Is our everyday experience of life ideological/ Is culture always ideological?

A brief essay on why every day of our lives is an illusion. Read lightly ;)

Is culture always ideological?

 

Ideology is an implicit element of quotidian life, it is the irresistible driving force that defines the individuals of all societies and this leads to the following point, that culture is not a thing in itself it can rather be seen as a synonym of ‘ideology’. Ideology is not to be defined as the conventional “set of beliefs and ideas that form a category of language or language game, for example: the ideology of sports or the human ideology” but rather it is to be defined, for the purpose of this essay, as the following: “Ideology is a theoretical doctrine and activity which erroneously regards ideas as autonomous and efficacious and which fails to grasp the real conditions and characteristics of social-historical life” (Thompson 1990:35) Thompson’s definition is one that clarifies the role of ideology as a theoretical doctrine and this is important if we are to clarify that culture and ideology are the same thing, in the sense that culture can also be defined as Thompson’s definition of ideology, hence the definition of ideology will more closely resemble culture and thus enable the reader to see the close similarity between both concepts. Thinkers such as Adorno, Althusser, Bourdieu, Marcuse, Marx and some critics will help shed light on how ‘ideology’ is in fact the same as ‘culture’ and how our current knowledge and experience of culture leads us to thinking so. The use of the previously mentioned thinkers will enable us to compare and analyse the different definitions of ideology, to conclude which one emphasises the fact that culture is always ideological.

 

“In The German Ideology Marx and Engels thus employ the term ‘ideology’ in a polemical way. The views of the Young Hegelians are ‘ideological’ in the sense that they overestimate the value and role of ideas in history and in social life; they ‘consider conceptions, thoughts, ideas, in fact all products of consciousness, to which they attribute an independent existence, as the real chains of men” (Thompson 1990:34) The importance of Marx’s use and definition of ideology, as highlighted in Thompson’s work, is that Marx uses ideology as a critical tool to criticise the bourgeoisie hegemony and their creation of ideas that lead the proletariat and lower classes to “attribute an independent existence, as the real chains of men” to all the products of consciousness. Marx’s use of ideology was originally used to criticise the thought of the ‘Young Hegelians’ but rapidly became a tool from “linking the production and diffusion of ideas to the relation between classes” (Thompson 1990:37) This is emphasised in Marx’s and Engels’ German Ideology “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force” (Marx 1845: 64) and Thompson’s following quote “So we can speak of this as a conception of ideology in Marx only on condition of recognizing that we are extending the term ‘ideology’ to refer to a range of social phenomena which Marx described without naming, phenomena which he perceptively and disconcertingly portrayed in his concrete analyses but which, at the level of theory, he did not subsume under a discrete conceptual label” (Thompson 1990:41) Thompson’s quote arises an important point that will enable the reader to understand the most fundamental issue with the question of “is culture always ideological”. The quote is both important to understanding ideology, but can also be its downfall, in the sense that ideology has no concrete existence and cannot be pointed to, it is a spectre that has manifestations in social and political realms of existence but that cannot be named or wholly understood and this can be a problem. However, for the time being Thompson’s quote will be used to advantage by emphasising the fact that if ideology is not ‘subsumed’ under a conceptual label, it has the possibility of being culture. At this point, Thompson’s following quote, again, helps us greatly by highlighting the response to why culture is to be understood as a ‘shape/spectre’ of ideology “The phenomena referred to by the latent conception of ideology constitutes of symbols and slogans, customs and traditions which move people or hold them back, propel them or constrain them, in such a way that we cannot think of these symbolic constructions as solely determined by, and fully explicable in terms of, the economic conditions of production. These traditional symbols and values are not swept away once and for all by the constant revolutionizing of production; they live on, they modify and transform themselves” (Thompson 1990:41) The mentioning of tradition and customs becomes a problem to the people who oppose the answer that culture is always ideological, in the sense that if culture is not always ideological then it can no longer be defined as one’s culture being made up of the past history of their ethical background in art and social commodities. An additional quotation from Balibar can emphasise why this definition of culture is no longer plausible “A social formation only reproduces itself as a nation to the extent that, through a network of apparatuses and daily practices, the individual is instituted as homo nationalis from cradle to grave, at the same time as he/she is instituted as homo oeconomicus, politicus, religiosus…” (Balibar 1990:350)

