Marx's Mark
According to Marxist theory people
whose lives depend upon material production for their subsistence were the
foundation or “base” of all social structures.
The class who governed the social, political and intellectual life, the
bourgeoisie as he called it, were a cumbersome superstructure that would be
deconstructed when material necessity demanded it. Marx wrote, “At a certain stage of development,
the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing
relations of production or -- this merely expresses the same thing in legal
terms -- with the property relations within the framework of which they have
operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these
relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution.” 1 Historic change in Marx’s view came
depended on the uprising of the oppressed working class against the elite. The purpose of history was to demonstrate how
that occurrence would tragically repeat unless societies recognized the pattern
and changed the inequities in the social structures that brought it about. Antonio Gramsci and others further developed Marx’s
ideas about the role of the dominant superstructure or the “hegemony” as
Gramsci called it. Gramsci believed that
even if the base revolted, the hegemony would continue to assert its power by
making its own values seem normative. Historians of the day who reveled
in retelling the story of European colonialist exploits and glorifying national
heroes proved Gramsci’s point. For
example, in “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” Frederick
Jackson Turner’s illustrated how the white male hegemony promoted their version
of history asserting their values as the hallmark features of American
character. Turner eloquently claimed
that the rugged independent spirit of the American nation was forged in the
crucible of the westward expansion and hammered into shape on the anvil of the
frontier. His frontier thesis was widely
read and popularized the idea of the American pioneer as hero of mythic proportions. As a result, Turner had a profound influence
on American history, as much for the way his claim was disputed by other
historians as for its popular acceptance.
