Ideology Theory

29 Pages·2008·0.28 MB·English

Historical Materialism 15 (2007) 211–239 www.brill.nl/hima
Ideology Th eory nent of critique, which differs, however, in
that the paradigm of the truth-falsity dicho-
A: nazarīyat al-ʾidiyulōgˇiyā. – G: Ideologi- tomy is transferred to the analysis of the mode
etheorie. – F: théorie d’idéologie. – R: teorija of efficacy and the opposition is transformed
ideologii. – S: teoría de ideología. – C: yishi- into one of the reproduction of domination
xingtai lilun versus emancipation.

Th e concept of ‘ideology theory’ was coined in 1. Th e term ideology was introduced in 1796
the 1970s in order to designate a refoundation by Destutt de Tracy as a neologism (analogous
of Marxist research into ideology stimulated to ontology) to signal an analytical science that
by Louis Althusser. It was distinguished from aimed, following the model of the exact natural
three other approaches: 1. the reduction of science (in particular, physiology), to dissect
ideologies to epiphenomena of the economic ideas into elementary component parts and –
(‘economism’); 2. an ideology-critique that derived from the Greek sense of eidos as visual
focuses on the critique of ‘false consciousness’ image – to investigate the perceptions upon
from the standpoint of a ‘correct conscious- which they were founded (Mémoire sur la faculté
ness’; 3. bourgeois ‘legitimation theories’ from de penser, 1798, 324). Underlying this, fol-
Max Weber to Niklas Luhmann, which pose lowing Locke, Condillac and Cabanis, is the
the question of the capacity of ideological sensualist conviction that sense perceptions
integration in a ‘social-technological’ way, are the only source of our ideas. Based on the prin-
from the perspective of domination and its ciple of movement of D’Holbach and Spi-
self-justification. noza’s concept of the capacity to act [ potentia
Th e need for ideology theory resulted from agendi], it is supposed to overcome the dua-
the fact that none of these traditions were able lism of materialism and idealism. Destutt de
to explain the stability of bourgeois society Tracy also takes over from Spinoza the rejec-
and its state, let alone to develop a strategy tion of free will, so that the physiological and
of socialist transformation capable of gaining social determinants of ideas, feelings and
hegemony. Th e approaches of ideology theory actions moved into the central focus (cf. Ken-
attempted to fulfill this need by inquiring into nedy 1994, 29, 31; Goetz 1994, 58f, 61 et sq.).
the social constitution and unconscious modes In opposition to metaphysics, and claiming
of functioning and efficacy of the ideological. its position, ideology should be exact in the
Ideology theory focuses upon ideology’s ‘materia- style of the natural sciences and practically
lity’, i.e. its existence as an ensemble of appa- useful (Mémoire, 318). All other sciences are
ratuses, intellectuals, rituals and forms of subordinated to the new ‘super-science’, which
praxis. claims to establish their unity (Kennedy 1994,
Ideology theory should not be compre- 18, 25). ‘Th is common denominator, this
hended as a new discovery, but, rather, as a re- foundation underlying all knowledge, this
articulation and new re-evaluation of questions origin expressed in a continuous discourse is
that had already been worked on by Marx and Ideology’ (Foucault 1970, 85). It forms the
Engels and later, in particular, by Antonio foundation of grammar, logic, education,
Gramsci. Th e distinction from the approaches morality and, finally, the greatest art: ‘de régler
of ‘ideology-critique’ is not absolute: on the la société’ (Mémoire, 287). Rational deriva -
one hand, because these also deal with the tion of meanings and goals of action should
social conditions of constitution and efficacy balance out the social oppositions of bourgeois
of ideologies; on the other hand, because ideo- society and thus contribute to the overco-
logy theory approaches also contain a compo- ming of its class struggles in an enlightened
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007 DOI: 10.1163/156920607X251529
212 J. Rehmann / Historical Materialism 15 (2007) 211–239
representative democracy (cf. Goetz 1994, modified). Of course, it is no longer ‘the auto-
71). cratic power’ that forms ‘the silent centre of
Ideology, appearing here as a non-partisan the discourse that dismisses every claim against
and universalistic foundational science, is it as “ideology”. Rather, power and domina-
never theless ‘inseparable from the material tion, together with their changing strategies in
practices of the ideological state apparatuses’ relation to ideas, come into the picture’ (Haug
(Eagleton 1991, 69). Destutt de Tracy intro- 1993, 9).
duced the concept into the debates of the
Institut national, which was created in 1795 2. Th e critical-theoretical ideology concept
after Th ermidor as a state institution bringing is a coinage of Marx and Engels. Th e fact that
together the leading republican intellectuals they deployed it in different contexts in
for the reorganisation of the system of educa- different ways led to the situation that three
tion. Th e Enlightenment was thus institu- chief directions could be derived from their
tionalised in the state at the very moment texts: first, a critical conception, represented in
when Jacobinism was politically defeated. particular by Georg Lukács and the Frankfurt
Ideology conserved the republican achieve- school, which interprets ideology as ‘inverted’
ments while eliminating the plebeian ele- or ‘reified’ consciousness; second, a ‘neutral’
ments; in the brief period of the Directory, it conception, formulated in particular by Lenin
was accredited with the status of a state phi- and dominant in Marxism-Leninism, which
losophy (Deneys 1994, 109, 117 et sq.). comprehends ideology as a class-specific con-
Th is ‘passive revolution’ (Gramsci) of the ception of the world; and third, a concep tion
mode of science and education could only that goes from Gramsci to Althusser to Wolf-
be unstable and temporary. After General gang Fritz Haug and the ‘Projekt Ideolo-
Bonaparte had initially supported the ‘idéolo- gietheorie’ (PIT), which understands the
gistes’, as Emperor Napoleon he accused the ideological as the ensemble of apparatuses and
‘phraseurs idéologues’ of undermining the forms of praxis that organise the relation of
state’s authority with rationalistic and natural individuals to the self and the world. Th e three
right abstractions, of depriving the people of interpretations can also overlap and be com-
religion and salutary illusions and flattering it bined with each other.
