AudreLorde
Summary
TLDRThis lecture delves into the social implications of economic relations, using Marx's analysis of industrialization in Britain as a backdrop. It discusses how the depersonalizing relationship between factory owners and workers, characterized by social alienation, is mirrored in broader societal interactions. The lecture then transitions to Audre Lorde's essay, exploring the concept of surplus labor and its societal reproduction, particularly in terms of social hierarchy and the 'mythical norm.' Lorde's critique of a profit-driven economy's demand for outsiders and its impact on social unity is highlighted, urging a reevaluation of how we address and value human differences.
Takeaways
- 📚 The script discusses the connection between economic relations and social alienation, particularly focusing on Marx's analysis of early factory work during the industrialization in Britain.
- 🧩 It emphasizes that all human relations are social, and there is no such thing as a purely business relationship, as humans are inherently social beings.
- 🏭 The script explains the shift from feudalism to industrialization, highlighting the core relationship between the factory owner and the factory worker, which is central to societal organization.
- 🌐 It introduces the concept of 'surplus labor' and 'surplus value', crucial to understanding profit in capitalist economics, where workers produce more value than they are paid.
- 📈 The lecture ties the idea of surplus labor to societal hierarchies, suggesting that those lower in the social hierarchy perform surplus social labor, such as educating others about their humanity.
- 🌱 The script references Lord's essay, which critiques the profit-driven economy that necessitates the marginalization of certain groups and the devaluation of differences.
- 🔍 It points out the 'mythical norm' in society, which is used as a standard for value and against which differences are measured, often leading to their rejection or exploitation.
- 💡 The discussion suggests that those closer to the mythical norm often do not recognize the surplus social labor they impose on others and may inadvertently contribute to societal fragmentation.
- 🌟 Lord's essay is highlighted for its relevance, even decades after it was written, indicating that the issues it addresses persist in contemporary society.
- 🤔 The script prompts reflection on how we can productively deal with differences in society and whether the current socioeconomic structure is conducive to unity and respect for diversity.
Q & A
What is the central theme of the discussion in the provided transcript?
-The central theme of the discussion is the analysis of social and economic relations, particularly focusing on the concept of surplus labor and surplus value in capitalist economies, and how these economic relationships are reproduced in society, leading to social alienation and stratification.
What is the concept of 'social alienation' as discussed in the transcript?
-Social alienation refers to the depersonalizing relationships in society where individuals treat each other as means to an end, rather than as ends in themselves. This concept is derived from Marx's analysis of early factory work during industrialization in Britain, where the relationship between factory owners and workers is seen as an example of such dehumanizing dynamics.
What does the term 'surplus labor' signify in the context of the transcript?
-Surplus labor is the labor that exceeds the equivalency between wage and value produced. It occurs when the amount of value a worker produces is greater than their wage, meaning they work extra hours without additional compensation, which generates profit for the employer.
How is 'surplus value' different from 'surplus labor'?
-Surplus value is the value that exceeds the wages paid to the worker, which is the result of surplus labor. While surplus labor refers to the extra work done by the worker beyond what they are paid for, surplus value is the economic gain that the employer receives from this extra labor.
What is the 'mythical norm' mentioned in the transcript, and how does it relate to social hierarchy?
-The 'mythical norm' is a societal standard or ideal that represents the most valued and privileged identity, often characterized by being a white, straight, able-bodied male with a good job. This norm is used to stratify society, with those who deviate from it being marginalized and subjected to surplus social labor.
What is 'surplus social labor' as discussed in the context of the transcript?
-Surplus social labor refers to the additional, often unpaid, work that individuals from marginalized groups must perform to educate and explain their experiences and perspectives to those who are closer to the mythical norm. This labor is necessary to challenge and change societal norms and expectations.
How does the transcript connect the economic concept of surplus labor to broader societal issues?
-The transcript connects surplus labor to societal issues by illustrating how the economic exploitation of workers in the form of surplus labor is mirrored in social relationships, where marginalized groups are expected to perform surplus social labor to educate and validate their existence to the dominant societal norms.
