Study On Paul Willis' S Cultural Materialism Thoughts

Guided by the major viewpoints Marxism philosophy,this paper makes a deep research and reflection on the Cultural Materialism thoughts of Paul Willis,who is a British New Marxist,a representative of Birmingham School,a practitioner of Cultural Materialism and a researcher of Critical Pedagogy.Willis' s Cultural Materialism thoughts inherit classical Marxism theory and Western Marxist Cultural Critical Theory.Under the guidance of the British Cultural Materialism,he intervenes in the subculture of British working class youth,with the method of ethnography,and has developed the Cultural Materialism with the characteristics of locality,historicity and integrity,which has a profound impact on the field of educational philosophy,and promotes It also criticizes the development of educational philosophy.This paper mainly includes the seven aspects:First,the theoretical basis of Willis' s cultural materialism thoughts.Focusing on the key words of Marxism,culture,mass culture,youth subculture,subjective consciousness,ethnography,etc.,this paper analyzes Willis' cultural materialism thoughts,and finds that Willis' cultural materialism thoughts inherits and develops the philosophy theory of Marx,sublates Western Marxist Cultural Criticism theory,complements and inherits British Cultural Materialism,and promos the development of Critical Pedagogy.Based on the inheritance and application of the labor theory,cultural theory and commodity fetishism of Marx,Willis gradually formed his cultural materialism thoughts with distinct Marxism characteristics.While learning from Althusser's theory of Structuralism,Gramsci's theory of Cultural Leadership,and Bourdieu's theory of Cultural Reproduction,the limitations of these theories are also questioned.On the basis of the theories,culture studies and methodology of British Cultural Materialism,Willis constructed his cultural materialism thoughts which is the mixture of Marxism,Structuralism,Humanism and Cultural Materialism.At the same time,the extension of Willis' Cultural Materialism thoughts in education and the promotion of Critical Pedagogy not only expands the theoretical category of Cultural Materialism,but also injects new blood into the research of Critical Pedagogy.Second,youth subculture criticism.Based on mass culture and youth subculture,Willis constructed his unique understanding of the concept and nature of culture.Starting from the concept and nature of culture,this paper explores the characteristics of youth culture and youth subculture.Through the study of the working class youth subculture,it highlights the decisive role of the subjective consciousness of the working class youth in the formation of their own subculture.Willis' s understanding on the concept and nature of culture is formed on the basis of inheriting the theory of British Cultural Materialism.On the basis of absorbing Raymond Williams' s "whole ways of life",Thompson's "whole ways of struggle" and Hall's "way of understanding the world",Willis excavates the class,popularity and collectivity nature of cultural,and proposes that culture is "the expression of subjective consciousness".Youth subculture is the main focus of Willis' s cultural materialism thoughts.Subculture is the culture of subordinate class,which is opposite to the mainstream culture.Youth subculture appears,when this kind of culture shows age and intergenerational characteristics.Willis believes that youth subculture is characterized by class,subordination,informality,collectivity and artistry.Youth subculture is not only controlled by the ideology of the ruling class,but also wants to compete with it at the same time.As the main body of the revolt,the the working class youth has its unique existence style and way of struggle.Willis believes that the interpretation of the working class youth should abandon the one-dimensional class determinism and analyze the working class youth from multiple dimensions.Willis uses the concepts of "penetrations" and "limitation" to show the initiative of youth subculture,and highlights the independent consciousness of the youth of the working class,through their self binding resistance.The process of the awakening of the working class youth and the gradual construction of their subjective consciousness is the process of the penetrations and limitation,as well as the process of their resistance.However,the resistance of the working class eventually reproduced their disadvantage,which formed the paradox of resistance.Third,criticism on cultural commodity fetishism.The commercialization of culture and the culturalization of commodity has brought about the development of cultural commodities,which are the important driving factors that affect the identity of contemporary people and the rapid change of culture.Before exploring the characteristicsof cultural commodity,Willis analyzes the alienation of commodity.In Willis' s view,the alienation of commodity also shows four characteristics: the alienation between commodities,the alienation between commodities and their nature,the alienation between commodities and human labor,and the alienation between commodities and human relations.Through the philosophy reflection and political economy criticism on cultural commodity,Willis points out that the essential difference between cultural commodity and general commodity lies in the communication of meaning.Cultural commodity as "quasi-modo commodity" are influenced by fetishism and de-fetishism at the same time,forming a turbulent stability.The ultimate purpose of Willis' s criticism of cultural commodity fetishism is to point out the relationship between social subject and cultural commodity,and to highlight the possibility of social subject to realize identity,construct subjective consciousness and even social transformation through the selection and appropriation