Class consciousness is formed culturally, not determined by economic experience

Evidence

Class consciousness is the way in which the experiences are handled in cultural terms: embodied in traditions, value-systems, ideas and institutional forms. If the experience appears as determined, class consciousness does not… . [C]lass is defined by men as they live their own history, and, in the end, this is its only definition. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 215

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines class consciousness as cultural handling of experience, a distinction the book’s argument about racialism in the English working class depends on.
• XREF: Frames the central question of whether the Black radical tradition is culturally self-made versus economically determined, echoing Thompson’s ‘making’ language. — connects to: Class consciousness arises from being looked at by oppressors, not from material hardship. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1028; Class difference persists even as class consciousness converges — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 193; Adorno used class to mean proletarian class-consciousness, not objective economic position. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1050 (+1 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 215