Marxism vs. Liberal Humanism

This first week in the critical theory class has been quite "interesting" as I tend to say. The material covered consisted of Marxism and Liberal Humanism theories. I grasped Marxism pretty well but liberal humanism seemed to be a harder topic for me to understand. When given a prompt to compare the two I initially I was reluctant as i ask: "What am I going to say?" 

After re-reading the required texts, I slightly gained a better understanding of the beliefs of each theory and how they differed. The Marxist criticism seems to want to "change the world" by focusing on  a classless society and not focusing on ideologies as much as concrete views and ideas. It feels that "a writer's social class forms them and their views". It appears they feel that having a communism type society would make it so literature wouldn't focus so much on what is going on at the time, or reflect the class of the writer through language or perspective in a story. They rather not know the opinions of the writer/author. Anonymity is key to the success of a piece of literature.

The Liberal Humanist perspective has some similarities but differs in the areas of how the time period affects the piece of literature and the influences of individualism. As mentioned before, Marxism believes that social class or a particular time period forms a writer's views and can affect the  message and outcome of a piece of literature. On the other hand, liberal humanism feels that literature "transcends the limitations of age it was written in" because human nature is unchanging. Our emotions, interactions in society, and social events continue to repeat themselves throughout history and will always be reflected in literature. As far as individuality goes, Marxism seems to feel obligated to attempt to make the individuality of the author unknown, whereas Liberal Humanism welcomes individuality as it is reflected within the characters of literature and creates a relationship between them and the reader. It sparks interest and a connection, whether using common events, language or similar views.

I particularly feel that individualism has positive affects on literature. A main attraction between a reader and literature is being able to find a connection. Something that you can relate to and make it easier to engage in the message or storyline of a piece of literature.

Thanks for listening. Please comment. :)

~Ladii