with a sovereignty that it could not exercise
(cf. Kennedy 1978, 189). In the end, the 2.1 Th e critique of ideology as necessarily
concept became a ‘weapon in the hand of an inverted consciousness can appeal to nume-
Emperor [ . . .], who desperately fought to rous formulations in which Marx and Engels
silence his opponents and to maintain a regime (for example, in relation to religion) speak of
in dissolution’ (Th ompson 1990, 31). ‘All the ‘inverted world-consciousness’, ‘independent
unhappiness of our beautiful France must be kingdom in the clouds’, ‘distorted conception’,
ascribed to ideology’, he claimed in 1812 after ‘standing on its head’ and so forth (e.g. MECW
the defeat against Russia: ‘this dark meta- 3, 175; MECW 5, 27 et sqq.; MECW 35, 19).
physic, which seeks in an artificial way for the Ideology is accomplished by the thinker with
foundations upon which it can then erect the a ‘false consciousness’ who misses the real
laws of men, instead of adapting these laws motives impelling him; ‘otherwise’, notes the
to the knowledges of the human heart and late Engels, ‘it would not be an ideological pro-
the lessons of history’ (cited in Corpus 26/27, cess’ (MECW 50, 164). Ideologists regard ‘their
145). ideology both as the creative force and as the
An echo of this semantic displacement aim of all social relations’ (MECW 5, 420).
occurs in the doctoral dissertation of the 23 Such an inversion is compared to that of a
year old Marx in 1840/41, when he ascribes ‘camera obscura’: ‘If in all ideology men and
to Epicurus: ‘Our life does not need ideology their circumstances appear upside-down as in a
and empty hypotheses, but rather, that we live camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as
without disturbance’ (MECW 1, 68; trans. much from their historical life-process as the
J. Rehmann / Historical Materialism 15 (2007) 211–239 213
inversion of objects on the retina does from Th e term was initially deployed for the charac-
their physical life-process’ (MECW 5, 36). terisation of bourgeois economic thought, until
Th e context shows that the claim that Marx it appeared in the appendix of the first edition
understood ideology as ‘empty reflex’ and of Capital Volume I (1867) for the first time as
as ‘form of consciousness [ forme-conscience]’ characteristic of the equivalent-form of the
(Althusser, EphP 1, 496 et sq.; cf. SLR, 294 et commodity itself (MEGA II.5, 637 et seq.). Th e
sq.) cannot be sustained. It leaves out the ‘his- passage was then enlarged into a whole sub –
torical life process’ that is at stake here: the chapter in the second edition in 1872 (C 1, 163
situation of ‘standing on its head’, a charac- et sqq., MECW 35, 81 et sqq.). Stimulated
teristic of ideology, is treated as an effect of the by the original meaning of ‘fetish’ used by Por-
social division of material and intellectual tuguese missionaries to describe ‘primitive’
labour. For only by means of this can con- African religions ( feitiço, something made or
sciousness really ‘flatter itself that it is some- produced by humans that gains power over its
thing other than consciousness of existing makers), Marx deployed the ‘fetish character of
practice, that it really represents something the commodity’ in order to characterise the pro-
without representing something real’; only cess in which the social connection of the produc-
now is there ‘the formation of “pure” theory, ers is only established in commodity exchange
theology, philosophy, morality’ (MECW 5, and thus a posteriori and behind their backs as a
45), which, separated from relations, are prac- foreign, reified power, in the same way that the
ticed by specific intellectual groups ‘as a pro- ‘law of gravity asserts itself when a person’s house
fession, that is, as a business’ (379; cf. 62, 92). collapses on top of him’ (C 1, 168; cf. MECW 35,
What makes possible and produces the rever- 86) ‘Th eir own movement within society has for
sal of consciousness is the real detachment of them the form of a movement made by things,
intellectual activities from social production, and these things, far from being under their con-
their growing independence and their pre- trol, in fact control them’ (C 1, 167 et sq.; cf.
dominant position in relation to production. MECW 35, 85).
