Saturday, July 14, 2012

The times they are achangin'...

Having lived in Seoul off and since I was a teenager, I remember when studying Marx (except for the Brothers) would have gotten you jail time and therefore was done in secret commie klatches.

Nowadays, though Marxism is widely discredited, I saw this chinboista event advertised openly in public downtown and here at Ewha University.

My own take on Marx (since we necessarily study him in the field of sociology, even if not all of us revere him) is that his diagnosis was largely correct but his prescription was way off base.

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4 comments:

  1. That is interesting indeed.
    Marxist theory is also a pretty standard component of economic study (More of his theories from das capital than his manifesto). About eight years ago, I taught economics classes at the Federation of Korean Industries and was specifically told not to include any Marxist criticisms of capitalism (assuming I didn't already know better).

    Marx has been rearing his ugly head again in in my doctoral program--the field of critical applied linguistics, critical discourse analysis, and critical pedagogy. There are aspects of critical pedagogy that I feel have to be very careful about implementing when I'm planning my own curriculum and the curriculum of the my department at a particular women's university in Seoul.
    I couldn't agree more with you regarding the diagnosis versus the prescription though.

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  2. G. K. Chesterton had Marxists spotted a century ago: "The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right."

    And Marxism flourishes in higher ed because ideas tend to cluster in institutions where ideas don't have to work, in order to survive.

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  3. Hello,
    I live in Seoul, and I have a master's degree in (critical) applied linguistics. Do you know of any critical applied linguistics phd programs in Seoul?
    Thanks,
    Che B.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi, I have a masters in (critical) applied linguistics. I live in Seoul. Do you know of any critical applied linguistics phd programs in Seoul? Thanks,
    Che B.

    ReplyDelete

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