04/09/2010

on ideology ('structured musings')

what is often times called a 'theory of ideology' is not, really, a theory at all. when you try and distill theoretical conclusions, it's usually fairly thin.

thus far we have explained—why class matters, the rules of reproduction of capitalism, how laws of motion work themselves out through the accumulation process, how the accumulation process leads to antagonisms, how the roots of the stability of the system lie in the collective action problems, and how that stability is reinforced through the State.

we have explained, therefore, the stability of capitalism without referring to 'ideology', at all. this is a stark difference to classic accounts. not just in sociology, but even in 'western marxism' (interwar period to 1960s and 1970s).

we've gone against this grain—a startling conclusion: ideology is not a fundamental or central factor in explaining the stability of capitalism.

so, then: what is exactly the role of ideology?

a kind of Gramsci-ism (mediated through Stuart Hall) answers that ideology is important because the working-class consents, through ideology, to its domination. but what does consent mean, here?

1. a resignation to being exploited. if this is what we mean, though, you don't need ideology—it comes from the structural limitations confronting the workers in a given situation.
2. something narrower—meaning that workers take their exploitation to being 'legitimate'. if that's what you mean by consent, it's most likely empirically and demonstrably false. the hold of this kind of consent on the minds of lower order is tenuous (sby the way, this was poured into gramsci by the post-althusserians. he's not to blame).

this means that invoking ideology here is probably mistaken.

so we're back to square one.

one of eagleton's suggestions: the main role of ideology is not to secure worker's domination, but enabling workers to make sense of their domination. to 'rationalize' their situation. it provides workers with a 'story' that makes sense of their social world. in so doing, it doesn't create social stability, but it does help 'reinforce' it. in sum: the basic conditions for social stability come from the structural context, but this is further reinforced by the story spun to them. [how exactly do we attribute analytical weight, then?]

note, there is no reason that 'ideologies' have to be false or distorted—workers may very well understand their situation accurately, but still have to live with it. or even, as Eagleton says, many a true statement can serve 'ideological' functions. most people who are confronted with a situation that they would like to change, are confronted by serious 'cognitive dissonance'--they'll probably come up with some kind of story [but this is a private conception? how about social roots of ideology?]

how does it do this, though?

by painting the social order as legitimate, it is traditionally said. but this is a thin reed, it seems—the assessment of social order as being legitimate is strongest amongst the wealthy [but how is this cashed out? surveys?]

Marx often points to two other mechanisms:

1. taking the social order to be 'natural'--you reify the social order insofar as you take it to exist naturally independent of your own practice.
2. not by blocking people's conception of the unwholesomeness of their situation, but by diluting it (roots of economism).

what are the mechanisms, then, by which ideology serves these functions? here's where we're getting into the 'murkiness'. where do these ideologies come from?

'ruling ideas as the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships' – saying that socio-structural changes generate dominant ideas, rather than vice versa

two important things:

1. a materialism that is quite critical, clearly.
2. but there is a problem, then—there's no mechanism to explain why these ideas, in particular, ought to be 'ideological' ideas. but unless you think that all ideas are 'ideological', you still need to explain how these ideas emerge that perform these functions. [possibility of selection, though? by trial and error?]. certainly, the same relationships and same experiences have to produce a revolutionary, critical set of ideas.

what is the mechanism, then?

'the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas'. class with means of mental production, etc.

the dominant discourse of a social epoch is one which is going to take a set of material relationships and advance them through the 'media'. notice, here, your firmest gruond here is going to be on the side of 'ideological production'--we have a pretty robust theory of why media, in capitalism, is biased [see chomsky]. if you shift to 'ideological reception', though, we have more of a problem. it becomes much more murky.

there has been a tradition in the understanding of 'ideology' that has advocated for a definition that's much wider (not a 'negative' conception, but a 'neutral' one)--the possibility of working-class ideology. Marx opposed ideology to science; Lenin opposed bourgeois ideology to proletarian ideology. and Lukacs, of course, takes this much farther.

if you start with a materialist premise, that ideas are generated from practice, then insofar as 'unjust ideas' are produced by that same material practices/institutions (media, trade union bureaucracy), it follows that a critique of ideas will be bound up with a critique of those insitutions and practices that sustain injustice and unjust ideas. all those institutions and practices which produce distorted ideas must be dismantled. [materialist theory of ideas vs. materialist theory of ideology?]

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Marxists talk about 'ideology' simply because the detritus of ideas heaped upon workers are a primary political obstacle to organizing. And this is also why capitalists and the State spend so much time on fomenting 'ideology'.