1 Language, Ideology and Social Consciousness: A Critique of J.C. Scott
Introduction
One of the most significant and provocative contributions to the debate on language, ideology and social consciousness in recent years is that made by J.C Scott in Domination and the Arts of Resistance (Scott 1990). This work provides a context in which the most basic issues in this area are laid open to debate and examination. Consequently, it also provides a useful setting for theoretical engagement and critique. The purpose of this chapter is to make use of this opportunity for theoretical engagement and critique which Scottās work provides, and through this to begin to clarify and develop the approach which will be operationalized in later chapters. The chapter proceeds as follows. Firstly, it provides a detailed summary of Scottās arguments in Domination. Secondly, it offers an initial critique of the broader aspects of Scottās approach, looking particularly at the nature of the empirical engagement on which it is based, and at the main conceptual tools which emerge from this. Thirdly, it proceeds to extend the critique in more detailed ways. Here use is made of John Fosterās Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution for comparative purposes (Foster 1974). In conclusion, these strands of critique are pulled together and an attempt is made to lay out some requirements for the further development of the approach in Chapter 2 and beyond.
Scottās āHidden Transcriptsā
In Domination, Scott begins from the observation that what people say and do is dependent on who they are talking to, on the context in which they act, and on the relations of power which characterise the situation. This is a simple enough observation, but it is also one, he is suggesting, which, when set in the context of a society characterised by āelaborate and systematic forms of social subordinationā (Scott 1990: 4), has crucial implications for our approach to the study of language, ideology and social consciousness. Here, Scottās main targets are the major theories of ideological incorporation developed to explain the apparent political quiescence of subordinate social groups in class-based societies. Typically such theories are based on notions of false consciousness deriving from Lenin (1961a), or of hegemony deriving from Gramsci (1971). For Scott, both variants, and indeed the genre itself, are deeply flawed - both theoretically and methodologically. Indeed, he argues, their central weakness is precisely that they fail to theorize adequately the limiting effects of dominant power on the everyday interactions between dominant and subordinate actors. In turn, this undermines the potential for the development of more appropriate methodological stratagems for the study of the consciousness of subordinate groups.
Dominant social groups typically seek to euphemize their own power, and make claims to exercise that power in the interests of society as a whole. In doing so they establish certain principles and standards for their rule which they cannot be seen to contradict too routinely without being seen to contradict their own claims. To scholars in the field this much seems to be airly obvious. Less obvious to many of these scholars, Scott is arguing, is that where dominant power is apparently stable and effective, subordinate groups, whatever their āprivateā thoughts and intentions, may themselves find it advisable or expedient to avoid publicly contradicting these claims, and even to make some kind of show of indulging them. Here subordinate actors are in a highly ambiguous position. They will have something to gain from the repudiation of the dominant groupās claims, but this almost always involves substantial risk. So the subordinate will very often find it advisable āto produce a more or less credible performance, speaking the lines and making the gesturesā which they know are expected of them (Scott 1990: 4). Scott uses the term āpublic transcriptā to designate this type of āopen interaction between subordinates and those who dominateā (ibid: 2). The dominant group do not control this type of interaction completely, but it is designed and scripted in ways which reflect their prevalence.
It is designed to be impressive, to affirm and naturalize the power of dominant elites and to conceal or euphemize the dirty linen of their rule (ibid: 18).
He recognizes that this public transcript is ā seldom completely without resonance amongst subordinatesā (ibid: 18), yet it remains highly tendentious and āis unlikely to tell the whole story about power relationsā ibid: 4).
Scott suggests that outwith this public domain a different type of political discourse is to be found which contains another, at least equally important, part of the story. Subordinate groups typically live substantial parts of their lives outwith the immediate gaze of dominant power. Here, dependent on the degree of mutuality and trust which exists between subordinates, alternative meanings and practices can develop, giving rise to āa sharply dissonant political cultureā ibid: 18) where the meanings of the public transcript are questioned or negated. Thus, in dialogue with dominant power, there exists a āhidden transcriptā - āa critique of power spoken behind the back of the dominantā(ibid: xii).
It is this distinction between public and hidden discourse winch, Scott argues, should inform any approach to the study of domination and resistance, and the role of language and ideology and the nature of social consciousness within this. He uses the distinction to identify a further two variants of subordinate political discourse. There is the form of discourse which manifests itself in those ārare moments of political electricityā (ibid: xiii) when the dissonant culture of the hidden transcript breaks through into the public domain, challenging the authenticity of the earlier public transcript. Scottās suggestion is that while these conditions are relatively rare, quite typically various āarts of resistanceā, including disguise, anonymity and ambiguity, are used by subordinates to insert parts of their hidden transcripts into the public domain in diverse ways. Scott subsumes this discourse under the heading of āinfrapolitical resistanceā by which he means to designate āa wide variety of low-profile forms of resistance that dare not speak in their own nameā (ibid: 19).
The āInfrcipoliticsā of Subordinate Groups
It follows from Scottās argument that if we are to have a more complete picture of political discourse, and a more adequate theory of the dynamics of language, ideology and social consciousness developed on this basis, then it should be our priority to find some way of rendering the ongoing dissent from within the realm of the hidden transcript more accessible to study. It is here that Scott sees the theoretical and methodological importance of the āinfrapoliticsā concept - for it provides a potential avenue for exploring that domain while it remains largely hidden from public view.
His key point here is that the hidden transcript of subordinates is not simply a domain of discontented talk, but one in which dissident discourses and practices co-exist.
The hidden transcript is not just behind-the-scenes griping and grumbling, it is enacted in a host of down-to-earth, low-profile stratagems designed to minimize appropriation.ā¦ the discourse of the hidden transcript does not merely shed light on behaviour or explain it; it helps to constitute that behaviour .ā¦ There is an important dialectic here between the hidden transcript and practical resistance (ibid: 188-191).