Th e separation of material and intellectual As the analysis of the critique of political
labour is, in its turn, embedded in the forma- economy ascends from the commodity to
tion of private property, classes and the state money, then to the commodity of labour-
(46 et sqq.), so that the camera obscura is to be power, wages, capital and rent, the fetish con-
understood as a metaphor for the ‘idealistic cept also remains a constitutive part, until the
superstructure’ of class society as a privileged ‘reification’ and ‘mystification’ of the capitalist
sphere reserved for the mental labour of the mode of production is finally completed in
ideologues (89). In this sense, it has been pro- the ‘trinitarian formula’ of capital, land and
posed that the attention of ideology theory labour as a ‘religion of everyday life’ – a
should not remain bound to the inner image ‘bewitched, distorted and upside-down world
of the camera obscura, but should come in haunted by Monsieur le Capital and Madame
from the side and investigate the material la Terre who are at the same time social charac-
arrangement and thus the socially unconscious ters and mere things’ (C 3, 969; cf. MECW 37,
of the discourse of consciousness (Haug 1984, 817). Th e combination of ‘reification’ and
26): ‘Th e detachment of consciousness is ‘mystification’ shows that Marx’s fetishism
framed and constituted by the material analysis attempts to comprehend different
arrangement [dispositif, in a Foucauldian phenomena in their interconnection: first, the
sense] of social domination’ (24). efficacy of a reified modern form of domina-
tion in which the capitalist market functions
2.2 Another way of developing the ‘reversals’ as a higher power; the producers, consumers
of consciousness from social structures is pro- and even the capitalists themselves are at its
posed by Marx with the concept of ‘fetishism’, mercy, so that the relation of supply and
which he used from the 1844 Manuscripts demand ‘hovers over the earth like the fate of
onwards in order to study economic relations. the ancients, and with invisible hand allots
214 J. Rehmann / Historical Materialism 15 (2007) 211–239
fortune and misfortune to men, sets up bourgeois ideologies in integrating the society,
empires and wrecks empires, causes nations to but do not themselves yet constitute an ide o-
rise and to disappear’ (MECW 5, 48); second, logy (1979, 186). Also for Sebastian Her-
the self-mystifying naturalisation of this kommer, who understands them as real
reified domination into inherent necessity fictitious modes of bourgeois everyday life,
[Sachzwang]: movements of things as ‘natural they only become ideologies through systema-
forms’ of social life (C 1, 168; MECW 35, 86); tic elaboration and ‘translation’ by specialised
and finally, the production of spontaneous intellectuals (1985, 23 et sq., 44, 130).
consent so that the producers feel themselves Marx treated such ideologisation with the
‘completely at home’ in these ‘estranged and example of the ‘vulgar economists’ who ‘trans-
irrational forms’ (C 3, 969; MECW 37, 817). late’ the ideas of economic actors into a doctri-
Th e different meanings – reification, dissimu- naire language, precisely ‘from the standpoint
lation and ‘voluntary’ subordination – are, for of the ruling section, i.e., the capitalists, and
Marx, not only related to each other, but are their treatment is therefore not naive and objec-
also immediately inscribed in the material tive, but apologetic’ (TSV 3, 453; cf. MEW
arrangement [dispositif ] of bourgeois domina- 26.3/445), according to what is ‘useful to capi-
tion: as ‘socially valid, and therefore [. . .] tal or harmful, expedient or inexped ient’ (C 1,
objective thought forms’ (C 1, 169; MECW 97; MECW 35, 15). He sees such reproduction
35, 87) which are reproduced directly and of the ‘superficial appearance’, determined by
spontaneously as ‘current and usual thought interests, in opposition to the ‘urge of political
forms’ (C 1, 682; MECW 35, 542). Th e sphere economists like the physiocrats, Adam Smith
of circulation is ‘in fact a very Eden of the and Ricardo to grasp the inner connection’
innate rights of man. It is the exclusive realm (TSV 3, 453; MEW 26.3, 445). From another
of Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham’ perspective, Th e German Ideology had found a
(C 1, 280; MECW 35, 186). division of mental and manual labour even in
How Marx’s analyses of fetishism can be the midst of the ruling classes: their ‘conceptive
used for the analysis of bourgeois ideologies is ideologists’ appear as thinkers ‘who make the
contested. Unnoted by Kautsky, Plekhanov formation of the illusions of the class about
and Lenin, they play a central role neither in itself their chief source of livelihood’, while the
the tradition of ‘Marxism-Leninism’ nor in ‘active members’ of this class barely have the
Gramsci. For Althusser, they are a relict of a time ‘to make up i llusions and ideas about
pre-Marxist phase and, furthermore, ‘fictitious themselves’ (MECW 5, 60).
theory’ (EphP 1, 487, 497; cf. FM, 230).
Lukács, on the other hand, makes the com- 2.3 Th e interpretation of the ideological as a
modity fetish into a universal category of neutral medium of class interests claims to
bourgeois society. For some, the fetishism find confirmation in a passage of the Preface of
chapter of Capital Volume I is the ‘exposure of 1859, where Marx distinguishes between the
the contents of the foundational structure of ‘material [ . . .] transformation in the economic
bourgeois consciousness in all its manifold condi tions of production’ and the ‘ideological
forms’ (e.g., Sorg 1976, 45). Philologically, it forms’, ‘in which men become conscious of this
is to be noted that Marx deploys the concept conflict and fight it out’ (MECW 29, 263).