Marx’s thoughts on the productions of ideas and consciousness then play a key part in evoking how difficult it is to show that culture is in fact not always ideological, in the sense that “The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life” (Fromm 1967:20) The problem with showing that culture is not ideological, is in that consciousness can be defined as the products of socioeconomic existence or for Marx, the ruling class’ propagated ideology and thus, culture becomes a product of “the language of real life” which is just a by-product of either socioeconomic existence or a by-product of the bourgeoisie. One may ask what exactly is the problem with the latter, and
Fromm’s following quote evokes the answer “according to Marx, they are rooted in the whole social organization of man which directs his consciousness in certain directions and blocks him from being aware of certain facts and experiences” (Fromm 1967:21) If one continues to deny that culture is always ideological then we for the time being ‘discard’ Marx’s thoughts on ideology and go onto Althusser’s formulation of ideology and our thoughts on how it shows that culture is always ideological.

 

Althusser was a Post-Marxist and reformulated Marx’s formulation of society in terms of socioeconomic classes but with the addition of what he termed as Repressive State Apparatuses (R.S.A) and Ideological State Apparatuses (I.S.A) as well as socioeconomic classes. The R.S.A. contain “the Government, the Administration, the Army, the Police, the Courts, the Prisons, etc..” (Althusser 2008:16) and the I.S.A contain “the religious ISA, the educational ISA, the family ISA, the legal ISA, the political ISA, the trade-union ISA, the communications ISA, the cultural ISA” (Althusser 2008:17) These state apparatuses concern the question of whether culture is always ideological in the two following ways: firstly, if every institution in society has been and is ideological, what remains in society for one to say culture is not always ideological. Secondly, why culture is necessarily based on the state and social institutions. We must remind ourselves that Althusser, being a Post-Marxist, developed Gramsci’s original thoughts on the following “Civil society is made up of ‘private’ institutions like the Church, trade unions and schools, while the State is made up of public institutions like the government, courts, police and the army” (Abercrombie 1980:13) Althusser’s alteration of Gramsci’s thought is on the differing opinion that the State and Civil Society are in fact the same thing, rather than Gramsci’s point of view that states that they are separate structures. This is important because Althusser’s rewording of Gramsci with his R.S.A. and I.S.A clarifies that even if both State Apparatuses are in two different domain, they hold the necessary connection of ideology, and this leads to strengthening the fact that culture and society are always necessarily ideological, unless they ultimately erase every institution but that would require starting the whole of social existence from scratch.

Furthermore, we cannot deny that society as a whole is ideological, in the sense that with Althusser’s R.S.A and I.S.A. one is unable to show that both are not ideological without being counter productive and rejecting society as a whole. We must again remind ourselves that Althusser’s theories take their strength from Marx’s formulation of the negative propagating role of ideology, in that these domains of State Apparatuses are not positive structures but rather, negative structures that disable the living entities within society to think outside the ideological spectrum of the Hegemony. The only objection one may make to hold onto the opinion that culture is not always ideological is to arise the fact that according to Gramsci’s formulation of the Hegemony, the latter “cannot be seen as a purely ideological notion” (Abercrombie 1980:12) this is so because Gramsci carefully points out that “obedience is not automatic but has to be produced” (Abercrombie 1980:12) This entails that for culture to always be ideological, there must always be obedience. However, this objection only holds power if the individual denies Althusser’s R.S.A. and I.S.A. and Marx’s formulation of ideology. This is because according to both those thinkers, and thinkers that are to be mentioned further on in this essay, obedience and consent to ideological hegemonic power is only possible if the whole of society and culture is not always ideological, but because we have shown it to be so far, it has become much harder to show that consent and a being’s choice in society has not already become a construct or by-product of the bourgeoisie or influenced by ideology. For the objection to remain powerful, the objector must prove that one’s consent, while in a socioeconomic realm of existence, is never influenced by social interactions nor ideological institutions but because this is near to impossible, due to Althusser’s theory of State Apparatuses and how they are the majority of social structures, the objection does not hold much power. The following quote will put a close on the objection’s problems and enable us to continue with Theodor Adorno as well as some exemplifications in literature of the previously mentioned theories and issues. “The command exercised by the ruling class over the apparatus of intellectual production means that there cannot be any subordinate culture, for all classes are incorporated within the same intellectual universe, that of the ruling class” �" “There is only one dominant culture, in which all classes share” (Abercrombie 1980:8)

