Freedom, Hegemony, and Culture
F05
Bradford Verter
Ideally, the notion of freedom should allow for individual economic and intellectual sovereignty. Whatever the limits placed on our actions, we should at least be able to think independently (this was for Kant the very essence of Enlightenment) and to make our own decisions about how to spend the money we’ve earned (for Milton Friedman, economic freedom is a vital component of political freedom). But are we the masters of our own minds or passive consumers of corporate culture, gulled into false consciousness, ‘rebelling’ only in authorized manners under carefully controlled circumstances? What factors govern our social activities and cultural choices? What operations of subjugation and resistance are implied when one buys jeans from the Gap or folk art from third-world countries? Is cultural freedom possible in an age of global corporations? We explore such questions through difficult theoretical texts, regular reading responses, and a final paper (20–25 pages).