of ideology in the context of his fetishism Following the young Lenin (LCW 1, 151),
analyses at the most indirectly: on the one this passage was interpreted in Marxism-
hand, by means of the inversion metaphor, Leninism to the effect that the social relations
which refers back to the ideology concept of could be divided into material and ideological
Th e German Ideology; on the other hand, relations (e.g., Bauer 1974, 19). Th e dicho-
through association with religion as the his- tomy of ‘material vs. ideological’ reduces the
torically first form of ideology. According to ideological to ‘ideas’ and thus overlooks the fact
the Projekt Ideologietheorie (PIT), the ‘objec- that, according to this passage, conflicts are not
tive thought forms’ support the efficacy of only made conscious but also practically ‘fought
J. Rehmann / Historical Materialism 15 (2007) 211–239 215
out’ (MECW 29, 263) in the ‘juridical, politi- in Th e German Ideology there was this notion
cal, religious, artistic or philosophic [ . . .] forms’ of a ‘series of powers which determine and
that are summarised as ‘ideological’. Th is subordinate the individual, and which, there-
suggests that the concept of ‘ideological form’ fore, appear in the imagination as “holy”
deployed here should be ascribed a stronger powers’ (MECW 5, 245).
‘materiality’ and a more independent inner
logic than a rhetoric of ‘expression’ allows. In this 3. Th e orientation towards the conquest
sense, the late Engels developed the concept of of state power that was established in the
‘interaction [Wechsel wirkung]’ and emphasised Marxism of the Second and the Th ird Inter-
that the ideological (and in particular political national enhanced a development in which the
and juridical) ‘forms of the class struggle [ . . .] ideology critique of Marx and Engels and, in
also have a bearing on the course of the histo- particular, its connection with a foundational
rical struggles of which, in many cases, they critique of the state was repressed by a widely
largely determine the form’ (MECW 49, 34 et diffused neutral concept of ideology. Th at was
sqq.). Th e argument indicated here can be genera- promoted by the fact that Th e German Ideology
lised in the sense of a ‘strong’ concept of form: was only published first in 1926 in an abridged
just as Marx deciphered in the critique of poli- form and then integrally in 1932, which thus
tical economy the social-historic al specificity of could not have been read by the first generation
the commodity in the commodity-form with of Marxists. While Antonio Labriola, close to
the help of a form-analysis (cf. Haug 2005/ Marx, could say that Marxist theory had once
1974, 117 et sqq), so ideological forms are to be and for all overcome any form of ideology
ana lysed as institutionally anchored ‘forms of (Labriola 1908), and Franz Mehring, for
individuality’ and praxis (cf. Sève 1978). example, spoke critically of the ‘Hegelian ideo -
Above all, the ‘neutral’ concept of ideology logy’ (Karl Marx, GS 3, 29), the young Russian
overlooks that Marx and Engels continuously delegate to the founding conference of the
deploy the concept of ideology critically. Second International in 1889, Georg Plekha-
Antagonisms in material production make a nov, spoke of ‘our revolutionary ideologues’
‘superstructure of ideological strata’ necessary (cited in Jena 1989, 67). Kautsky tends more
(TSV 1, 287; cf. MEW 26.1, 259). It is not a and more to a ‘neutral’ concept, e.g. when he
determinate content of consciousness that uses ‘intellectual [geistig]’ and ‘ideological’ inter-
makes intellectuals ideologues, but a deter- changeably (cf. 1906, 128 et sq.), and a similar
minate ‘positioning in the structure of domi- tendency can be found in Eduard Bernst ein’s
nation’ (Haug 1984, 25), which is to be writings, which contrast economic power to
reconstructed socio-analytically, starting from ideological power (1993/1899).
the contradictions in society.
3.1 Th e young Lenin drew the conclusion
2.4 Th e foundation of the concept of ide o- from Marx’s distinction in the Preface of 1859
logy in a critical theory of the state was fur - between the economic basis and ideological
ther developed by the late Engels, taking up forms ‘that social relations are to be divided
the theoretical sketches of Th e German Ide o- into material and ideological relations’, with the
logy and calibrating them with new research latter forming ‘merely a superstructure above
(above all, that of Morgan). Th e state is now the former’ (LCW 1, 151; trans. modified).
regarded as the ‘first ideological power over Looked at from an ideology-theory approach,
man’ (MECW 26, 392), a ‘power having arisen the concepts ‘material’ and ‘ideological’ consti-
out of society but placing above it, and aliena- tute a false opposition, because it overlooks the
ting itself more and more from it’ (269). Its materiality of the ideological. Th e definition of
functionaries are ‘organs of society, above so ciety’ ideal forms of expression of class interests as
and ‘respect for them must be enforced by ‘ideology’ furthermore opens the way to the
exceptional laws, by virtue of which they enjoy definition of Marxism as the ‘ideology of
special sanctity and inviolability (270). Already the labouring class’ (LCW 1, 394). Th is poses
216 J. Rehmann / Historical Materialism 15 (2007) 211–239
the problem of delimiting Marxism from other logy’, Lenin concludes: ‘Th ere is no middle
ideologies, such as, for example, Catholicism. position here’ (LCW 5, 385 et sq.). Th e opposi-
Lenin does this with the concept of ‘scientific tion bourgeois/socialist is inaccurate, because
ideologies’, whose specificity is supposed to one pole lies on the level of the social structure
consist in the fact that ‘the objective truth’ cor- while the other is located on the level of a
responds to them (LCW 14, 153). Underlying political project. Th e dichotomy is linked to
this is a fundamental dichotomy between sub- the reductionist postulate of ‘seeking behind
jective and objective, which falls short of the all the possible moralistic, religious, political
praxis philosophy of Marx’s Th eses on Feuerbach and social phrases, explanations and promises
and corresponds, instead, to the ‘contemplative’ the interests of this or that class’ (LCW 19, 27),
or ‘metaphysical’ materialism – Gramsci will and tends towards a theory of manipulation
call it ‘philosophical materialism’ – that is criti- (for example, in relation to the ‘freedom of the
cised in that text. In confrontation with the press’ of the rich, LCW 26, 283). Just as reli-
subjectivist agnosticism of, for example, Bog- gion is interpreted in a pre-Feuerbachian way
danov, Lenin adopts a fundamental dicho- as ‘deceit of the priests’ (opium for the people
tomic of ‘doctrine of two kingdoms’ and takes rather than, as in Marx, of the people), the
up the position opposed to subjectivism, that of ideologue appears as a mere deceiver.
