The New Critique of Ideology

Lessons from Post-Pinochet Chile

Ricardo Camargo

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781137329677
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Sociologia

This book offers a new ideology critique for political analysis by revisiting Habermas via a Žižekian reading. The book includes an application of the theory to the case of the political consensus reached in Chile's post-Pinochet.

Part I
Toward a New Model of Ideology Critique

1

The Classic Debate on the Theory of Ideology

This book adopts Marx’s works as the truly theoretical beginning of the notion of ideology. This does not exactly coincide with the traditional date given by historians to the first use of ideology which, as it is known, is attributed to the French philosopher Destutt de Tracy, who coined it in 1796 to refer to his project of a new science concerned with the analysis of the origin of ideas, inspired in the spirit of the Enlightenment (Kennedy 1978; Larraín 1979; Thompson 1990: 26–33).

However, to set Marx as the starting point of the notion of ideology seems to be more accurate if we assume that since Marx a new discipline – the theory of ideology – emerged, giving rise to a peculiar systematic theoretical dispute. It is worth noticing, however, that even before any systematic reflection on ideology had given rise to it, the term ideology had already been object of a political dispute, incited by Napoleon I, who, in Réponse à l’adresse du Conseil d’état, accused Tracy and his fellows of ‘suffering on ideology, that shadowy metaphysics which subtly searches for first causes on which to base the legislation of people, rather than making use of laws known to the human heart and of the lessons of history’ (Kennedy 1978: 215).

However, to suggest a new criterion to establish the origin of ideology does not absolve the subsequent theoretical from being conceived in many ways as confusing, ambiguous or even contradictory. Ideology has given rise to countless theorizations, and researchers are often less than keen to acknowledge that what they are in fact investigating has very few features in common with rival theories in the same field. Indeed, the fact that from time to time revitalized attempts to proclaim the end of ideology have been launched is indicative of the peculiar contradictory character of ideology, seen by many as a notion that must be definitively eliminated from the political theory discipline. But this also gives an idea of the mélange of rival theories, working on very different conceptions of ideology, which, paradoxically, by their own distinctively and mutually exclusive ways of reflection have often arrived at similar conclusions. Take for instance the cases of the thesis of the ‘end of ideology’ of the early 1950s and 1960s coined by Raymond Aron, Daniel Bell, Seymour Lipset, Edward Shils and Chaim I. Waxman, on the one hand, and the post-modernist approach of the ‘irrelevance of ideology’ posed in the late 1970s and 1980s by Jean-François Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard, on the other hand. Although both approaches drastically criticize the notion of ideology, they do so from different standpoints, not only citing different reasons but also referring to very dissimilar objects of inquiry, giving rise in fact to two divergent concepts of ideology altogether. While Aron, Bell, Lipset, Shills and Waxman focus on comprehensive and totalizing doctrines originating in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as Marxism, Liberalism and Fascism, the post-modernist authors refer to a kind of ideology, which due to a new so-called post-modern condition of the late capitalist society, is then assumed as fused with reality, and therefore ineffectual.¹

To avoid such intermingling, it is thus worthwhile clearly delimiting, as far as possible, the boundaries of the different positions existing within the debate on post-Marx ideology. The aim is to highlight the theoretical assumptions behind different conceptions of ideology in order to examine the way in which the ‘Archimedean point of truth’ was developed in each stream of the debate. Chiefly, this chapter seeks to show how the trajectory followed by the notion of ideology is an expression of a more comprehensive dispute of paradigms (positivism, Critical Theory-Marxism, ‘great narratives’ doctrines) in which the problem of the ‘Archimedean point of truth’ appears as a subjacent argument for imposing one dominant paradigm. In such a dispute, while Marx’s notion of ideology is either abandoned by positivism, revisited by Critical Theory or transformed into a political instrument by ‘great narratives’ theories, the epistemological dichotomy ‘rational versus unconscious structure’ is finally challenged, making ideology not only a real reflection of a partial reality as Marx identifies but also a category operating mainly from the superstructure (Ideological State Apparatus) to the level of an individual’s unconscious, an individual who is now interpellated as a subject.

The delimitation here offered, however, does not seek completely and satisfactorily to eliminate all inconsistencies existing among rival theories of ideology, as for instance when one conception could be included in more than one category, a fact which is related to the complexity of the theoretical object of analysis. Furthermore, it does not aspire to produce a detailed account of the specific positions within the debate on ideology but to focus on the analysis of the central features of each classification.²

But before going directly to the analysis of such a delimitation of the debate on ideology, let us revisit the original notion of ideology developed through the works of Karl Marx.