What is the significance of the example of a women's journal discussed in the transcript?
-The example of a women's journal is significant because it demonstrates how the editors, by limiting submissions to prose, inadvertently exclude women from marginalized groups who may not have the resources or time to produce lengthy prose pieces. This exclusion is an example of surplus social labor, where those excluded must educate the editors on the implications of their decisions.
What are the three ways society deals with human differences as outlined in the transcript?
-The transcript outlines three ways society deals with human differences: ignoring the difference, copying it if it is perceived as dominant, or destroying it if it is seen as subordinate. These methods reflect the institutionalized rejection of difference in a profit-driven economy.
What is the connection between the concepts discussed in the transcript and the future of the earth as mentioned?
-The connection between the concepts discussed and the future of the earth is that the way societies handle economic relations and social differences has profound implications for social cohesion, equality, and sustainability. Addressing these issues is crucial for the long-term health and survival of the planet.
Does the transcript suggest solutions to the problems it identifies?
-The transcript does not explicitly suggest solutions but rather highlights the problems and encourages reflection on how societies can deal with differences more productively. It prompts readers to consider the implications of current social and economic structures and to think critically about potential paths forward.
Outlines
🏭 Marx's Analysis of Industrialization and Social Relations
This paragraph introduces the concept of economic relations in the context of Marx's analysis of early factory work during the industrialization in Britain. It discusses the depersonalizing relationship between factory owners and workers, which Marx argues is reproduced in society, leading to social alienation. The speaker suggests that all human relations are inherently social, and the most significant among these are economic in nature, shaping how society is organized for production and distribution of basic materials. The paragraph sets the stage for a deeper exploration of how these economic relations influence broader social dynamics.
📊 Labor Power, Surplus Labor, and Surplus Value
The second paragraph delves into the economic concepts of labor power, necessary labor, and surplus labor. Labor power refers to an individual's ability to produce goods, which is sold as a commodity in the job market. Necessary labor is the labor that is compensated with wages equivalent to the value produced. However, in a capitalist economy, the speaker explains, surplus labor is common, where the value produced by a worker exceeds their wage, leading to surplus value, which is the profit for the capitalist. The paragraph uses the example of a Spam canning factory to illustrate these concepts and connects them to the broader social hierarchy and the reproduction of labor relations in society.
🌐 Social Hierarchy and Surplus Social Labor
Paragraph three expands on the idea of surplus labor by discussing how it translates into 'surplus social labor' within society. The speaker introduces the concept of the 'mythical norm', a societal standard often represented by a white, straight, able-bodied male with a good job, and how this norm influences social stratification. Those who deviate from this norm are expected to perform surplus social labor to educate and prove their humanity to those closer to the norm. Examples include how marginalized groups are expected to educate others about their experiences and existence, which is an additional burden not shared by those at the top of the social hierarchy.
🌱 The Impact of Socioeconomic Structure on Social Relations
The final paragraph emphasizes the role of socioeconomic structure in shaping social relations and the treatment of differences within society. It discusses how a profit-driven economy necessitates the creation of outsiders and surplus people, leading to an institutionalized rejection of difference. The speaker suggests that this economic structure influences how individuals respond to human differences, often with fear and loathing, and offers three typical responses: ignore, copy, or destroy. The paragraph concludes with a call to consider the implications of these dynamics on society and to reflect on how they affect our relationships and behaviors towards one another.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Social Alienation
💡Economic Relations
💡Labor Power
💡Surplus Labor
💡Surplus Value
💡Mythical Norm
💡Institutionalized Rejection of Difference
💡Ethics
💡Profit Economy
💡Cultural Appropriation
💡Social Hierarchy
Highlights
Central economic relations are key to understanding social alienation in Marx's analysis of early factory work during industrialization in Britain.
Social relations are not strictly business; all human relations are inherently social.
Economic relations are fundamental to how society is organized for production and distribution of basic materials.
The relationship between the factory owner and worker during the shift from feudalism to industrialization is a core social relationship.
Audre Lorde's essay discusses the ethical implications of how we live in relation to each other and our environment.
