Ways Of Seeing

The corrosive ideology of capitalism instantiates itself by producing distinct manners of interpreting the visual world, or “ways of seeing.” These ways of seeing, in turn, produce an artificial and corrupt understanding of the self and the world, while simultaneously posing themselves as natural, inherent, and indisputably true.

Each chapter in the book articulates and dissects a particular “way of seeing”—hence, the title of the book. Subsequently, each chapter is related to the other because the end goal of each chapter’s discrete investigation is to deconstruct a “way of seeing” which capitalism produces. Ultimately, however, Berger’s goal in each investigation is to point out the way in which these highly constructed, mediated, and artificial ways of seeing normalize themselves as simply natural, and therefore become entrenched in both our culture and individual psyches as the basic starting point for recognizing and interpreting our visual worlds. Therefore, Berger’s moral dispute with capitalism lays itself bare. For Berger, not only are these ways of seeing highly artificial, but they empower and normalize the corrupt and greedy domination of the minority ruling class. Therefore, each chapter is an entreaty to the reader to understand and recognize the particular ways in which they are being manipulated by a capitalist visual order.