Back when I was in school, I studied GCSE sociology, and when I went to college I studied it for A Level too. The study of society seemed like an interesting topic, moreso than the other options I had back then (so interesting were these other options, I don’t even remember them). Of course, there is a bit of a stigma with studying something like sociology, namely the “you didn’t want to study anything USEFUL?” one, which actually led to one of the biggest regrets of my life, when I chose to study accounting and economics at university (“they’ll be more useful in the future!”) rather than sociology, which I actually ENJOYED.
Anyway, this wasn’t to bitch about poor life choices, I have a story for you all. Gather round, children, and let me regale you with the tale of the fire-breathing horse of capitalism!
One of the topics we studied was the Marxist perspective of various aspects of society, and we were split into groups and tasked with making a poster about what the Marxist perspective of the education system was. Naturally, the other groups basically made a wall of text split into bullet points about various aspects of the Marxist ideology. My group?
We went high concept. We went ARTY.
We drew a building representing a school but resembling a factory, with humans going in one side and emerging as robots, who then filed into other factories to be put to work, representing the proletariat. We had this idea that schools taught them WHAT to think rather than HOW, reprogramming the proletariat into mindless drones (there are other methods Marxists identify that exert ideological control, usually involving the media or religion). This “product line” was overseen by an evil businessman with a briefcase and a large whip, representing the bourgeois. Any person that deviated from the lines filing into or out of the factories were set upon by a fearsome winged horse that breathed fire for some reason, the FIRE-BREATHING HORSE OF CAPITALISM. I guess it represents the police? Or some other force the bourgeois use to crush any sort of rebellious uprising.
Had we had more time, we’d probably have created a group underground of escapees, representing some burgeoning revolution, but sadly we only had half an hour and we spent a lot of that making the horse look fucking amazing.
Now, I know it all sounds OTT, but truth was, we just wanted to draw a winged fiery horse, and had to come up with a hasty justification for it. I think we were pretty successful.
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