However this thesis can be interpreted in two ways concerning the constraining forces on the masses and society in the large. There is the ‘hard’ view that social conditions are highly determinative, and that humankind is imprisoned without the key of Marxist theory with which to penetrate false consciousness and oppression. There is also the ‘softer’ determinist position, that humanity is capable of reacting, and is everywhere able to ‘create’ social change (Simon, 1976). A comparable distinction is drawn by Giroux (1983) between ‘structuralist’ and ‘culturalist’ traditions in neo-marxist theory, which emphasize the