The concept of surplus labor and surplus value is fundamental to understanding profit in capitalist economics.
Lorde critiques the institutionalized rejection of difference and the need for outsiders in a profit economy.
The 'mythical norm' in society, often a white, straight, male with a good job, is used to stratify social hierarchies.
Surplus social labor is the additional burden placed on marginalized groups to educate those in power about their experiences and humanity.
Lorde uses the example of a women's journal to illustrate how certain conditions exclude marginalized voices even within progressive spaces.
The essay highlights how labor relations fragment groups and create divisions within the women's movement based on proximity to the mythical norm.
Audre Lorde suggests that society is programmed to respond to human differences with fear and offers three ways societies handle these differences: ignore, copy, or destroy.
The essay calls for reflection on the future of the earth and the importance of ethical living in relation to one another.
Lorde's work is timeless, with insights that remain relevant decades later, challenging readers to consider how societal structures affect our interactions.
The discussion prompts critical thinking on whether socioeconomic structures reproduce unhealthy or violent ways of dealing with societal differences.
The essay invites readers to consider solutions to the issues raised and whether Lorde provides a clear path forward.
Transcripts
foreign
Lord piece um not too much because I
think it's actually a piece better
suited to discussion
um or reflection in your case uh
thinking about it but uh I am gonna give
it a little bit of a background to
what's going on here and talk about a
few other things so
hopefully
hopefully
um you will have had a look at the
PowerPoint that goes over some of
later modern European philosophy that
has a short discussion of Marx in it if
this isn't the case because there's a
chance that after I record this video um
that the course will change the online
course will change I'll swap things in
and swap things out
um so if you haven't had that the
important idea here is that
Central
economic relations so in the case of
Marx analyzing
um early factory work during
industrialization in Britain the
relationship between a factory owner and
a factory worker which is for Marx a
depersonalizing relationship right
um reproduced in Society whereby members
of society treat people in average
day-to-day and even important social
relations so um with your friends and
family and all that and as a means to an
end this is social alienation in Marx so
we have something similar going on and
let me repeat
and the idea here is um
all relations amongst humans are social
relations so there's no relation which
is strictly business or purely business
because humans are social and the way
that we relate to each other is social
so um
the most important social relationships
which are economic in nature and by this
I mean
economics in the broadest possible sense
the the way we organize ourselves in
order to make the things that we need
and and sort of get them to people
distribute them right food clothes these
types of things basic material this this
idea of
um economics broadly like this so the
the ones that are at the core of
organization and um in the shift from
feudalism to industrialization one of
the relationships at the core there was
the relationship between the factory
owner and the factory workers
um that these get reproduced in society
yeah um
throughout Society rather because we're
always in society
um and the backdrop
to the Lord piece here
um which I bring in by the way as the as
the first at least at this point in time
again subjects change as a first
um
explicitly ethical text that the
question where we're asking um not
necessarily about Universal
um what ought to I do what's right or
wrong what's good but really about ethos
in Greek you know pertains to Dwelling
Place habit convention and so the idea
of Ethics is really in some sense about
how we live where we live in relation to
what we live uh in relation to so like
uh you know how we relate to people
at the at the highest levels at the
lowest levels at the most basic levels
how are we living how are we behaving
how are we treating each other these are
ethical questions
um
so as a backdrop what you get here on
the first
uh first page of of this Lord essay
she's talking about
um where the good is defined in terms of
profit that's at the top of the
um first paragraph systemized depression
I mean it comes up also because it goes
through here and at the top of page 159
the First full paragraph you know um
institutionalized rejection of
difference is an absolute necessity in a
profit economy which needs Outsiders as
Surplus people
um
well she's drawing on here is the idea
of surplus labor and surplus value I'm
going to have a look at my notes here
I'm just going to give you the basics of
this so labor power right you need to
know a few terms labor power
is our ability to produce something
right any person's ability to produce
something and generally speaking when we
go on the job market we're selling our
