Humanities Homework Help

Instructions for Midterm Project

Most social theories worth studying are neither completely correct nor completely mistaken. They are a mix of ideas that are useful for understanding our world and ideas that need to be revised or thrown out entirely. This midterm project is designed to help you develop the skill and value of thoughtful ambivalence, that is, the ability to assess theories with more nuance, by pointing out what is useful and what is unhelpful about them. You will develop this skill by deciding what Marx got right about capitalism and what he got wrong.

The instructions below take you through each step you should take to develop your project.

Step 1: Read the Ten Economic Portraits Published in The New York Times

In April 2020, The New York Times asked some of its readers in their 40s how they were doing financially compared to how their parents were doing in their 40s. The newspaper then published an article with ten of these “economic portraits “ (they received nearly 500 in total). The first step in developing your midterm project is to read these ten portraits, which you will find on Canvas.

Step 2: Decide Whether Marx Was Right (on a Scale from 1-3)?

Think carefully about the economic lives of the people that you just read. Based on these portraits, the readings you’ve done on Marx, and your own experience and viewpoints, do you believe Marx presented an accurate description of capitalism? I don’t want you to answer this question in terms of ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ I want you to score Marx’s theory on a scale from 1 to 3, with 1 meaning that Marx was mostly wrong and 3 meaning that he was mostly right. For every point you give Marx’s theory, you must point out a specific argument or idea you believe he got right, explain that argument or idea, and support it with information from the portraits. Similarly, for every point you don’t give him, you must point out an argument or idea you think he got wrong, explain it, and support it with information from the portraits. You may choose to discuss any argument or idea from Marx’s work, including his views on ideology, class struggle, class polarization, primitive accumulation, the relation between political equality and economic inequality, or any other argument or idea found in any of the readings by Marx that you did for this class.

The key is that for each point you give his theory (or don’t) you must select a specific argument or idea from Marx’s work, explain it, state whether you believe he’s right or wrong about that argument or idea, and support your analysis with information from the portraits.

You might say something like this:

“Marx argued that capitalism increases inequality. For example, on p.X of the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels state that… What the authors are saying in this passage is that… I believe Marx was right about this because… In fact, one of the portraits illustrates this since [name of person] is…”

In the example above, the first three sentences explain the argument in Marx’s theory you’re referring to. The fourth sentence states your position about that argument (was Marx right or wrong?). The last sentence draws on the portraits to support your view.

If you give Marx’s theory a score of three, you must mention three things you believe he got right about capitalism. If you give it a score of two, you must point out two things he got right about capitalism and one he got wrong. If you give it a score of one, you must point out one thing he got right and two he got wrong.

Step 3: Present Your Analysis as a Theory Map or a Mini-Ted Talk

The final step is to present your analysis integrating Marx’s theory of capitalism with the information provided in the economic portraits. You can present your analysis as a theory map or a mini-Ted Talk. Regardless of the format, the central goal is to explain the things you believe Marx got right and the ones you believe he got wrong and to draw on the economic portraits to illustrate your views.

Your work should contain at least three specific page citations from Marx’s work and three citations from any of the economic portraits. Ideally, you will support your view about each point in your score with one citation from Marx and one citation from the economic portraits.

You can include more citations if you like, but the latter numbers are the minimum. You will also have to include a reference list regardless of the format you choose. In-text citations and reference list entries should follow the style guide produced by the American Sociological Association (ASA). You will find a description of this style in the document titled “Quick Tips for ASA Style,” which has been uploaded to Canvas.

This is how The New York Times article should be listed in your references list:

Kelley, Lora. 2020. “‘I Am the Portrait of Downward Mobility.’” The New York Times, April 17.

Below, you’ll find further instructions for each format.

Theory Map

At its most basic level, a theory map is a visualization that presents the main ideas of a theory and how they are connected to each other using images, text boxes, lines, arrows, and other visual cues. Your map should represent what you believe Marx got right and what he got wrong about capitalism. In other words, it should represent the score on a 1-

3 scale you gave the theory and draw on the information found in the economic portraits.

You can hand-draw your map and submit it as a photograph or you can produce it on a digital device using any software you like. If you chose to use a digital device and decide to use images instead of or in addition to text boxes, you can create the images yourself or use existing images you find online.

You may create a single map that illustrates all the points in your score or create a separate map for each point.

In addition to the map itself, you must submit a 500-word summary of your map that includes a total of three specific citations from any of the works we read by Marx (or Marx and Engels) to support your analysis and three citations from the economic portraits. As I mentioned above, ideally, you will support your view about each point in your score with one citation from Marx and one citation from the economic portraits for a total of six citations in your 500-word summary (three from Marx and three from the portraits). Even if you create more than one map to illustrate your score, you only need to write one 500-word summary.

You should also include a reference list that does not count toward the 500-word limit following the ASA style guide.

Your summary should have the following general structure:

In one or two sentences, present your score and a brief, general evaluation of
Marx’s Theory. Here’s an example of what this might look like: “I gave Marx’s theory of capitalism a score of 2 because Marx was largely correct about X and Y, though he did get Z wrong.”

Explain each of the points in your score, laying out the specific arguments and ideas from Marx’s work, whether he got them right or wrong, and describing how you decided to illustrate them in your map. You might say something like this: “Marx claims that under capitalism, people are ideologically manipulated. On p.XX of [Title of Reading] he argues that… I don’t believe he got this right. In my map, I illustrate Marx’s idea of ideology with the image of XX in the top- left corner of the map. But I place a “=?” symbol between this image and the text box to the left of the symbol to indicate that ideology does not necessarily produce the effect Marx thought it would. The text box to the right of the symbol includes the name of [name of one of the people from the portraits] because her views do not support the argument that she’s ideologically manipulated in any way. In fact, she clearly states that…”

Throughout your summary, remember to describe the text boxes and/or images in your map and how they are connected to each other, define any key concepts you refer to in your map, and follow ASA style guidelines when citing Marx’s work in the summary.