Marx’s notion of ideology revisited

At least four theses have been deployed, disputing the way in which Marx would have developed his notion of ideology. The first thesis affirms that there is only Marxist conception of ideology and that it presents equivalently in each of his works, which would have basically been formulated in The German Ideology. The second thesis asserts that there is an epistemological break in the works of Marx, which allows a distinction to be made between the young (or pre-Marxist) and the old (or properly Marxist) Marx. This is the position held by Louis Althusser, who identifies the texts from the first period, including The German Ideology, as ‘positivists and historicists’, not Marxist, while the texts from his more mature stage would represent a properly Marxist conception of ideology based on the notion of class structure. A third thesis, set up by Jorge Larraín (1983: 9), assumes that the concept of ideology is developed along the whole work of Marx following a basic coherence core of premises, which will acquire new dimensions and expression as Marx develops his position and tackles new issues. Finally, Michael Rosen (1996: 222), asserting a fourth position; has stated that ‘Marx has no [consistent and single] theory of ideology, only a series of models’, which he identifies as the ‘reflection model’, the ‘interests model’, the ‘correspondence model’, and the ‘appearance and essence’ model.

In light of Larraín’s interpretation, we assume that Marx does not develop the notion of ideology as a systematic autonomous field. Rather, it is a notion that must be traced through the evolution of his works. We add, however, that ideology only becomes possible as a specific field of theorization when the original epistemological discussion in which Marx was involved is able to escape from the constraints imposed by the classical epistemological structure of reflection.

In fact, the debate about the origin of knowledge in philosophy has traditionally been accompanied by a normative aspiration for establishing evaluative criteria to judge the acquisition of justified knowledge, or the rejection of this possibility. This has been called the ‘epistemic account of justification’, meaning the series of necessary and sufficient conditions required for having a justified belief (Audi 2003: 3). It was this philosophical normative disposition that induced most of the classical epistemological tradition to assume a binary structure of analysis: reality/appearance as an epistemological strategy to analyze knowledge. In other words, to assert that which we know is justified always seems to demand something that is assumed as non-valid knowledge, a category with which to be contrasted (ibid.: 2). The appearance or illusion understood as something in opposition to reality was one of the first negative epistemic categories called to fulfill this function (Camargo 2007: 29).

A second common characteristic of the classical epistemological tradition was a distinction between the subject and object as two spheres, which were conceived as dependent upon but separated from each other. The notion of the subject emerged when the classical rational individual optic coined by Western philosophy, not only associated with Plato and Aristotle but also the Cartesian tradition of Descartes, was universalized and adopted, in spite of the permanent contested tension represented by empiricism as a precondition of any cognitive possibility within the modern rationalist-empiricist debate. The subject has thenceforth been used introspectively to explain to his or herself the world in which he or she lives. The world – the object – was then relegated to an external given reality to be explained. It is worthwhile noting that the notion of subject was only developed during the modern rationalist/empiricist debate, particularly by Descartes and the German idealist tradition. However, what is here suggested is that to read the classical epistemological debate having in mind such a distinction (subject-object) may result in a reader finding it useful to trace the path of another related notion, that is: ideology and the associated problem of the true condition.³

Finally, a third common feature was the adoption of an individual rational focus of reflection. The arrival point of the epistemological inquiry, either when it assumed the name of reason or sensory experience, was usually an individual considered to be isolated from any other external (social) constraints or a collective rationality – as later termed by Habermas – which were not related to the assumptions of the basic interrogation about knowledge. The rationality instead understood as logos, that is, an individual cognitive exercise to make sense of the world, usually excludes any other non-cognitive faculty or ‘unconscious structures’ – as coined by Althusser – as a component of the philosophical reflection. Therefore, although in the classical epistemological debate the individual-rationality aegis was dominant, in order to understand the subsequent emergence of the notion of ideology in Marx’s works we should read such a debate as having two new distinctions in mind: the individual versus collective rationality, on the one hand, and the cognitive knowledge versus the unconscious structures, on the other.

Indeed, Marx’s more original theoretical advance is mainly focused on his challenge to the assumption that it is an individual thinker, assumed as isolated from societal influence, who is calling introspectively to explain the world in which he or she is living, that is, to distinguish the true reality from the falsehood. Marx develops his theoretical position in this field by producing a critique of Hegel’s philosophical approach that assumes an immanent presence of the notion of Idea in the thing, which would require that the practical activity of a subject ‘necessarily appears as the activity and product of something other than itself’ (Marx 1975: 98). Although, at the time of that critique Marx had not yet developed a whole account of historical materialism, he was already committed to the concept of the origin of ideas as dependent on the historical practices of the subjects and not the other way round as Hegel had postulated (Larraín 1983: 11–15).

At this stage, Marx’s critique of Hegel was focused on Hegel’s Doctrine of the State and The German Ideology. It was not until his mature age (the writings from the Grundrisse (1858) onwards) that the influence of a dialectical logic developed in Hegel’s Science of Logic marked Marx’s works more importantly (ibid.: 10–31).