‘objective truth, independent from humanity’
(PIT 1979, 23). 3.2 From the combination of class reductio-
In What Is to Be Done? (1902), Lenin takes nism and educationism, Marxism-Leninism
up from Kautsky the idea that the working derived legitimation to define the ‘proletarian’
class can develop spontaneously only a trade- ideology through the politburo of the ‘party of
union ‘seed form’ of class consciousness, which the working class’ and to prosecute contradic-
is still subordinate to bourgeois ideology, since tion as ‘deviation’. It was thus obscured that
this ‘is much older than socialist ideology, Lenin had implicitly developed an ‘operative’
because it is much more complexly developed, ideology theory that is oriented to the self-
because it has at its disposition incomparably determined activities of the masses and opposed
more means of diffusion’ (LCW 5, 386–7; to the re-ideologisation of Marxism (cf. PIT
vgl. 374 et sqq.). Political class consciousness 1979, 24 et sqq.). Paradoxically, this was mani-
‘can only be brought to the workers from out- fested in the fact that in the phases of upsurge of
side’, from the sphere of the interactions the revolutionary movements in 1905 and
between all classes’, or the relations between 1917, the concept of ideology receded behind
‘all classes and strata to the state and govern- that of hegemony. With the concept of hege-
ment’ (420 et sqq.6). Th e argument contains mony, Lenin oriented towards driving further
an anti-economistic insight, which Gramsci the movement for democracy (LCW 8, 72 et
will extensively elaborate in the sense that the sqq.), towards the ‘purification’ of the allied
transition of a class from the corporative to strata from undemocratic and nationalistic
the hegemonic phase requires a ‘catharsis’ of admixture (LCW 17, 60 et sqq.) and towards the
group egoisms (Q 10.II, §6). However, while democratic functions of the unions (LCW 32,
Gramsci proposes to elaborate critically the 19 et sqq.). It was a matter of the ‘discipline of
‘spontaneous philosophies’ of ‘bizarrely’ com- conscious and unified workers, who recognise
posed everyday common sense [senso comune] no order higher than themselves and no power
(Q 11, §12), Lenin’s ‘from outside’ suggests an outside the power of their own asso ciation’
educationalistic relation between the working (LCW 29, 423). Th is perspective breaks with all
class and a separate layer of organisers and ideology in the sense of an alienated socialisa-
ideologues (the later ‘nomenklatura’). tion from above. Nevertheless, hist orically, it
‘If we can now not speak of an independent failed due to low social levels of develop ment
ideology elaborated by the working masses in and the thus conditioned limit ed capacity for
the course of their movement itself, the ques- action of the working class, as well as due to the
tion can only be: bourgeois or socialist ideo - unfavourable international power relations. All
J. Rehmann / Historical Materialism 15 (2007) 211–239 217
this favoured the tendencies towards the stati- ‘universal category of society as a whole’ (86).
fication and re-ideologisation of Marxism. With its help, ‘the ideological problems of
capitalism and its downfall’ can be deciphered
3.3 Subsequently, the problem of ideology (84). Here, Lukács links Marx’s fetish analysis
was subordinated to a ‘materialist’ response to to Weber’s ‘formal rationalisation’, which is
the ‘fundamental question of philosophy’. It supposed to merge state and society into
opposes an economic base, which alone was an ‘iron cage’ of bondage (Weber 1930/
ascribed the status of ‘matter’, to an ideology, 1922, 181). From the ‘basic phenomenon of
which was defined as a ‘system of social [. . .] reification’ (1971, 94), Lukács derived the
views that express determinant class interests’ ‘ever more reified levels’ of social conscious-
(PhWb, 504). At the same time, ideology was ness. Th e relationships of these levels are
also identified with the ‘superstructure’, so that grasped as ‘analogy’ and ‘expression’ (cf. 46 et
‘ideological relations’ could include both the sqq., 95, 97) and it is supposed that ‘the struc-
‘forms of consciousness’ as well as ‘social insti- ture of reification progressively sinks more
tutions’ (Bauer 1974, 23). As a result, the dua- deeply, more fatefully and more definitively
listic method led to depriving of the ‘base’ of its into the consciousness of men’ (93).
