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The Return of The Political

This document discusses several Marxist and post-structuralist theories of ideology and how it functions in society. It explains that the economic base conditions the superstructure, including political and legal institutions as well as dominant ideas that serve to legitimize ruling class power. Ideology aims to naturalize existing social relations and present the status quo as inevitable. Toys, films and other commodities contain ideological meanings that socialize individuals into accepting their roles and the existing system without question. People are hailed as autonomous subjects but are in fact socially constructed through ideology and institutions like the family and education.

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Natasa Tucev
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64 views12 pages

The Return of The Political

This document discusses several Marxist and post-structuralist theories of ideology and how it functions in society. It explains that the economic base conditions the superstructure, including political and legal institutions as well as dominant ideas that serve to legitimize ruling class power. Ideology aims to naturalize existing social relations and present the status quo as inevitable. Toys, films and other commodities contain ideological meanings that socialize individuals into accepting their roles and the existing system without question. People are hailed as autonomous subjects but are in fact socially constructed through ideology and institutions like the family and education.

Uploaded by

Natasa Tucev
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The Return of the Political

Background and Context


T. Eagleton, Marxism and Literary
Criticism
• Base and Superstructure: the relations of
production constitute the economic structure
of society – the foundation on which rises a
legal and political superstructure.
• The mode of production of material life
conditions the social, political and intellectual
life process in general
Eagleton
• Law, political system and state all have the
function to legitimate the class which owns the
means of production
• The superstructure also contains forms of social
consciousness (political, religious, ethical,
aesthetic) which Marx calls ideology. Again, the
function of ideology is to legitimate the power of
the ruling class. The dominant ideas of a society
are the ideas of its ruling class.
J. Fiske, ’British Cultural Studies’
• Institutions such as the family, the educational
system, language, the media, the political
system produce in people the tendency to
behave and think in socially acceptable ways
• Ideology: an attempt by the dominant classes
to naturalize the meanings that serve their
interest, and make them the ’commonsense’
of society as a whole
R. Barthes, Mythologies
• Barthes uses the term myth (in a negative
sense) to convey the same idea: myth is a
depoliticized speech which turns anti-physis
(that which is not natural – which is
fabricated, historical, man-made – capitalist
social system) into pseudo-physis (that which
appears ’natural’, given, normal, eternal)
Barthes
• Example: a newspaper photograph of a Black
soldier saluting the French flag (suggesting
that colonialism is ’natural’)
• Commodity as materialized ideology: all
products tend to naturalize the capitalist
system and present it as the only possible one.
(Films, fashion articles, toys, clothes, food – all
contain cultural meanings)
Barthes
• ’Toys’: most of them represent shrunken
copies of the objects from the world of adults
(cars, soldiers, medical instruments)
• In this way they teach the child to passively
accept the given social reality, instead of
thinking creatively about alternatives
• Baby dolls and miniature kitchenware
condition the girl for her future ’role’ in the
patriarchal society
Barthes
• Most toys are completely formed objects,
ready-made, to which a child cannot add or
take away anything. Therefore the child
doesn’t think of itself as a creator, but as a
’little stay-at-home householder’: an owner or
a consumer – which is the mentality through
which the capitalist system reproduces and
sustains itself.
Althusser, ’Ideology and ISAs’
• Althusser makes a distinction between an
individual (natural, given state of a human
being) and a subject (socially constructed)
• We are all constitued as subjects-in-ideology
• This happens through the process of
interpellation or hailing: we are ’hailed’ as
free, independent, autonomous, unique,
irreplacable individuals.
Althusser
• Due to the effect of ideology a person gets the
impression that the society addresses him
personally, acknowledges him and tells him
that he is valued.
• One of the basic features of this process is
misrecognition: just like a mirror, the
dominant ideology projects an image in which
a person wrongly recognizes himself (Conrad’s
Nostromo: ’Fidanza’ vs. ’Nostro uomo’)
Althusser
• Because of this, a person willingly consents to
perform his function in the division of labour and
accepts his subordinate position within the class
society
• To explain it, Althusser refers to the two
meanings of the word ’subject’: 1) a free
subjectivity, author of and responsible for his
actions; 2) a subjected being. Due to the effect of
ideology we believe we are free (1) and therefore
freely accept our subjection (2).
Althusser
• Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs): family,
marriage, educational system, health service,
language, media, political system. A ’good
subject’ works all by himself (he has
internalized ideology).
• Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs): police,
army, the law (penal system) – have to be
used against a ’bad subject’.

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