Most basically of all, the development of a hidden transcript requires the creation and maintenance of a social space, free from the immediate surveillance of dominant groups, in which subordinate groups can come together with a degree of mutuality and trust (ibid: 118-119). Scott is keen to emphasize that typically such sites are not simply left vacant by dominant power for dissent to occupy. Rather they are carved out and defended by subordinate groups, and only on this basis can they develop their own social response to dominant power - both discursively and practically. Indeed Scott argues that the crucial importance of these sites is:
best attested to by the unremitting efforts of elites to abolish or penetrate (them) ā¦ and the corresponding efforts by subordinate groups to defend them (ibid: 108).
Yet, outwith those relatively rare moments of unambiguous political challenge, this phenomenon of discursive and practical resistance will take an āinfrapoliticalā form. While such resistance may be low-level, anonymous, disguised and ambiguous, and, as a consequence, in need of āmore than a little interpretationā it nonetheless is āreal politicsā in which āreal ground is lost and gainedā (ibid: 200). Scott is suggesting that any practice of political resistance, no matter how low-level it might be, necessarily implies the existence of shared meanings which can serve to inform and sustain it. Thus the study of infrapolitical resistance offers some way, though admittedly not an unproblematic one, of accessing those shared meanings of subordinate groups winch are antagonistic to dominant power, and so not routinely disclosed in public interactions:
paying close attention to political acts that are disguised or offstage helps us to map a realm of possible dissent. Here, I believe, we will typically find the social and normative basis for practical forms of resistance.ā¦ as well as the values that might, if conditions permitted, sustain more dramatic forms of rebellion (ibid: 20).
Incorporation: Its Limits and its Licences
Scott is suggesting, then, that the study of infrapolitics offers an avenue for reassessing theories of ideological incorporation on an empirical basis by accessing discourse from the hidden transcript of subordinate groups. His central objection to such theories is that they actually fail to take account, at a quite elementary level, of the limiting effects of dominant power on the everyday interactions between dominant and subordinate actors. Following from this, they then fail to look for evidence relating to the dispositions of subordinate groups when they act outwith the direct gaze of that power.
The most obvious reason why notions of ideological incorporation should find such resonance in the historical record is simply that domination, as we have seen, produces an official transcript that provides convincing evidence of willing, even enthusiastic complicity. In ordinary circumstances subordinates have a vested interest in avoiding any explicit display of insubordination. They also, of course, always have a practical interest in resistance.ā¦ The reconciliation of these two objectives that seem at cross purposes is typically achieved by pursuing precisely those forms of resistance that avoid any open confrontation with the structures of authority being resisted (ibid: 86).
Indeed, for Scott, the major problem with theories of ideological incorporation, in this respect, is explaining how social change can ever be a result of the struggle of subordinate groups. For whether the contention is that incorporation produces active consent to the existing order, or that it produces a fatalistic belief in its inevitability, the clear implication is that struggle against it, from the point of view of subordinate actors, is either contradictory and nonsensical or simply a waste of time and energy (ibid: 77-82).
Yet, perhaps more important still, is Scottās argument that attempts at ideological incorporation do not necessarily reduce social conflict. Indeed he argues that they provide licences for specific forms of conflict and protest, licences which have a determinate use-value for subordinate groups:
The plasticity of any would-be hegemonic ideology which must, by definition, make a claim to serve the real interests of subordinate groups, provides antagonists with political resources in the form of political claims that are legitimized by that ideology. ā¦ only a fool would fail to appreciate the possible benefits of deploying such readily available ideological resources (ibid: 95).
Any attempt at incorporation must provide arguments by way of justifying the prerogatives of dominant groups. In doing so it also provides criteria against which their claims to legitimacy can be tested and evaluated. Moreover, these criteria are essentially malleable and can be turned and twisted in novel ways by subordinate groups. So the attempt at incorporation also provides subordinate groups with licences to pose awkward questions. Thus:
Every publicly given justification for inequality ā¦ marks out a symbolic Achilles heel where the elite is especially vulnerable ā¦. Having formulated the very terms of the argument and propagated them, the ruling stratum can hardly decline to defend itself on this terrain of its own choosing (ibid: 105).
Not only does the interrogation of dominant power on the terms set by the powerful themselves offer a relatively āsafeā and licensed means of challenging, in varying degrees, the legitimacy of that claim to power. It also offers a means of disguising and importing more subversive challenges, and an available route of retreat should the continuation of such challenges seem ill-advised.
For Scott, then, the discourse of the public transcript should be seen, not as evidence of the political incorporation of subordinate groups, but as the main terrain on which public disputes about power will be carried out, and one which can offer substantial political weapons to subordinate groups.
What is rare, then, is not the negation of domination in thought, but rather the occasions on which subordinate groups have been able to act openly and fully on that thought.ā¦ Under any other circumstances ā¦ conflict willā¦ take a dialogic form in which the language of the dialogue will invariably borrow heavily from the terms ā¦ prevailing in the public transcript We may consider the dominant discourse as a plastic idiom or dialect that is capable of carrying an enormous variety of meanings, including those that are subversive of their use as intended by the dominant. The appeal to would-be hegemonic values sacrifices very little in the way of flexibility given how malleable the terms are and has the added advantage of appearing to disavow the most threatening goals (ibid: 102-103).
Scott does acknowledge that the use-value of dominant discourse to subordinate groups frequently has a cost. Often it will involve ācontributing to the production of a public transcript that apparently ratifies the social ideology of the dominantā (ibid: 33). This, in turn, can serve as a reinforcement of that ideology. Nonetheless, at other times, critiques formulated within the terms of the dominant discourse will point, implicitly, to a critique of those very terms, and struggles similarly...