labor power as a commodity
um to the people who hire us so our
ability to make things is treated like a
commodity like something that can be
purchased right bottom sold so on and so
forth
um
so that's the first term labor power the
ability to make something second term
necessary labor uh necessary labor
exists when the
wage
of a person so how much is being
exchanged for your labor power right
that's your wage how much has your labor
power been bought for when the wage is
equivalent to Value produced
so if I work in a Spam canning Factory I
don't even know if people still know
what spam is
um I work in a Spam canning Factory
and I get paid ten dollars
and I produce ten dollars worth of
canned spam you know pushing the button
or whatever it is that I do missions
Canon whatever I produce ten dollars
worth of canned spam and I get paid ten
dollars that is necessary labor the
amount of wage in relation to the amount
of value produced
you can imagine that the capitalist
economy doesn't work that way right um
because no one betrayed a profit if you
were just getting paid for precisely the
amount of value you produce
so you have this next term which is
called Surplus labor Surplus labor
occurs when the amount of value you
produce
exceeds your wage so say that it takes
me four hours
um
to produce ten dollars worth of canned
spam
and I work for eight hours which means
that I produce twenty dollars worth of
canned spam right
so that four extra hours is Surplus
labor
um
it's labor that exceeds the equivalency
between wage and value produced
so Surplus labor as you can imagine
and surplus labor in the next term are
Surplus labor is the real operative term
here um
but Surplus labor always produces
Surplus value
um and surplus value is exactly what it
sounds like value which exceeds
um the wages right so um that extra ten
dollars
that the factory owner got out of me
um because he paid me ten dollars to be
there for eight hours and I produced
twenty dollars worth of can't spam in
that eight hours so that extra ten
dollars is a surplus value
um and that's how that's the basic idea
of profit here how profit Works in a
sort of the most rudimentary way
um
in capitalist economics according to
mocks so
um
Lord throughout this essay is talking
about how Surplus labor this
relationship is reproduced in society
um
particularly on the basis of a social
hierarchy
so you have a social hierarchy um she
refers to something called the mythical
Norm uh or what she refers to as the
mythical norm and the mythical Norm is
um
a white straight male with a good job
who's fit right
um that's the
that's the human Norm valued most highly
in American society and this essay by
the way given uh at Amherst College in
Massachusetts in 1980 so as I'm
recording this in February of 2023
um
it's 43 years old and if you're watching
this video three years from now it
doesn't make a difference
um so much of a difference because I
would say that reading this essay you
should have the sense like it was
written yesterday
um because not so many things have
changed um
since she's written this so
um
basically you have a hierarchy where the
mythical dorm is at the top and then you
know there's a stratification of
marginalization in society that she
links to differences from the mythical
Norm
um
and part of the time she's talking about
are part of the way she's showing how
the the the
labor relationship of surplus labor
which is a relationship which initiates
between the factory owner and the
factory worker is reproduced in society
when people who are lower down on the
totem pole as it were lower down on the
social hierarchy on the social data
um
not only have to do more labor so they
do the jobs that people hire up wouldn't
want to do
um generally what would be considered
less desirable jobs meaning they have
less time they're probably more tired so
on and so forth but they also have to do
this this Surplus social labor and she
talks about it throughout I'm just going
to point you to um
the bottom of 158 tier she says black
and third world people are expected to
educate white people as to our Humanity
women are expected to educate men
lesbians and gay men are expected to
educate the heterosexual world and so on
and so forth
um
this comes up in different ways
throughout the essay and one of the
examples that she uses of this
pertains to how people
closer to the mystical Norm don't have
to do this labor and not only do they
not do this social labor they don't even
have to really give it thought
so the example that she gives is of a
women's Journal
um
and the idea in short right
um
some writers or academics are putting
together this journal and they're doing
it
um
as a women's only journal to get women's
voices out there in writing right um
let's say literature
I think it is literature specified as
literature and they decide
that Pros
is the form of literature as opposed to
poetry or say like theater Stoke
um
that
um is most respected
and so they decide that they're going to
limit submissions to their journal to
only say longest form Pros right prose B
system
[Music]
um
and what's the problem with that
well the problem with that is that there
