True Story: What Reality TV Says about Us

by Danielle J. Lindemann

For Marx and Engels, ideology is not something that stems organically from each of our individual brains; rather, it’s born from our social relationships and functions as an instrument of power.8 We sustain the current arrangement of power when we interpret work that involves manual labor as less important. The classical sociologist Max Weber makes the related point that engagement in physical labor tends to disqualify one from status. He gives the example of artistic work that’s more labor-like (such as masonry) being lower-status work than artistic practice that’s less labor-like (such as oil painting).9 While we can likely all think of exceptions to this rule—for example, professional athletes—it’s still generally true that our most esteemed work is more intellectual than physical, and vice versa.