of cultural commodity.Willis points out that the the selection cultural commodity by social subjects is not arbitrary,it is carried out under the joint action of the objective possibility of cultural commodity and symbolic labor of social subjects.Under the joint action of objective possibility and symbolic labor,the material order is gradually transformed into symbolic order,and the transformation of symbolic order may in turn affect the formation of material order,and eventually cause social change.Fourth,cultural form and cultural practice.In Willis' cultural materialism thoughts,cultural form is an important research field.Cultural form includes five basic elements:social subject,cultural object,cultural relationship,cultural field and indexical field,and three levels of analysis: index analysis,homology analysis and integrity analysis.According to Willis,cultural form is a kind of relationship: that is,the relationship between social subject and culture objects,institutions,practices and tools.In the culture form,social subject and culture object are connected together to form cultural relationship and carry out cultural practice.The formation process of cultural form is the implementation process of cultural practice.The practice process,practice aim and life explicit cultural form all points to the practice essence of cultural form.Through the concepts of "Grounded Aesthetics" and "Symbolic Creativity",Willis emphasizes the cultural and artistic creativity of the working class subject,and points out the importanceof understanding the mass culture from the cultural practice of daily life.Fifth,educational philosophy reflection from the aspect of cultural production.Willis' s attention to the field of educational philosophy is influenced to some extent by the combination of British cultural research with adult education.In Learning to Labor,Willis takes school education as the analysis field and constructs cultural materialism thoughts.Although Willis' s original intention was not to enter into educational philosophy,because of the detailed description of school life and the educational philosophy thoughts embodied in learning to work,Learning to Labor is widely valued in the field of educational philosophy.With the spread and importance of Learning to Labor in the field of educational philosophy,Willis' s cultural materialism thoughts gradually extended to the field of educational philosophy.In the field of educational philosophy,the application of social reproduction theory is mainly embodied in Critical Pedagogy.The reproduction theory of Critical Pedagogy can provides a part of explanation for the reproduction of the working class,but Willis did not fully accept the reproduction theory of Critical Pedagogy.He realized that there are two limitations in the reproduction theory of Critical Pedagogy: first,defaulting the process of society reproduction is automatic,describing social reproduction as an abstract premise.Second,it considers that school is the place of social reproduction.Students passively accepts the results of reproduction and it ignores the creation and selectivity of the subject.In order to solve these two problems,Willis first analyzes the limitations of structuralist reproduction theory,economic reproduction theory,cultural reproduction theory and “code” reproduction theory,and then,from the perspective of cultural production,Willis introduces the subjective opposition of working class youth into the analyse of reproduction.Willis' s cultural production theory does not provide another explanation for social reproduction.It emphasizes the important position of cultural production in the process of cultural reproduction and social reproduction.Cultural production promotes cultural reproduction,and then causes social reproduction.Sixth,the characteristics of Willis' cultural materialism thoughts.Willis' s cultural materialism thoughts have the characteristics of Locality,Class-character,Integratity,and Historic.As the methodology of Willis' cultural materialism,ethnography provides a lot of fresh records for his ideological creation.The purpose of Willis' ethnography researchis not only to understand the phenomenon,but also to summarize the theory.Through the imagination of ethnography,Willis combined the theoretical characteristics of Birmingham cultural research on the basis of traditional Ethnography methods,forming a unique theoretical feature.Seventh,evaluation of Willis' cultural materialism thoughts.The theoretical direction of Willis' s cultural materialism thoughts is to explored new ereas of subculture research,to explored the multiple dimensions of educational philosophy,to seek the possibility of "self performance" of the working class and the active culture liberation.Because of the great influence of Willis' thoughts,many scholars understand Willis' cultural materialism thoughts from their own fields,which makes them unable to grasp the whole picture of Willis' thoughts and cause misunderstanding of Willis.They think that Willis exaggerates the pessimistic color of the fate of the working class,ignores the subculture research of women groups,favors essentialism and reductionism,exerts subjective influence on ethnography research,and exaggerates the revolutionary significance of "resistance".After an overall analysis of Willis' s cultural materialism thoughts,these criticisms and queries are gradually clarified,and the true panorama of Willis' s thought appears.Although western academic theories are weak in interpreting Chinese social phenomena,Willis' s cultural materialism,his ethnographic research methods and enlightening viewpoints may be helpful for us to understand,analyze and interpret the phenomenon of contemporary Chinese culture,education and social stratification,and to a certain extent,they will bring about a great inspiration on China's cultural construction.