 

With Marx’s formulation of ideology and Althusser’s expression of State Apparatuses the only conclusion so far is that there are no plausible or strong objections to deny that culture is not always ideological and to further strengthen the point that culture is always ideological, we will briefly analyse certain pieces of literature to show narratives that reproduce this topic of cultural theory. “The striking unity of microcosm and macrocosm presents men with a model of their culture: the false identity of the general and the particular. Under monopoly all mass culture is identical, and the lines of its artificial framework begin to show through. The people at the top are no longer so interested in concealing  monopoly: as its violence becomes more open, so its power grows. Movies and radio need no longer pretend to be art. The truth that they are just business is made into an ideology in order to justify the rubbish they deliberately produce. They call themselves industries; and when their director’s incomes are published, any doubt about the social utility of the finished products is removed.” (Adorno 1997:121) Adorno’s pessimistic sounding but realistic approach to the issue of ‘is culture always ideological’ enables us to further strengthen his mentioned points with the following literature examples found in Fight Club and Althusser’s Ideology and the State. In Fight Club, when Tyler sabotages the cinema by inserting pornographic pictures to shock the audience in a subtle way “In reel three, just after the dog and cat, who have human voices and talk to each other, have eaten out of a garbage can, there’s the flash of an erection. Tyler does this.” (Palahniuk 2010:28) Tyler believes he is sabotaging the culture industry but according to Adorno, “It is quite correct that the power of the culture industry resides in its identification with a manufactured need, and not in simple contrast to it, even if this contrast were one of complete power and complete powerlessness. Amusement under late capitalism is the prolongation of work” (Adorno 1997:126). Tyler’s sabotaging is amusement, and is therefore prolonging his work for capital. This exemplification of the question ‘is culture always ideological’ sheds light on the problem that when individuals think they might be escaping the ideological system, it is in fact still there and they are paradoxically still in the ideological system. This can only strengthen the fact that culture is always ideological, in the sense that one may try to deny this by claiming that if culture was always ideological, why would an individual know of revolution and rebellion? Why would one be taught about them as concepts if it only gives possibility to people to revolt against the ideological system? Fight Club as a novel and as a movie answers both those questions by evoking the fact that revolution is just an illusion propagated by the hegemonic bourgeoisie, and real life events such as the London riots in 2011 show that revolution is always regulated by the R.S.A. . A more subtle example could be the fact that teachers that teach critical theory or Marxism or Anti Capitalist thought are the ones who go against the ideological system, yet the teach at the apex of the hegemonic system, as they are part of the very Ideological State Apparatus; Althusser mentions this example briefly “I ask the pardon of those teachers who, in dreadful conditions, attempt to turn the few weapons they can find in the history and learning they ‘teach’ against ideology, the system and the practices in which they are trapped. So little do they suspect it that their own devotion contributes to the maintenance and nourishment of this ideological representation of the School” (Althusser 2008:31) These literature examples and references, again, strengthen the fact that culture is always ideological in the sense that everything from institutions to Art, are carefully crafted modes of propaganda that enrich and serve the purpose of the rich few, the hegemony.

 

