Coming to Terms: Ideology
A 12 step program
Popular definitions?
Popular and Critical
• “set of ideas” vs. a “mystified set of ideas”
• Rich system of representations that molds
individual to understand and perceive a
“picture” of society and their place in it.
Step One: Understanding we have a
problem.
Earthlings:
• Why is society the way it is?
• What is society’s purpose?
• How does a society
reproduce itself?
Marx’s World
Step two: Understanding there is a
greater power than ourselves
Marx’s explanation of class:
- Ruling: controls “means of production”
- Working: sells “labor-power”
- To continue to produce we must also
reproduce the system
- Marx didn’t like this.
Take the red pill,
proletariat!
Three: make a decision to turn your life
over to life as a subject
• How do you keep the exploited exploited, how
keep the exploiters exploiting?
Althusser:
Force: Repressive state apparatuses (RSAs)
Freely accept: Ideological state apparatuses
(ISAs)
RSAs
• Use of force (physical or otherwise)
• Anti-ideological- shows weak state
• Expensive
ISAs
Step 5: admitted to God,
ourselves, the exact nature of
our problem…
Ideology is the constructed, imagined
relation of social subjects to the real
conditions of their existence. Ideology
works to constitute and mold subjects
through a “rich system of representations”
that create “reciprocally reinforcing
versions of ‘reality,’ ‘society,’ and ‘self’”
(Kavenaugh 309).
6: Continue taking fearless inventories
of ourselves…
• Ideology is a process
(more later)
• Ideology has materiality
• ISAs
• Practice, ritual, actions
• In addition to ideology, “Nature” affects
subjects and history(Spinoza).
• “All there is to a man is heredity and training.”
If ideology and ideological practices/analysis are so crucial to our everyday society
from movies to political campaigns how come we don’t speak of it more? I’m curious
as to why it isn’t taught more or posed for discussion among students, even at a
younger age. I think one of the reasons that this chapter is known to be so difficult is
because it first asks Americans to derail their original preconceptions of the meaning
of ideology and then reconstruct this concept in examples that we know of and see
everyday; if it’s that prevalent within our society how come it isn’t talked about more?
Many of the theorists that Kavanagh quotes are ancient to the meaning of our society
and common social constructs, so why aren’t his ideas of ideology more prevalent. His
last thought, “Thus, literary and cultural texts of all kinds constitute a society’s
ideological practice, and literary and cultural criticism constitutes and activity that, in
its own rather meager way, either submits to, or self-conciously attempts to transform,
the political effects of that indispensable social practice” (320). This being the last
sentence I almost feel as though I’ve been bamboozled because Kavanagh makes it
sound as though forming ideological ensembles are a skill that all writers, political
campaign managers, and film writers already have and we’re just now learning of it.
I’m not saying I doubt or question the validity of Kavanagh’s essay but I am
questioning it’s value and relevance since it’s almost frustrating that this twisted
concept of ideology isn’t discussed more, if it’s imperative within social constructs.
You are “always/already” a subject
• Ideology “hails” you. “Hey you!”
“Shane!”
• Ask people for questions, comments.
Make a list of people your
ideology harms: go ask for
forgiveness
•
•
•
•
•
Class
Sex
Race
Gender
Religion
Non-normates
Non-humans
Colonized
Queer
Etc. (not
callous)
to be
“Racisms without Racists”
By many metrics, we can see racial
inequality
•
•
•
•
•
Educationally
Economically
Politically
Health outcomes (big one for EJ)
Access to environmental benefits like parks
Can we call the “politics of the natural”
the “ideology of the natural”?
• How does our understanding of ideology
affect the kinds of questions we ask of nature
in popular culture as we continue in this
course?
Who belongs in nature? Who is natural
to a place?
• According to the frontier myth, the “empty
lands” of nature are rightfully the domain of
Euro-americans (especially men).
• We’re starting to look at whiteness and
different ideas of race and racism.