Appunti di Sociology of culture

The Marxist critique of ideology

Ideologies: distorted reflection of reality and culminate in systems such as philosophy, law, religion, art, literature. Ideologies appear as general and try to create a comprehensive view of the world; at the same time, they are representative of determinate, limited, special interests.

Ideology = false consciousness, falsified and distorted in a systematic way.

Forces that shape and maintain ideological thinking

Marx: the interest of the ruling class (social causation of ideology)   Freud: the interest of the ruling class (individual causation of ideology)  

By what mechanism the interest of the ruling class is supposed to shape the views of other members of society? Cynicism in the rulers breeds cynicism among the subjects; successful indoctrination requires that the rulers believe in what they are preaching.

Marx thinks ideologies can arise or take root spontaneously in the minds of those subject to them, without any assistance from others. ≠ Freud: social causation of ideology.

The objects of ideology

Marx: factual and normative beliefs about society (ideologies belong in fact to the superstructure)   Freud: the individual himself (their experiences)  

Theory of ideology

Freud: false consciousness is accompanied by an unconscious awareness of the true state of affairs. False consciousness involves self-deception.

Marx: there is no way in which people have immediate access to the truth about society. Any view of society is a construction.

Shared ideological beliefs arise in two ways:

• Simultaneously and spontaneously in the minds of many people exposed to similar external influences.
• First in the mind of one person, then spread by diffusion.

The sociology of knowledge makes a distinction between the study of the production of idea and the study of the acceptation of ideas.

Two kinds of attitudes subject to ideological bias

Affective and cognitive. Four kinds of ideological attitudes:

• Affective attitudes may be shaped by affectively biased processes (“religion is the opium of the people”).
• Hot motivations may be shaped by cold cognitive factors.
• Cognitive attitudes are often shaped by motivational processes (out of different accounts of social and economic causation, each group will choose one that justifies its interests).
• Cognition may be subject to specifically cognitive distortion (class position rather than class interest).

Marx’s actual studies of ideological thoughts differ from his official theory – the ruling ideas are the ideas that serve the interest of the ruling class:

• When he refers to interest as an explanation of ideology, it is often in a causal rather than a functional mode. Instead of pointing to the consequence of a certain belief, he cites the interest as the cause of the belief.
• Class position and interest enter the explanation of ideological thinking. Class-based illusions will not serve the interest of the group if its members are also victims of this mechanism.

Ideologies belong to the superstructure (= set of noneconomic phenomena in society that can be explained by the economic structure).

Political ideologies

Relation between the special interests of a given class and the general interests of society. Class members always think that the general interest can be realized by measures that also happen to promote their special interests. When this belief is accepted by members of other classes, the class in question acquires irresistible force (e.g., French Revolution). On the contrary, the class appears hopelessly utopian and impotent.

A political ideology is not a pure expression of self-interest. Political structure is not a form of bargaining. Political parties that are too manifestly motivated by self-interest won’t inflame their audience nor their own members.

Class members will believe in the identity of their special interest and the general interest:

• Parties with leaders who do not believe in their own ideology will fail to carry conviction and gain adherents.
• Even people who initially are just pretending to argue in terms of the general interest will come to believe in what they are saying.
• It is not difficult to acquire the convention that the general interest is served by implementing one’s own particular interest: by comparing the effect of a given policy with the effect of having no policy at all rather than with the effect of another policy, it is easy to represent it as being in everybody’s interest.

A political movement is a standing offer to the public. The offer is taken up when circumstances are such as to make it appear favourable.