Indeed, Marx seems to accept the dialectical character of the constitution of reality as a process that implies a negation of negation, in which everything is defined and transformed by its opposite. However, he emphatically contests Hegel’s intention of resolving every contradiction – even those produced in the phenomenological world – in the essence of the things: ‘Hegel’s chief error is that he regards contradiction in the phenomenal world as unity in its essence, in the Idea’ (Marx 1975: 158). For Marx, this cannot mean anything but the useless intent to resolve in the Idea a contradiction existing in the phenomenal world, which for Marx can only be resolved with a transformation of the material world.

Marx is, therefore, in the prolegomenon of a new epistemological conception of the formation of ideas, which is centered on the notion of historical social practices – material conditions – as the key constitutive factor of knowledge. This is a whole new starting point of reflection on the epistemology debate that adds a reformulation of the analytical dichotomy – the individual versus the social – which until then had remained almost unaltered since Plato.

Previously, for Kant and Hegel, the distinction between subject and object had been substantially revised (Stern 1990: 14–15). Hegel also first presented a new way of theorizing the structure reality/illusion that sought to surpass definitively that distinction (Bowie 2003: 89–0; Soll 1969: xxiii, 3–4). However, no philosopher until Marx had presented an epistemological account that overcame a reflection centered exclusively on an individual imagined isolated from any constraints from his social practices, as a central piece of the process of producing knowledge. Furthermore, apart from the originality of Marx’s account in this respect, it is worthwhile clarifying that it is still a controversial point amongst scholars in the field to ascertain the role that Hegel could have finally given to historical constraints in the process of the constitution of consciousness (Bowie 2003: 88).

However, Marx presents a theory in which knowledge cannot be understood individually but as a social product of an individual’s interaction within a concrete historical social context. Marx was precise in establishing that the first premise of his reflection is the existence of human individuals and therefore nothing can be understood without posing this first premise. Nevertheless, for Marx the individual assumed as a starting point of his reflection was not an abstract category but one who was immediately subjected to the determinations posed by the organization in which they lived (Marx & Engels 1974: 42). Thus, knowledge and falsehood become social constructs, all of which would make possible, for the first time, the study of ideology as a specific epistemological problem.

Marx definitively completes this new epistemological turn when he develops his historical materialism method. This explains the origin of ideas and any other form of consciousness as the result of the interweaving of the material activity and the material intercourse of men (ibid.: 47). It is worthwhile noting that Marx does not conceptualize ideas as a mere reflection of a fixed external object, as classical empiricists do, but as the product of social relations, that is, social practices. He assumes the external world not to be a static and given reality, as Feuerbach does, but rather as a dynamic and contingent social result of successive generations (ibid.: 62).

Indeed, although for Marx and Engels (1976: 36) the material determines the ideas, the material in turn, far from being an a-historical dimension, is understood as a set of social practices that are organized in a determined historical form by concrete human beings:

[The] ideas are the conscious expression – real or illusory – of their real relations and activities, of their production, of their intercourse, of their social and political conduct. (Ibid.)

Therefore, Marx not only rejects the empiricist’s assumption that asserts the immediate constitution of ideas as a mere reflection of the external world, but also, following Hegel, assumes a dialectical logic of mediations in which social practices and ideas are mutually constituted. This point is often misunderstood by contemporary theorists of ideologies, who criticize Marx by assuming that ‘being determines ideas’, but without noting the mutually dialectical logic of the constitution between ideas and practices that Marx has in mind.⁴

Like Hegel, Marx rejects the idea that the reality can only be identified in opposition to a non-existent entity – as the classical epistemology asserts – but in a dialectical mediation within reality. However, contrary to Hegel, Marx locates the mediation of the constitution of reality in the equation of social practices and forms of consciousness, both of which, far from having any sort of essence, are conceptualized as being historically rooted in the specific form of social organization in which they take place.

In the mature stage of his intellectual evolution, Marx is able to formulate a concrete analysis of the specific form of social organization, in which all forms of consciousness, ideological and non-ideological, take place at the time of Marx’s writings: capitalism. From Grundrisse (1858) to Capital, under the influence of Hegel’s logic, Marx analyzes the structure of capitalist society, reaffirming his previous thesis that ideas are directly ‘interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men’ (Larraín 1983: 31).

However, he also discovers that such material activity and the material intercourse of men are much more complex than they seem at first sight.

Indeed, in a capitalist society – Marx asserts – there are two distinct spheres of material practices – the sphere of circulation or exchange, and the sphere of production – both being real, in the sense that they correspond to a determined level of the whole capitalist economic system. The essential point to bear in mind here is that the two levels in which a capitalist economy is presented determine, for Marx, different sets of forms of consciousness or ideas. Moreover, as the spheres – circulation and production – are for Marx in contradiction with each other, the former appearing as the predominant, perhaps even as the only one that really exists; the ideas related to this sphere become also the dominant ideas in society.

Then, as long as ...