Coincidently that morning, I saw an ad board of a public lecture that would be delivered by a professor in philosophy of language from a university in London. I decided to attend the lecture and subsequently watched the entire explanation about the critical theories. The theories that were considerably examined varied from Karl Marx, Adorno, Habermas, and Horkeimer, the last two names were coming from the Frankfurt School in Germany.
Perhaps some of those names are unfamiliar to us, except might be Karl Mark that was assumed created Marxism, or the ideology of Marxist. Be knowledgeable, such theories are seemingly and presumably undermined in the systematic way by a mainstream that perceivably controls the educational world.
Currently, I am made astonished by the analytical style of Noam Chomsky in dismantling contemporary issues rigorously in which those issues vary from political, economic, and social realms. The proponents of this linguistic professor initiate to use his name in formulating a denominational thought which is pronounced Chomskian. One of his tough styles is very critical to all social dimensions that he assumes systematically undermining the authority of a human being with all their attributed elements. Particularly, Chomsky intensely criticises the illicit relationship among the corporations, bureaucracy, and military. Such an illegal symbiotic relationship produces a disadvantageous structure for ordinary people, for instance, colonization, new imperialism, repressive structure that considerably harms the majority citizen of one big world. His analysis on that three elements has inspired other leading figures, among others, John Perkins, who wrote Confessions of Economic Hitman, John Pilger in his book entitled the New Rulers of the World, and last but not least the Father of Indonesian Reformation Amien Rais,who wrote “Selamatkan Indonesia”.
What makes this theory fascinated to be considered in our academic space?
In explaining the view of Marx on what is so-called as ideology. The Professor opened the speech with a brief statement – language is used to dominate others. According to him, Marx strongly criticized the notion of capitalist society. For Him, this society is embedded with acute fallacies that consequently create a false consciousness of its members. In a long period, such a psychological condition would end up in unconsciousness minds. The invisible actors behind this society spread out such ideology through languages in the media industry, for example, televisions, newspapers, films, magazines, including books.
By broadening such a false ideology, the capitalists, a notion to attribute a group of people who control the world economic sector and who restrain a huge portion of world capital, are successful to “benefit” the values of a billion of labours in magnifying their profit. The values, which are generated by such labours in producing goods and services, are unfairly monopolized and dominated by the capitalists. As a result, it is understandable when this discussion – the relation between a labour and a capital owner, becomes one of the central ideas of Marxist theory.
The ideology of false consciousness was relentlessly challenged, now by the Frankfurt School in Germany. The capitalist actors as protagonist figures were targeted in their intellectual discourses. The term culture industry is raised to depict on how the media industry is perceived as a sophisticated vehicle in distorting languages to make a “stereotype of ideal society”, which is portrayed as an ultimate achievement of a human being to pursue happiness in this saeculum world. This society is seen as a false image from the view of the Frankfurt School. According to them, this society is artificially imaged as having full of happiness, comforts, abundant worldly-facilities, and all supported features that would attract human beings to living within. However, it is essentially fragile, because the firm structure of that society activates an unjust time bomb that acts as an underpinning and a foundational building of capitalist society.
Furthermore, the critic is once again sustained by Habermas. This time, he examined the civil society building that is systematically and structurally undermined by the illicit relationship of three parties – corporations – bureaucracy – military. He stated the well-known statement – colonization of the life world”, a notion to depict on how public life has been colonized and controlled by the illicit purposes of capitalist actors. For instance, instance how the function of media as a public tool in discussing the societal issues has been hijacked for a propaganda matter and a profit matter.
Such theories will easily be understood if we concern on the current various phenomenon across the countries as often analysed by Noam Chomsky. Interestingly to say that the analysis of Chomsky seems quite similar with his predecessor who proposed the critical theory earlier. Alternatively, maybe we could say that Chomsky is inspired by those theories, or even as a part of this denomination.
Yudi AF