constitutive moments of conscious activity Differently from Weber, Lukács reinter-
and to the identification of the ideological, preted the process of rationalisation on the
sometimes with consciousness, sometimes basis of an underlying Taylorism. He opposed
with the superstructure in se. Even when it was the instrumental rationality [Zweckrational-
recognised that ‘certain appearances cannot be ität] that rules in singular sections of the sys-
distinguished into the purely material and the tem to the irrationality of the entire process
purely ideal’ (Rogge 1977, 1373), or that the based upon the anarchy of the market (102).
idea of ideology ‘as product of the reflection of From this he derived the ideological effect of
the material’ was not adequate to the compli- a comprehensive passivisation with regard to
cated mediations (Dold 1979, 746), the debates so ciety as a whole: the attitude becomes ‘con-
remained within the prescribed dichotomy of templative’, that is, it ‘does not go beyond the
material and ideal and petered out into hair correct calculation of the possible outcome of
splitting. According to the PIT, this ‘dualistic the sequence of events (the “laws” of which he
approach’ missed the constitution of ideological finds “ready-made”), [. . .] without making the
forms and mystified their determinateness, attempt to intervene in the process by bring-
instead of explaining them functionally- ing other “laws” to bear’ (98). From ‘critical
historically on the basis of their necessity in philosophy’ since Kant, bourgeois thought is
terms of life practices (PIT 1979, 87, 91). marked by the dichotomy of ‘voluntarism’ and
Despite continuing reference to the ‘ideological ‘fatalism’. Activity is reduced to ‘the evaluation
class struggle’, therefore, no theory of it could for [the single] (egotistical) interest of the
be developed (83). neces sary course of certain individual laws’
(135; trans. modified).
4. Even though Lukács sometimes used the Lukács’s ‘model of the diffusion of an ever
Leninist rhetoric of a neutral concept of ideo - more reified reification’ (PIT 1979, 53 et sq.)
logy, his chief category is that of the ‘ideological discounts not only what Ernst Bloch famously
phenomenon of reification’ (1971, 94). He described as ‘non-contemporaneities’ of social
thus sought to explain the defeat of socialist development (1990, 97 et sqq.), e.g. the co -
revolution in the West after WWI and to re- existence of capitalist and pre-capitalist forms
define the aim of revolutionary theory as that of and the multiplicity of systems of domin ation,
‘destroying the fiction of the immortality of the but also eclipses the heterogeneity and contra-
categories’ (14). dictoriness of everyday consciousness (senso
Characteristic of Lukács’s method is an comune in the Gramscian sense). It is eco-
interpretation of the commodity fetish, which nomistic insofar as it does not ascribe to the
makes it – differently from Marx – into the ideological its own reality: integration appears
218 J. Rehmann / Historical Materialism 15 (2007) 211–239
to follow from the commodity fetish itself, 5.1 A critical concept of ideology is to be
without requiring ideological powers, hege- found when Gramsci uses the term in opposi-
monic apparatuses, ideologues etc. Th e thesis of tion to the concept of the philosophy of praxis,
passivisation undervalues, furthermore, the which attempts to liberate itself from any ‘one-
ability of bourgeois society to set free activities sided and fanatical ideological element’ (Q 11,
in private-egoistical form, and misses the ‘multi- §62; cf. Q 16, §9). He criticises as ‘ideological’
formed dimensions of the Do it Yourself of ideo- the tendency emerging in the Comintern of
logy’ (Haug 1993, 227). Confronted with comprehending theoretical debates as a ‘law-
‘ordinary’ people reduced to reifi ed-passifi ed suit’, ‘in which there is an accused and a prose-
subjects, critical intellectuals assume the cutor, who, on the basis of his official function,
function of clarifying the ‘truth’ of the social must prove that the accused is guilty and
context – a concept that will infl uence several deserves to be taken out of circulation’ (Q 10.II,
strands of leftist academics enduringly. §24). In opposition, he demands a scientific
attitude that takes s eriously the opponent’s
5. Gramsci, who did not know Th e German standpoint and builds it into one’s own con-
Ideology, published in 1932, and was not inte- struction. It is precisely this that he means when
rested in the fetish analysis of Capital, based he speaks of having ‘freed oneself from the
himself on, among other texts, the passage of prison of ideologies (in the negative sense of
the Preface of 1859 (also referred to by Lenin), blind ideological fanaticism)’ (ibid.). While
which he translated into Italian at the begin- ‘economism’ overvalues mechanical causes,
ning of his time in prison (cf. Q 2358 et sqq.). ‘ideologism’ is fixated on the great individual
Th is translation already displays a particular personalities and absolutises the ‘voluntaristic
interest for the specific reality of the ideological: and individual element’ (Q 13, §17; cf. Q 19,
where the German text speaks of the ‘ideologi- §5). ‘Ideological’ is also the theoretical disa r-
cal forms in which men become conscious of ming of dialectics by Benedetto Croce (Q 10.
this conflict and fight it out’ (MECW 29, 263), II, §41.xvi).