Following from this, the French thinker Bourdieu will help us briefly answer why culture is always ideological from a more cultural point of view in terms of taste, discourse and habits. The following quote from Bourdieu explains that culture and taste is purposefully ideological and that culture and taste’s only use in life is to stimulate a social class “Le gout classe, et classe celui qui classe: les sujets sociaux se distinguent par les distinctions qu’ils opèrent entre le beau et le laid, le distingué et le vulgaire, et ou s’exprime ou se traduit leur position dans les classements objectifs.” (Bourdieu 1979:VI) The latter evokes that life in a ideological culture has a value system that it bases every action upon, and in this case, individuals are judged by the aesthetics of their lives, whether they eat a lot or not, whether they are good looking or not, whether they have class or not, and this in turn, plays a bigger role in the appropriation of their class in society and because social class is Marx’s and Althusser’s mentioned topics of debate, Bourdieu is more or less reiterating Marx and Althusser in terms of social class and culture always being ideological. Bourdieu more explicitly mentions culture as a game of illusion in the following “Les jeux de culture sont protégés contre l’objectivation par toutes les objectivations partielles auxquelles les agents engagés dans le jeu se soumettent les uns les autres: les doctes ne peuvent tenir la vérité des mondains qu’à même de leurs adversaires” (Bourdieu 1979:10) To finalise Bourdieu’s thoughts, he mentions a problem that arose earlier in this essay; the problem that individuals in a ideological realm of existence hold actual personal beliefs that are not influenced by the ideological culture that is around them. Bourdieu in fact strengthens the fact that it is near to impossible to hold our own personal uninfluenced opinions when in such a system “Le fait de produire une réponse à un questionnaire sur la politique, comme le fait de voter ou, à un autre niveau de participation, de lire un journal d’opinion ou d’adhérer à un parti, est un cas particulier de rencontre entre une offre et une demande: le champ de production ideologique” (Bourdieu 1979:465) One may even furthermore add that Bourdieu’s reflections on how society, culture and taste are measurable and usable in the industry can perhaps mean that everything in culture is necessarily economic due to it’s base structure “The forms of consciousness of human beings are determined by the material conditions of their life” (Thompson 1990:35) However, this is not the principal topic of debate in this essay.

 

Furthermore, the following quote from Althusser will lead us to continue on why culture is always ideological with the theories of Herbert Marcuse “Ideology functions by moulding individuals as particular subjects and placing them in the structure, while at the same time concealing from them their role as agents of the structure. As such, ideology is necessarily an illusory representation of the world. ‘In ideology, the real relation is mentally invested in the imaginary relation, a relation that expresses a will… a hope or a nostalgia, rather than describing a reality” (Althusser 1969: 235) From this, Marcuse can strengthen the fact that culture is always ideological with the following “One-dimensional thought is systematically promoted by the makers of politics and their purveyors of mass information. Their universe of discourse is populated by self-validating hypotheses which, incessantly and monopolistically repeated, become hypnotic definitions or dictations” (Marcuse 2002:16) This reflects the fact that today, language is no longer a means to communication but rather a means to create reality. Briefly adding to this, Wittgenstein’s later works such as his philosophical investigations and private language argument concretely showed that language created reality. Back to Marcuse’s quotation and reminding ourselves of Wittgenstein’s works, we can only certainly say that our knowledge of the definition of culture is forever obstructed by ideology, for the sole reason that by writing this essay I live in an ideological system and so have the past writers and thinkers and thus, the way culture has been shown to be ideological might only be so because the Ideological State Apparatuses of society have enabled it to be defined as such. This is reinforced by Althusser’s I.S.A. list, with the fact that education is filtered as an ideological structure. However, with this point raised, the most plausible explanation for culture always being ideological are the points that have been arisen so far and Marcuse will help strengthen this furthermore. The key to concluding why culture is always ideological is Marcuse’s following quote “Economic freedom would mean freedom from the economy-from being controlled by economic forces and relationships; freedom from the daily struggle for existence, from earning a living. Political freedom would mean liberation of the individuals from politics over which they have no effective control. Similarly, intellectual freedom would mean the restoration of individual thought now absorbed by mass communication and indoctrination, abolition of “public opinion” together with its makers. The unrealistic sound of these propositions is indicative, not of their utopian character, but of the strength of the forces which prevent their realization” (Marcuse 2002:6) This quotation can reflect the impossibility of culture not being ideological, in the sense that if it were not then culture would not rely on social or economic factors but many of culture’s definitions do, and those who do not have been rendered problematic at the start of this essay.

