusion
Ernest Burgess’ Concentric Zone Model, 1925

9. The Cultural Fragmentation of Modernity: Spatial Diffusion
The Cultural Fragmentation of Modernity: Spatial Diffusion
Multinucleated Metropolitan Region
“postsuburbia”
Home
Work, Politics, Culture
Modern Industrial Urban Model
“city & suburb”
Work,
Politics,
Culture
Suburban Single-Family Homes
Background Culture
(Binaries, Scripts,
Narratives)
The Cultural Fragmentation of Modernity

10. • Cultural De-fusion...
Actor’s
Performance
Audience
Reception
➫ ➫
➬ ➬
Cultural Fusion
Interpretation Communication
Psychological IdentificationCathexis
Background Culture
(Binaries, Scripts,
Narratives)
The Cultural Fragmentation of Modernity
• Cultural De-fusion...
Actor’s
Performance
Audience
Reception

11. ➫
➬ ➬
Cultural De-fusion
Misinterpretation Communication
Psychological IdentificationCathexis
Background Culture
(Binaries, Scripts,
Narratives)
The Cultural Fragmentation of Modernity
• Cultural De-fusion...
Actor’s
Performance
Audience
Reception➬ ➬
Cultural De-fusion
Misinterpretation Miscommunication
Psychological IdentificationCathexis
Background Culture

12. (Binaries, Scripts,
Narratives)
The Cultural Fragmentation of Modernity
• Cultural De-fusion...
Actor’s
Performance
Audience
Reception➬
Cultural De-fusion
Misinterpretation Miscommunication
Alienation/DistanceCathexis
Background Culture
(Binaries, Scripts,
Narratives)
The Cultural Fragmentation of Modernity
• Cultural De-fusion...
Actor’s
Performance

13. Audience
Reception
Cultural De-fusion
Misinterpretation Miscommunication
Alienation/DistanceCynical/False/Inauthentic
relation to background culture
Background Culture
(Binaries, Scripts,
Narratives)
The Cultural Fragmentation of Modernity
• Cultural De-fusion is a fundamental aspect of modern life
because of the
endless plurality of background cultural elements and audience
groups
Actor’s
Performance
Audience
Reception
Misinterpretation Miscommunication
Alienation/DistanceCynical/False/Inauthentic

14. relation to background culture➪ ➪
No single background
culture in modern
societies
No single audience in
modern societies
Structure & Agency in Everyday Life CSBS 310-pg. 1Structure
& Agency in Everyday Life CSBS 310-pg. 2Structure &
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Life CSBS 310-pg. 5Structure & Agency in Everyday Life

15. CSBS 310-pg. 6Structure & Agency in Everyday Life CSBS 310
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& Agency in Everyday Life CSBS 310-pg. 10Structure &
Agency in Everyday Life CSBS 310-pg. 11