are certain conditions that are required
to write a prose piece that aren't
required to write other forms Lord gives
the example of poetry now this isn't to
say that poetry is easy to write however
um for poets it's often the case that
something might come to them
um
an outline of a poem that could be
edited later or something like this and
they could jot it down on the back of a
napkin not a piece of scrap newspaper or
they don't need anything more than
something to write on and something to
write with and then some time at any
time you know when they find some time
to edit it right
um or finish it or whatever
um
uh
the prose piece takes more time first of
all
um and she talks about writing a novel
and how hard it is um I write both
poetry and a philosophical prose in the
context in which I'm teaching to you now
um
prose takes more time it's harder in a
way
um
yeah I don't want to get into a deep
discussion that poetry is not easy
um
but the point here is more of that so in
1980 what do you need to write
um a longest form prose piece like a
short story or something like that you
need a typewriter which you need to be
able to afford
and those of you who have printers at
home
think for a second about how much ink
costs
still today
very expensive
so typewriter Inc paper space in your
apartment to put these things
um
in addition to time
and so if you are lower down
um if you're more marginalized and you
are already having your Surplus labor in
the job market
um more exploited than other people
um you probably don't have the time or
money to do this or you might not
um and you might not is enough
um Lord's point is that these editors of
this journal
um white women well I forget if she says
it explicitly
um
presumably at the very least are closer
to the mythical Norm right really the
only people above them on the societal
ladder are white heterosexual men
um so they're trying to
they're looking in that direction right
only at that and they're not thinking
about you know the 50 60 30 whatever
percent it is of people they're totally
excluding from a journal which in theory
is supposed to welcome all women writers
um
they're excluding all of this but the
pro part of the problem is they haven't
even given it the thought
and so having to go out
um say Audrey Lord wrote a letter
um or someone wrote a letter having to
explain to them why this is problematic
that having to explain why this is
problematic is part of the pro is the
the social surplus social labor that
she's referring to throughout the essay
and she talks about ways in which
um
these Labor Relations as social
relations fragment
um groups which should otherwise be
unified and we should we could say
Society should be unified but in in the
case of many of the examples that she's
giving
um it's stratifications within the
women's movement right so um the closer
you are to the mystical Norm within the
women's movement the more differences
ignored probably and the more Surplus
social labor has to be done by the
people
um
further down on the social hierarchy to
explain themselves
um educate the people higher up as to
why
excluding poetry is a problem
um
and other forms you know that might be
more conducive to certain material
situations so that's that's the main
thing that I think you need to know
underlying
um what's going on here the other thing
that I'll just point out it's an
important paragraph right at the
beginning here
um
and I read the first line already
institutionalized did I leave anything
out no
institutionalized rejection a difference
is an absolute necessity in a profit
economy which needs Outsiders as Surplus
people
as members of such an economy we have
all been programmed to respond to the
human differences between us with fear
and loathing and to handle that
difference in one of three ways
to ignore it
and if it is not possible copy it if we
think it is dominant
or destroy it if we think it is
subordinate I think you should think
about examples of that I do want to say
one thing though there is a difference
between copy it if you think it's
dominant
and what we tend to refer to as cultural
appropriation
um but you need to figure out what that
is
so a couple questions that I asked my
students the last time I taught this
um were examples of ignore copy and
Destroy these ways of dealing with
difference
um
whether or not you agree with the
argument that socioeconomic structure
and these core points you know these
core social relations that we have in
the economy
um do in fact reproduce
um in society in a way that is unhealthy
unproductive or even violent in dealing
with differences in society
um
productive ways of dealing with
differences in society examples of what
you think Solutions might be does Lord
give a solution
um and if she doesn't is she obliged to
oh
um
yeah that's it the future of the earth
she talks about on page 168 it's a
powerful paragraph
um
so that's all I have to say on the Lord
piece
um
it's a good one uh it's a great one to
think about how we relate to each other
and the circumstances that cause us to
do so so I hope you sit back and think
about it and I hope you take good care
thank you
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