ANTH 120 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

Tuesday, November 4, 2003

Video:The Arts

Notes from Video: The Arts

• Art is a cultural universal, found in all human societies, e.g. body painting among the Amazonian Indians, dance among the !Kung

• Art plays different functions in different societies, e.g. Egyptian art in ancient Egypt and modern U.S. museums

• Commodification of art• Art and social control - "Entertainment has

replaced religion as the opiate of the people."

Class Analysis• Different conceptions of class:

Mainstream and Marxist• Mainstream - subjective and

individualistic• Marxist - objective social

relationship, e.g. slaveowner and slave

Class analysis

• At its most fundamental level, there is always a two-class system: rulers and ruled

• But there are always intermediate classes and gradations between classes, and remnants of old classes

• Empirically the class system can become incredibly complex

• Patriarchy and class rule• Class struggle• Complexity of class systems

Class analysis

Patriarchy and class rule

• Men, not women, staff the agencies of class rule

• Men are the primary beneficiaries of the system

• Women are the most brutally exploited by the system

Class struggle

• Moses and the world’s first great labor walkout

• Spartacus and the slave revolts in the ancient Roman empire

• Workingmen’s Parties, labor unions, strikes and general strikes in the U.S.

Class Ruled Societies• all systems of class rule are also patriarchal

since men are the chief beneficiaries of the system and also tend to occupy the chief positions in the State-Church bureaucracies, and women are the worst, but not the only, victims of the system

• the underlying class division between rulers and ruled is complicated by an elaboration of intermediate classes and gradations within the classes.

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