IDEOLOGY AND NARRATIVE REALISM

297 Pages·2017·13.18 MB·English

Ideology and Narrative Realism: a Critique of Post-
Althusserian Anti-Realism
Author
Prenzler, Timothy James
Published
1991
Thesis Type
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
School
School of Humanities
DOI
https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/2511
Copyright Statement
The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise.
Downloaded from
http://hdl.handle.net/10072/368111
Griffith Research Online
https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au
IDEOLOGY AND NARRATIVE REALISM:
A CRITIQUE OF POST-ALTHUSSERIAB ABTI-REALISM
Timothy James Prenzler, B. A. (Hons), Dip. T
Division of Humanities, Griff ith University
Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
CONTENTS
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Synopsis 1
Introduction 4
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1 Structuralism and Post-Althusserian Anti-Realism 4
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2 Context. Aims and Method 9
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3 The Equation of Realism with.I deology 18
4 Thesis Outline: the Counter-Argument to the Critique
................................,...........+..
of Realism 27
1 Language 30
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1.1 The Anti-Realist Theory of Language 30
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1.2 Saussure -32
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1.3 Chomsky 37
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1.4 The Speaking Subject 3 8
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1.5 Context 42
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1.6 Reference 44
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1.7 Ideology 50
2 Empiricism 54
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2.1 Althusser's Critique of Empiricism 55
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2.2 The Young Hegelians. Marx and Althusser 59
2.3 The Debate Between Hindess and Hirst and
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E.P. Thompson 66
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2.4 History ,.69
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2.5 Hermeneutics 73
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2.6 Identifying Structures J 6
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2.7 Empiricism and Ideology 78
3 Subjectivity 8 1
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3.1 The Critique of Subjectivity 82
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3.2 The Ambivalence of Liberalism 85
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3.3 Individuality 88
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3.4 Individualism and Capitalism 90
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3.5 Ideas 92
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3.6 Heeds 96
3.7 Structure and Agency .................................
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3.8 The Politics of Post-Althusserianism 104
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3.9 The Subject in Literature 108
4 Ideology Redefined
4.1 Recapitulation of the Post-Althusserian Concept
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of Ideology 115
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4.2 Deficiencies * l l G
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4.3 ' Ideology' in 'the Critical Marxist Tradition' 122
5 Realism Redefined 129
5 ..1 The Anti-Realist Dismissal of Realist 'Content' ......1 29
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5.2 The Relationship between Form and Content 131
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5.3 Content and Ideology 138
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5.4 Constructing a Reality 143
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5.5 The Status of Realism in Relation to its Claims 148
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5.6 A Redefinition 157
6 Realism as Critique 160
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6.1 The Evaluative Perspective of the Text 161
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6.2 Forms of Persuasion 163
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6.3 The Role of the Reader 169
6.4 Alternative Critical Responses to the Politics
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of Realism 178
7 The Interrogative Text 182
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7.1 The Theory of the Interrogative Text 183
7.2 Problems in the Idea of the Interrogative Text
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at the Level of Form 187
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7.3 Belsey's Macbeth 193
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7.4 Modernism ..I95
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7.5 Self-Interrogation within Realism 201
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7.6 Interrogating Ideology 203
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7.7 Politics and Aesthetics 207
8 The Empiricist Marxist Critique of the Ideology
of Capitalism 214
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8.1 The Justification of Capitalism 216
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8.2 Evidence Against the Idea of a General Benefit 220
... ...................................
8.3 The Self-Made Efan 224
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8.4 Equal Bargaining 226
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8.5 Capitalism and Freedom 227
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8.6 'Socialism' 231
. ....................................
8.7 Bureaucracy 233
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8.8 Ideology 235
9 The Empiricist Expose of Ideology in a 'Realist'
Novel: Bard Times 237
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9.1 Formal Realism -239
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9.2 Social Realism and Social Critique 244
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9.3 The Myth of the Self-Made Man 249
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9.4 Class 252
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9.5 The Liberal Romantic Discourse 254
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9.6 'Facts' 257
9.7 Ideology ................................................
Conclusion
.
Bibliography
IDEOLOGY AXD NARRATIVE REALISM:
A CRITIQUE OF POST-ALTHUSSERIAX ANTI-REALISM
Synopsis
This thesis defends the potential of t,he 'realist' form of
narrative for contesting, as well as reproducing, ideology, The common
form of 'realism' consists of a loose ensemble of conventions, The key
components are omniscient, evaluative narration; an empiricist
objectivism; the construction of individuals as agents of action and
bearers of natural attributes; cause and effect sequencing; conflict
leading to resolution; mystery leading to disclosure; and the
effacement of these techniques in the interests of illusion. In one
critique of realism - 'post-Althusserian anti-realism' - these
practices constitute ideology both in a general sense - as
manipulation - and a specific sense - as transmitters of capitalist
presuppositions. A 'social realism' or 'critical realism', which
attempts to invalidate ideology by the presentation of countervailing
data, is said to be undercut by its encoding within this alleged
inherently ideological form.
