Criticism
Marxist geography's emphasis on constraints of structure upon human agency has been criticized extensively as deterministic, as not allowing for human agency and autonomy; human action appears determined by capitalism's structural mechanisms in Marxist analysis. By contrast, humanistic geography is a differing critical geography that concentrates on human will and autonomy in explaining geographical patterns. Unsurprisingly, much of the criticism directed at Marxists has emerged from the humanistic fold (although humanistic geography is itself seen as lacking for failing to account for behavioural constraints imposed by social structures).
Marxist geography is also subject to critiques of historical materialism and its applicability to modern-day post-industrial and capitalist societies. The importance placed by Marxists on the notion of class is also subject to critique. Marxist geographers have responded in kind to these polemics.
Read more about this topic: Marxist Geography
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world—though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst—the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“The critic lives at second hand. He writes about. The poem, the novel, or the play must be given to him; criticism exists by the grace of other men’s genius. By virtue of style, criticism can itself become literature. But usually this occurs only when the writer is acting as critic of his own work or as outrider to his own poetics, when the criticism of Coleridge is work in progress or that of T.S. Eliot propaganda.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)
“Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)