 

Concluding, this essay has repeatedly shown that the only plausible explanation and definition for culture is Thompson’s, as mentioned in the introduction, “Ideology is a theoretical doctrine and activity which erroneously regards ideas as autonomous and efficacious and which fails to grasp the real conditions and characteristics of social-historical life” (Thompson 1990:35). The reason why this is the best plausible explanation is because culture is in fact ideological, and has been shown to play the same role as ideology; a doctrine that propagates either capitalism or false consciousness, which in turn profits the ruling class. Additionally, Etienne Balibar’s following quote will put an end to this essay by ultimately and concretely explaining that culture is a nonsensical concept and is only just an ideological construct - the answer to the question of is culture always ideological is of course still the same regardless. “Every social community reproduced by the functioning of institutions is imaginary, that is, it is based on the projection of individual existence into the weft of a collective narrative, on the recognition of a common name and on traditions lived as the trace of an immemorial past (even when they have been created and inculcated in the recent past). But this comes down to accepting that, in certain conditions, only imaginary communities are real…” (Balibar 1990:357)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography:

-       Thompson, John (1990), Ideology and Modern Culture (Great Britain: Blackwell Publishers)

-       Abercrombie, N (1980) The dominant Ideology Thesis (London: Billing and Sons Ltd.)

-       Marx, Karl (1845) German Ideology (International Publishers Co.)

-       Fromm, Erich (1967) Marx’s Concept of Man (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co.)

-       Hindess, Barry (1975) Pre-capitalist modes of production (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul)

-       Adorno, Theodor (1997) Dialectic of Enlightenment (London: Verso Classics)

-       Palahniuk, Chuck (2010) Fight Club (London: Vintage Book Editions)

-       Marcuse, Herbert (2002) One-Dimensional Man (London: Routledge Classics)

-       Bourdieu, Pierre (1979) La Distinction �" Critique sociale du jugement (Les editions de Minuit)

-       Althusser, Louis (2008) On Ideology (London: Verso)

-       Althusser, Louis (1969) For Marx (Harmondsworth)

-       Gramsci, A (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks (London: G Nowell Smith)

-       Adler, M (1975) ‘Ideology as Appearance’, in Austro-Marxism (Oxford)

-       Balibar, Etienne (1990) The Nation Form: History and Ideology (Research Foundation of SUNY)

-       Balibar, Etienne (1995) The Philosophy of Marx (Verso)

-       Zizek, Slavoj (1989) The Sublime object of Ideology (Verso)

-       Foucault, Michel (1970) The Order of Things (Vintage Book Editions)

-       Veblen, Thorstein (2007) The Theory of the Leisure Class (Oxford University Press)

-       Poulantzas, N (1973) Political Power and Social Classes (London)

-       Poulantzas, N (1975) Classes in Contemporary Capitalism (London)

-       Anthony, P.D. (1977) The Ideology of Work (London)

-       Bates, T.R. (1975) ‘Gramsci and the theory of hegemony’, Journal of the History of Ideas, vol.36, pp.251-366

-       Zeldin, T. (1970) Conflicts in French Society (Yale University Press)

Author's Note

I tried to restrict it to 4000 words but i might rewrite it in muuuuch more detail. I also apologise for the non french speakers as i included 2 french quotes. You can still understand what I'm saying without the quotes though :) happy reading!

Reviews

[Dayran]

The meaning we derive in a social context ... relies on a subscription to a common set of values. This is set up based on our need for social organization ... and is dependent on the academic tradition ... to bring to it ... an advance of the thesis based on the times. Hence ... its possible to raise the query ... is science cultural?

In all such inquiries ... I've relied on a simple rule ... do I understand the query better for having written a report on it? Or have I contributed to the on-going debate? Max Weber made the comment that ... man is at the center of the observation ... on the study of man. It helps to be your own proof on the thesis. A well researched report ... that raises many interesting issues.

[Raymond Federle]

A very well written , intriguing piece. :)

[KlineXcreed]

I really enjoyed this topic it was educational and well written. I liked how you tied in many key questions, and presented it with key facts.

[wordman]

I enjoyed the lesson and maybe your right ,maybe life is an illusion but who can really determine that question

[Michael Stevens]

This is an excellent write, crammed with so much information, my head is hurting; of course that could also have something to do with drinking a half rack of beer with a funnel last night also!

[Coyote Poetry]

A fine piece of writing. I will return to it and digest your thoughts. You picked a hard subject. There are right and wrong in any type society. Thank you for sharing the paper. I like thoughts and the quotes. Thank you for sharing the thoughts on a important topic.
Coyote