Giddens, A. - Four Theses On Ideology.pdf - Giddens - panimordu

FOUR THESES ON IDEOLOGY

Anthony Giddens

The concept of ideology has been debated for some two hundred years within and without

the disciplines ofphilosophy, politics and sociology . If there are such things as contested

concepts, and if there were a prize for the most contested concept, the concept of ideology

would very nearly rank first. Nobody can even decide how to pronounce it! Given the

existence of these traditional debates and problems concerning the ideological content of

ideology itself, one might think it best to throw one's hands up in despair, and discard the

notion altogether . But I do not think such a reaction would be justified . I want to argue

that it is possible to point to some modes of analyzing ideology that at least provide a

framework for coping with the issues that the concept raises .

Along these lines, I wish to mention four theses, and to give at least a cursory analysis of

them. Briefly, I shall claim, first, that the concept of ideology has to be separated out from

the content of science ; second, that it is empty of content because what makes belief

systems ideological is their incorporation within systems of domination ; third, that to

understand this incorporation we must analyze the mode in which patterns of signification

are incorporated within the medium of day-to-day practices ; finally, that we should be

critical of the "dominant ideology thesis" elaborated in different versions by such authors as

Parsons, Althusser and Habermas.

My first thesis is that the notion of ideology has to be disconnected from the philosophy of

science, with which in the past it has almost inevitably been bound up. The term ideology

was coined as a positive term, meaning something like an all-embracing and encyclopaedic

form of knowledge, capable of cutting through the resistance of prejudice to produce a form

of certain knowledge upon which social technology could in turn be founded. As is well

known, Napoleon is supposed to have reversed this perspective, treating ideology as a

derogatory apellation . Ideology became regarded as "that which lies beyond the margins of

science"-as the very repository of prejudice and obfuscation . "Ideology", henceforth, is

supposed in some way to function as a boundary condition of science.

Now I want to reject any definition of ideology as falsity, as non-science or as 'poor

science'-the concept of ideology should not be formulated by comparing or contrasting it

with the achievements of science.

In the space of these brief remarks, obviously, I don't have time to illustrate how such

connections with science have been part of the history of the notion of *Editors' note : The

following three introductory contributions comprise a revised and edited version of remarks

first presented to "Current Controversies in the theory of Ideology : An International

Symposium ;" The Polytechnic of Central London, England . This section on "Disappearing

Ideology" was originally commissioned by John Keane for the CJPST . ideology.

Nevertheless, I take it that the entanglements to which it leads are fairly clear. Compare, for

example, the respective views ofPopper andAlthusser, both of whom wish to demarcate in a

clear-cut fashion between what counts as science and what does not. Popper's prime

examples of ideologies or pseudosciencesMarxism and psychoanalysis-are for Althusser

precisely the type cases of sciences, of forms of knowledge which have broken free from

ideology. I consider this rather comic opposition to be based upon a false starting point. I

want to reject the argument that ideology can be defined in reference to truth claims . And I

also want to reject the idea that ideology can be defined in terms of any specific content at

all. The significance of these points will, I hope, become apparent when I move to my

second argument.

My second thesis is this: the concept of ideology should be reformulated in relation to a

theory ofpower and domination-to the modes in which systems of signification enter into

the existence of sectional forms of domination. This can be illustrated with reference to

Marx's writings on ideology. Marx wrote a great deal about ideology, and at the same time

hardly anything at all. A great deal of his substantive writing, including Capital, is a

critique of ideology, in the sense that it is a critique of political economy. But if one

actually searches through Marx's writings for analyses of a concept of ideology as such-

most of them appear in The German Ideology-there are very few sources to be found where

Marx,sets out a systematic exposition of the notion. In Marx one finds only various

possible formulations of what the concept of ideology means. In The German Ideology, one

can distinguish two senses in which Marx uses the term.

On the one hand, there are the famous observations, discussed by Kofman and others,

about how the ideologists write history upside down. The ideologists are accused of writing

history as seen through a camera obscura, as if it were an echo of human consciousness .