This critique of realism is based on an unsustainable, 'formalist',
reduction of 'content' to 'form'. The role of observation in knowledge
production and the significance of inductively generated propositions
are replaced by a sophisticated, but ultimately reductive, 'discursive
determinism'. From its conventionalist epistemological premises, post-
Althusserian anti-realism ignores the capacity of empiricism to break
with preconceptions. By dismissing the convention of accountability to
evidence, the critique is farced back onto criteria of internal
consistency - a position even more vulnerable to prejudice than
empiricism.
The thesis then argues that the concomitant view of the subject of
narrative realism as a construct of liberal-individualism ignores how
realist texts have questioned ideas of autonomy and a fixed human
nature. Anti-realist methods have usefully exposed some of the means
by which constructions of freedom and self-determination mask the
subordination of labour in ' freei- market economies. However, this
frequently entails undervaluing gains made under a rubric of human
rights. The replacement of humn subjectivity with discursive or
economic determinism tends to expel dialogue, volition and human needs
as factors in the ideational and practical repudiation of ideology.
A narrow approach to realism is therefore inadequate for
determining the relation of realism to ideology. The alternative
position defended here is that realismisr elation to capitaiism - like
that of liberalism and empiricism - is tangential, not homologous. The
variability of 'content' in realism makes realist techniques - as
abstract form - politically neutral (but claimed by anti-realists to
be intrinsically authoritarian). Realist conventions which construct a
point of view are open options for making judgements that will vary in
empirical rigour and opposition to different ideologies. The thesis
sets the authoritarian aspects of realism's attempted manipulation of
the reader against the potential in realism for a dialogic plurality
of perspectives, the possible defensibility of a point of view, the
need for coherence and judgement in political dialogue and action, and
the frequency of ' content' -based reader resistance. The real 1st form
is not an absolute of representation, but nor is it a mere reflex of
capitalism. By the same token, the anti-realist concept of the anti-
ideological function of 'anti-realist' texts imposes a reverse,
homogeneous, inherently oppositional role onto politically
heterogenous cultural forms.
The thesis argues, furthermore, that by rejecting empiricist modes
of substantiation and adopting a mechanistic view of ideology, the
post-Althusserian critique of realism fails to engage adequately with
the theoretical defence of capitalism. The harmony thesis of free
enterprise can only be given a pejorative label 'ideology' on the
basis of comparative and historical considerations of the performance
of capitalism. In practice, the natural tendency of the market to
cyclical instability with attendant unemployment, impoverishment and
the compounding of class-based inequalities has only been mitigated by
extensive government intervention.
The thesis concludes then with a case study of Dickens's & a , r r
as an example of the above, more effective, approach to capitalist
legitimation. W d T m e mploys empiricist, semi-' fictional' ,
'realist' technlques to demonstrate the ideological nature of theories
of free enterprise. The critical edge of this novel is blunted by a
liberal-romanticism that is ambivalent about legal-institutional
solutions to social problems. Despite this fault, Hard T i m s hows
some of the possibilites offered by the realist form for viable social
critique.
This thesis has never previously been submitted for a degree or
diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief,
the thesis conzains no mterial previously published ar mitten by
another person except where due reference is made in the thesis
itself.
Tim Prenzler
IBTRODUCT IOB
This thesis analyses the political and hermeneutical implications of a
'post-Althusseriant theory of the relationship between culture and society.
In particular, the thesis takes issue with the charge of 'ideology' directed
against narrative realism. Post-Althusserian approaches to literature,
either explicitly or implicitly, frequently devalue the epistemological aims
and claims of realism. More specifically, the critique of reqlism, often
articulated in the name of structuralism, holds that the realist form
reflects and reinforces capitalist ideology. Realist narrative is said to
transmit and naturalise assumptions about knowledge and human nature which
are fundamental to capitalism. Realism is also said to be ideological in the
more general sense that its pretended transparency and construction of a
dominant perspective are manipulative and reductive.
The present-t hesis contends that this characterisation of realism is
itself highly reductive. Rather than making an adequate critique of
ideology, post-Althusserian anti-realist assumptions and methods constitute
an obstacle to the explication and productive refutation of legitimising
myths. By treating narrative realism exclusively as ideology, anti-realists
dismiss useful procedures for interrogating the problems they perceive in
modern class society.
1 Structuralism and post-Althusserian Anti-Realism
The term 'structuralism' has been applied to various schools of thought.
This study concerns itself with- one specific application drawn from the
complex of analytic methods that came to prominence particularly in France
in the mid-1950s and early 1960s. Modern 'French structuralism' (Broekman,