Gramsci translates ‘in which’ with ‘on which Under the title ‘Concept of “ideology”’,
terrain [nel cui terreno]’ (Q 2359), as if he Gramsci goes back to the original meaning
wanted to prevent the common misunder- coined by the ‘idéologistes’, for whom ide o-
standing of mere forms of consciousness from logy signifies the analytical procedure of
the outset. Th e ‘ideological terrain’ that from tracing ideas back to ‘sensations’ (Q 11, §63).
now on will continually accompany the treat- In this sense, he asks if Bukharin is not also
ment of ideologies shows that these ‘are any- entrapped in ideology and claims ‘that Freud
thing but illusions and appearance’, but rather, is the last of the ideologists’ (ibid.). Here he
an ‘objective and effective reality’, the terrain of refers to the physiological foundations of the
the ‘superstructures’ (Q 4, §15; cf. Q 10.II, Freudian theory of drives, which were later
§41; Q 11, §64; Q 13, §18). Th us he developed criticised in Lacanian-influenced psychoanaly-
a theory of ideology that is diametrically sis as ‘biologism’. Gramsci also explains with
opposed to the dualistic separation of ‘material the sensualistic meaning of the word why the
and ‘ideal’ of Marxism-Leninism. With refe- concept of ideology implicitly has a ‘devalu-
rence to Marx’s political texts (e.g. the 18th Bru- ing judgement’ in the philosophy of praxis,
maire, Civil War in France and Class Struggles in which ‘historically sets itself against ideology’
France), he wants to show that the ‘approach of and represents its ‘definitive superannuation’,
deducing and presenting every movement of because it seeks the origin of ideas not in sen-
politics and ideology as an immediate expres- sations, but analyses it historically as a super-
sion of the structure [. . .] must be combated as structure (ibid.).
a primitive infantilism’ (Q 13, §18). Opposi-
tion to the treatment of ideology as expression 5.2 At the same time, Gramsci turned against
of the economic, as illusion and mere appear- the attempt to oppose ideology to the ‘objective
ance is pervasive. Th e term itself, however, truth’ of a science, because fundamentally the
oscillates between very different meanings. idea of an objective reality is also a ‘particular
J. Rehmann / Historical Materialism 15 (2007) 211–239 219
conception of the world, an ideology’ (Q 11, ideologies as ‘practical constructions’ which are
§37). Science is also an historical category. If its ‘anything but arbitrary’, but, rather, represent
‘truth’ were definitive, science would no longer ‘real historical facts’ (Q 10.II, §41).
exist, and an objective reality without humans Gramsci himself refers to a polysemy of the
would be at the most a chaotic void (ibid.; cf. concept of ideology, which is applied both to
Q 11, §17). Nevertheless, science is concep- ‘arbitrary elucubrations of determinate indi-
tually distinguished from ideology: as ‘methodo- viduals’ as well as to the ‘necessary superstruc-
logy’, it is not absorbed into ideology, for it is ture of a determinate structure’ (Q 7, §19).
able ‘to separate objective knowledge from the Consequently, one must thus distinguish
system of hypothesis’ through a process of between ‘historically organic ideologies, which
abstraction, so that the science of a social [. . .] are necessary for a determinant structure,
group can be appropriated while at the same and arbitrary, rationalistic “wished” ideolo-
time its ideo logy is rejected (Q 11, §38). What gies’. If the latter produce ‘only individual
distinguishes science from the ideology that polemical “movements”’, the former ‘organise’
‘coats’ it (ibid.) and at the same time connects the masses, ‘forming the terrain upon which
it with good sense [buon senso] is a specifically humans move, conscious of their position,
experimental a ttitude, ‘the theoretical [ . . .] or struggle, etc’ (ibid.).
practical- experimental activity’ (Q 11, §34),
unremitting correction and refinement of the 5.4 Gramsci attempted on numerous occa-
experiment (Q 11, §37). Althusser’s critique sions to define the ideological as the ‘entire
that Gramsci misconceives the ‘epistemological ensemble of superstructures’ (Q 10.II, §41.I).
break’ bet ween ideology and Marxist theory Th e ‘ideological terrain’, which Gramsci had
and dissolves science into ideology (RC, 134 et already introduced in his translation of the
sq.), can therefore not be maintained (cf. Spie- passage from the Preface of 1859, is specified
gel 1983/1997, 61 et sqq.; 137 et sqq.). as the ‘objective and effective reality’ of the
superstructural (Q 10.II, §41.XII). Marx’s state-
5.3 Gramsci uses the concept of ideology ment that men become conscious of their
positively for when a philosophy goes beyond conflicts on the ‘ideological terrain of the juridi-
the bounds of the intellectuals and is diffused in cal, political, religious, artistic, philosophical
the great masses (Q 10.II, §41.i). In this context, forms’, must be developed ‘with the entire
ideology signifies the ‘element of the masses of ensemble of the philosophical doctrine of the
any philosophical conception’ (Q 10.II, §2), its meaning of the superstructures’ (Q 11, §64).
‘moral will’ and its norm of behaviour (Q 10.II, Th e terminological ambiguity of the con-
§31). Th e fact that philosophy becomes a ‘cul- cept of ideology is a symptom of the fact that
tural movement’ and brings forth a ‘practical it represents, for Gramsci, a transition to the
activity and a will’, could also be described as elaboration of the more specific categories of
‘ideology’, if it is ascribed with ‘the higher his theory of hegemony. Th e identification of
meaning of a conception of the world which is ideology and ‘superstructures’ is to be under-
implicitly manifested in art, in law, in economic stood as the foreground of his wide concept of
activity in all individual and collective expres- the ‘integral state’, with which he brings
sions of life’ (Q 11, §12). When philosophies together the two decisive functions, usually
become ‘ideologies’, this means that they assume separated, of ‘political society’ and ‘civil
the ‘granite fanatical compactedness of the socie ty’, violence and hegemony (Q 6, §88; cf.
“beliefs of the people”, which take on the same Q 6, §155). Just as Gramsci subordinated the
energy as the “material forces”’ (Q 11, §62). question of utopias and (rationalist) ideologies
Gramsci refers here to the passage of the young to the problem of the elaboration of an endu-
Marx, that theory becomes a ‘material power as ring collective will (Q 8, §195), he wants to
soon as it has gripped the masses’ (MECW 3, treat the ‘meaning of the ideologies’ in the
182 et sq.). Contrary to the reflection theory context of the ‘war of position’ and ‘civil hege-
metaphors of ‘expression’ and ‘appearance’ that mony’ (Q 13, §7; cf. Q 11, §12). Th us his
were widely diffused in Marxism, he defined theory of ideology turns into a theory of the
220 J. Rehmann / Historical Materialism 15 (2007) 211–239
intellectuals: the ‘ideological panorama’ of an to intervene in this structure effectively, in
epoch can then only be transformed if ‘intel- order to induce a process of distinction and
lectuals of a new type can be brought forward change in the relative weight’: ‘what was
who come directly out of the masses and stay secondary [. . .] is assumed as principal,
in contact with them, becoming their “corset becomes the nucleus of a new ideological and
braces”’ (Q 11, §12). He characterised the doctrinal complex. Th e old collective will dis-
connection between structure and superstruc- aggregates into its contradictory elements’
ture achieved by ‘historically organic ideolo- (Q 8, §195). Cultural studies elaborated these
gies’ also as an ‘ideological bloc’ (Q 1, §44), thoughts in terms of discourse theory as ‘disar-
which he then successively substituted with ticulation’ and ‘re-articulation’ of ideological
‘historical bloc’ (Q 10.II, §41.I). Gramsci also formations (cf. Hall 1988, 56). Ideology-
applies this category to individuals and their critique becomes effective as an ‘interruptive
inner relations of forces (Q 10.II, §48). Th is discourse’ that does not unmask the ideological
can be fruitfully taken up as a contribution to bloc of the opponent from outside, but inter-
a theory of the subject in ideology theory (cf. venes in it, in order to decompose it, to reshape
Hall 1988, 56). it and build effective elements into a new order
(Laclau 1981; evaluated in PIT 1980, 37).
5.5 Gramsci was particularly interested in the
positively organising function of the ideologi- 6. Th e ideology-critique of the ‘Frankfurt
cal. In this, he neglected the structures of alie- school’ sets out in particular from the Lukács
nated socialisation, which Marx and Engels of History and Class Consciousness, without
proposed as the core of the ideological (cf. PIT familiarity with Gramsci’s considerations on
1979, 80). Th is can be seen, for example, in the ideology and hegemony in the Prison Note-
lack of an analytical distinction between ide o- books, which were first published in 1948. For
logy and culture. On the other hand, however, Lukács, the proletariat becomes capable, pre-
the perspective of ideology critique that is often cisely due to the most extreme reification, of
lost in the application of the term of ideology is recognising in the crisis the totality of society
fundamentally maintained in the context of and thus to break through the reification struc-
the philosophy of praxis: whereas ideologies ture. Th is perspective, however, is lost for Max
aim ‘to reconcile contradictory and opposi- Horkheimer and Th eodor W. Adorno under
tional interests’, the philosophy of praxis is the the conditions of Stalinisation of the Soviet
‘theory of these contradictions themselves’ and Union and the emerging hegemony of Ameri-
at the same time the expression of the ‘subaltern can Fordism. What is retained is the concept of
class who want to educate themselves in the art ideology developed within the paradigm of the
of governing’ (Q 10.II, §41). commodity fetish, which is declared, however,
Correspondingly, Gramsci provides worth- to be no longer effective.
while hints as to how ideology-critique can be
further developed on the basis of a materialist 6.1 Dialectic of Enlightenment is in the first
ideology theory. First, it is an important part place concerned with the efficacy of a ‘new’
of Gramsci’s concept of a critique of everyday positivistic-technocratic ideology based on the
consciousness [senso comune], whose main ele- ‘omnipresence of the stereotype’ enforced by
ments he sees provided, in his Italian context, technology (Horkheimer/Adorno 1995/1944,
by the popular religion of Catholicism (cf. 136). Instead of appealing to ‘truth’, it is prag-
Q 11, §13). To work critically on the cohe- matically oriented to the business purpose and
rence of people’s worldviews implies a con- ‘conceals itself in the calculation of probabili-
tinuous critique of the way ideologies exploit ties’ (145, 147). It limits itself to elevating ‘a
the incoherences of ‘common sense’. Second, disagreeable existence into the world of facts by
‘ideology critique, in the philosophy of praxis, representing it meticulously’ and thus fulfills the
invests the entirety of the superstructures’ positivistic ‘duplication’ of a consistently closed
(Q 10.II, §41.XII; cf. Q 13, §18). It attempts being (148, 151 et sq.). Th e fatal context of