Material forces are important in history
People organise themselves to live in (or adapt to) a material world, and this organisation affects the rest of our social life, our conceptions of the world, and the course of history.
History is the story of class conflict
Forms of social organisation tend to set up modes of domination, oppression and exploitation and this sets up forms of resistance and conflict between social groups or ‘classes’.
The dominant ideas of an era tend to support the dominant classes of that era
Ideas tend to come out of their producers’ experience, which comes out of their way of life and modes of social organisation. The people who make the dominant ideas tend to be supported and funded by the dominant classes. The dominant ideas are distributed by people who support the dominant classes, and these ideas tend to justify or naturalise the dominant classes’ mode of oppression and action.
Tags: knowledge, social theory
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