The traditional Marxist understanding of ideology - and by traditional I mean dominant wisdom - positions it as a sort of naive consciousness. That is people under the spell of ideology misrecognise the true state of affairs. They cannot identify their real position in the order of things, nor apprehend society as it really is - a stratified social formation in which the majority are exploited by a tiny but immensely powerful ruling class, who rest on their private ownership of the economy's commanding heights. To frustrate this state of affairs, it is the job of Marxists/revolutionaries to help people become conscious of the fact they're part of a collective mass with a direct material interest in getting rid of capitalism.
Žižek argues we need to get past this understanding. It's old hat.
If our concept of ideology remains the classic one in which the illusion is located in knowledge, then today's society must appear post-ideological: the prevailing ideology is that of cynicism; people no longer believe in ideological truth; they do not take ideological propositions seriously. The fundamental level of ideology, however, is not of an illusion masking the real state of things but that of an (unconscious) fantasy structuring our social reality itself. And at this level, we are of course far from being a post-ideological society. Cynical distance is just one way ... to blind ourselves to the structuring power of ideological fantasy: even if we do not take things seriously, even if we keep an ironical distance, we are still doing them. (Žižek 1989, p.33)Eh?
Ideology does mystify the real state of affairs, but it does not operate primarily at the cognitive level. Ideology is something other than people walking round with wrong ideas in their heads. It's far more powerful than that. Žižek demonstrates his argument in relation to Marx's theory of commodity fetishism. Because of our separation as wage earners from the fruits of our labour, as individuals that are simultaneously atomised and collectivised by the gigantic endeavour of commodity production, society can appear to be an immense collection of commodities. Objects - things - stand in for real relations between people. Commodity fetishism which is continuously reproduced is therefore responsible for promoting different ideologies, depending on your position within the overall scheme of things, that fundamentally misrecognise the fact that all of this is the alienated activity of human beings.
The step Žižek takes is on the basis of a very simple observation. People know that this is the state of affairs. When someone hands over money in exchange for a good, they are aware that money is not imbued with magical powers, that it doesn't grow by itself, and that it is a simple sign that works as an agreed medium of exchange between people. The thing is the way we have to act towards one another is as if money possesses fantastical powers, as if the whole system is one of objects, not people. Commodity fetishism is not observed by thought, rather it is a result of our practice. Thus the immense conglomerate of commodities, the roller coaster ride of a global economy driven by capital accumulation structures the activity of our species across the planet. But it, the alienating power, the abstract processes of capitalism are just that. They do not as such exist. It's just that we act as if they do. Hence we are guided by fetishistic illusions - and it is this what ideology really denotes, or rather as Žižek puts it, 'ideological fantasy'.
8 comments:
Interesting summary. Will reply if I blog again, but can't help feeling Bourdieu got there much earlier, and with anthropological exactitude, in his notion and habitus.
I think it depends on one's views of Marxism.
Some Marxists/post-Marxist like Gramsci on ideology and hegemony etc.
I have found though the more I distance myself from Marxist - er, 'ideology', the more I change my views about 'ideology'.
If we open the topic out to a wider range of thinkers/viewpoints we'll get different answers.
Indeed. I'm with Paul - there are certain similarities between Gramsci/Althusser, Lacan/Zizek and Bourdieu that are much more sophisticated, interesting *and* useful than the stuff academics and the far left are weaned on.
Ideology is still something used by those in power to construct a narrative around which people are intended to form a view of the world. So a sort of brainwashing.
Zizek mentions this in explaining the attack on single parents under the major government and how the Nazi's turned the inherent instability of capitalism into a threat of foreigners.
There are then many levels of ideology, but I bristle at "brainwashing". As a general rule, people aren't duped into giving consent for the present set up. They hold the ideas they do because these, more often than not, conform to immediate experience.
I think people are poor at making connections, I think this is in essence what false consciousness is. They cannot make the connections because littered along the routes are noise, disturbance, obstacles. All put in the way by the economic relations, ruling class, the media, established culture etc etc.
For example, I know someone at work who is under terrible stress, due to the pressure of reduced staffing levels. This person is a Tory and doesn't make the connection between the decisions of the Tories and their own stress. Their self being, their identity is formed by their archetype. This person is glamorous, wears expensive sunglasses, is a natural born materialist and this is the basis of their consciousness. it is a different consciousness to what say, people in jungle tribes have. It is a system created consciousness, it is a state of brain washing. A total product of the environment around them, the base affecting the superstructure.
Most people fail to step outside their archetype I would say.
*Cough* overly simplistic view of 'how people see thigs'. *Cough* Godelier anyone, for an infinitely more sophisticated and nuanced version of the same thing? *Cough* Mauss invented 'Bourdieu's' habitus.
JDJ
Bourdieu never claimed to have invented 'habitus'. What he did was refine the concept and place it in a framework that was definitely his.
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