These kinds of comments occur frequently in The German Ideology and occasionally

elsewhere in Marx's writings, and they imply that the way of demystifying history is to set

it right way up again, by studying history as it really is.

In The German Ideology, however, there is another celebrated assertion about ideology,

namely, that the ideas in any given epoch are above all the ideas of the dominant class.

According to this proposition, the dominant class has access to notions which it can in

some sense disseminate to legitimate its own domination.

This version of the theory of ideology ;connects ideology to the problem of domination.

The German ideologists are seen to write history from a point of view that serves to

sanction the existing forms ofpower in the societies in which they are the intellectual

leaders. Drawing upon this second Marxian strand, I therefore propose to interpret the

concept of ideology in the following way. I want to define ideology as the mode in which

forms ofsignification are incorporated within systems of domination so as to sanction their

continuance. I take it to be the type case of such a notion of ideology that sectional interests

are represented as universal interests . This is the basic mode in which forms of

signification are incorporated within systems of domination in class societies . In my

opinion, this point is exemplified in Capital, where Marx tried to demonstrate that political

economy is ideological insofar as it conceals the operation of capitalism as a class system .

The political economists failed to incorporate an account of either the historical origins of

expropriated labour or of the nature of surplus value.

My third thesis is that the analysis of ideology must come to terms with recent

developments in the philosophy of language and action . Very briefly, these developments

mark a transition from a philosophy of language based upon the notion that language is

above all a medium of describing the world, to an interpretation of language which

emphasizes language as praxis or as the'other face' of action. Language is intertwined with

everyday practices. If one acknowledges the significance of this philosophical shift, it has

immediate implications, I think, for the problem of ideology . Most traditional treatments of

ideology have exaggeraied the importance of propositional belief claims as components of

ideologies . This point can be illustrated with a mundane example. Researchers visit a

factory and ask workers questions like : What do you think of the Queen?

What do you think of the Royal Wedding? Do you believe that management and workers

work together like a team? The researchers then imagine that they have uncovered key

features of ideology by virtue of their finding that there is some agreement about the

continuing importance of the role of the monarchy, etc .

Now while I do not wish to deny the possible significance of this kind of finding, it does

seem to me to be highly important not to limit the notion of ideology to such formulations .

This is because the most subtle and interesting forms of ideology are those incorporated

within day-to-day practices . While not necessarily propositional beliefs, these forms of

ideology are very often the modes in which signification is incorporated as part and parcel

of what one does in daily life . If I may again pursue the previously mentioned example:

more important than whether or not workers agree that they and management are a team are

the ways in which modes of signification serve to produce a daily world in which the work

situation and economic life are treated as essentially separate from political life, from their

lives as citizens . The insulation of the economic from the political I take to be one of the

major mechanisms of class domination. The most subtle forms of ideology are buried in the

modes in which concrete, day-to-day practices are organized. If one simply treats ideology

as the content ofpropositional belief systems, a vast area of human action which is

ideologically relevant is excluded.

My final thesis derives from the first three. I think it imperative to accept the broad line of

argument which writers such as Abercrombie and Turner have suggested in attacking what

they call 'the dominant ideology conception' within the social sciences . In their view, both

Left and Right have greatly exaggerated the degree to which there is an ideological

consensus among the majority of people in different classes, both in contemporary societies

and in societies prior to capitalism. They indict Parsonian functionalism and its emphasis

on the significance of a common value system as a co-ordinating mechanism of order.

But they also criticize its left variant, the Althusserian characterization of 'ideological state

apparatuses' . To this list I would add, somewhat provocatively, Habermas' discussion of

legitimation . I think one should be as skeptical of the claim that legitimation is a

fundamental mode in which the coherence of class-dominated societies is secured as of

these other theories of consensual ideology. It is particularly important to be cautious about

the thesis that crises of legitimation are the main sources of tension which threaten the

stability of Western capitalist societies . Such a view presumes-in company with Parsons

and Althusser-that social order rests upon normative consensus-that normative consensus,

mixed with a little police power and coercion, is the main mechanism whereby sectional

interests are held together in a class society. But there is good reason to question just such a

presumption.

Giddens, A. - Four Theses On Ideology.pdf

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: