Papers by Demetrios S K Kongas
This is an exposition and critique of Althusserian and Post-Marxist conceptions of ideology and, ... more This is an exposition and critique of Althusserian and Post-Marxist conceptions of ideology and, on the basis of the critique, a proposal of theses for better analysing and understanding ideology from a Marxist point of view. This is a translation into Greek of an article written and uploaded on Academia in 2020.
If Marxists were in the late 1970s and early 1980s in a position to recognize ideology as a centr... more If Marxists were in the late 1970s and early 1980s in a position to recognize ideology as a central problem in Marxist theory and accord it its necessary and overdue consideration, and if indeed few concepts were so intensely discussed at that time, this was no doubt largely due to Althusser’s in many senses pioneering paper, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation)” (1971). His writings in general and his essay in particular, not only transformed a virtually moribund region in Marxist theory, they also circumscribed the scope and set the terms of the ensuing debate, so that, for at least the next fifteen years, we felt the grip of its ‘problematic’. And hardly was a book or article written in Western academia from a Marxist standpoint without some acknowledgement of or some critical reflections on Althusser’s conception of ideology.
This essay will be no exception and will begin with an exposition and discussion of the main points of Althusser’s investigation with a view to a thorough criticism. The main purpose, though, will be to discuss and criticize what came to be called post-Marxism – including Paul Hirst and Barry Hindess, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, as they developed their post-Marxism as far as ideology is concerned in controversy with Althusser’s ideas. This is not meant as an exercise in by now old disputes. Post-Marxism still sets the problematic for left-wing parties that underwent a mutation from their communist past and influences their programmes and actions, whether in opposition or even in government together with the social democrats.
I began this examination sharing P. Hirst's (1972) assertion that a Marxist criminology, strictly... more I began this examination sharing P. Hirst's (1972) assertion that a Marxist criminology, strictly speaking, would be impossible. What was meant was that the objects of study of academic criminology or sociological theories of deviance were incompatible in an epistemological sense with the object of Marx's theory of history. In examining various sociological theories of deviance, however, I realized that there was no conceivably single or unified object of theory, but instead a disparate corpus of studies, informed by different theories or perspectives and, importantly, with different interests in view. Moreover, it became evident that P. Hirst quite inadvertently presumed that there was a unique field of study called criminology and that, of course, the mere transposition of another object and conceptual structure would be inappropriate. Although an unthoughtful application of a given conceptual structure with its own object of study to a pre-given domain of sociology would be inappropriate, it will be argued that recent developments in Marxist theory and particularly in the study of law and ideology, could provide the 'raw material' for a more adequate theorizing of deviance. The desirability of such theorizing based on historical materialism must lie in the demonstration that it provides satisfactory solutions to the theoretical impasses and inadequacies of other theories of deviance, and fruitful insights into social problems that have been usually designated as deviance. Various theories of or perspectives on deviance have been subjected to criticism by sociologists of rival theoretical standpoints. But the way in which such criticisms have been conducted is unsatisfactory. For, too often, they attack the other theory or perspective for failing to recognize, consider and explain what is only from within their own different theory or perspective legitimate to do. The weakness of this type of reasoning, as T. Benton (1977) has pointed out, is that it relies on the intuitive agreement of the reader that such phenomena do, after all, exist and require explanation. Criticism can only be fruitful if it is shown that it is impossible to understand or explain something a theory purports to explain or understand on the basis of the conceptual structure of the theory, i.e. when it is based on the principle of adequacy and non-contradiction. However, the empirical evidence on which a theory is based is also of crucial importance for the acceptance of the claims and arguments made. This acceptance is enhanced when the theory can be applied fruitfully to solve social problems. It is on the former understandings of criticism that I shall proceed. I will attempt to identify the inadequacies, contradictions and therefore theoretical impasses of major theories and perspectives on deviance and then to show how concepts of historical materialism can deal fruitfully with them.
This paper revisits the Marxist conception of economic relations, social classes and forms of con... more This paper revisits the Marxist conception of economic relations, social classes and forms of consciousness and ideology. It examines Marx's own analysis in the 18 th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, his settling of accounts with the Young Hegelians in the German Ideology and his explicatory propositions in the Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. It makes reference to Lenin's and Gramsci's discussion of the role of the revolutionary party and the intellectuals in the development of consciousness. It critically evaluates Althusser's notion of ideology and ideological apparatuses and Therborn's elaborations of ego-and alter-ideologies of social classes. Finally, it examines Thompson's recommendations for the analysis of ideology as a combination of social and discursive analysis within the framework of a general social theory. This exploration is confined to consciousness and ideology without any attempt at discussing the state and politics. For the sake of those who are not well acquainted with basic Marxist concepts, a paragraph explicating productive forces and relations of production has been included.
Modes of thought, views of life, sentiments and illusions are created and formed by social classes out of their material and social relations. Ideologies are relatively coherent forms of becoming conscious of contradictions and fighting them out. The working class consciousness has a cognitive advantage over the bourgeoisie in that it is in a position to grasp real contradictions in the capitalist mode of production and ways of superseding them.
Bourgeois ideology becomes hegemonic as a result of the prestige and confidence enjoyed in the world of production. This implies that in times of crises this prestige and confidence are undermined and lose their legitimacy. Hegemony plays a very important role in the reproduction of existing economic and class relations based on exploitation and domination. Such reproduction is an ongoing process and a very precarious one, given the contradictions of the system and the perpetual struggles they unleash.
Drafts by Demetrios S K Kongas
The significance of the distinction drawn between sex or biological attributes and gender identit... more The significance of the distinction drawn between sex or biological attributes and gender identity cannot be overstated. This distinction has been a crucial point of departure for feminist criticism of male dominance, for it shows that gender identity and sexual orientation are socially or historically defined and therefore changeable. One of the most decisive modes of how ideologies (patriarchal and phallocratic ideologies in this case) subject and qualify " individuals " so that they " recognize " themselves in them, is by telling them, making them recognize what is possible and impossible, by creating their sense of the mutability of what exists (Therborn, 1980). From a more theoretical point of view this line of demarcation has also brought into focus sexuality as an area in which systematic inequalities between men and women are played out. And rather than confine themselves to exploring and describing instances of power relations as they manifest themselves in cultural products with a " sexual theme " feminist theorists like J. Mitchell (1975) had tried to analyse and explain if possible how sexuality itself is constructed and implicated in wider ideological relations. In her endeavour Mitchell turned to psychoanalysis and as supporting evidence she drew upon Lévi-Stauss's anthropological studies. Her book " Psychoanalysis and Feminism " was unique when first published and broke new ground, if not by anything else, at least by the very deed of appropriating Freud's work, which had been the object of a sustained hostility, particularly among American radical feminism, claiming that " psychoanalysis is not a recommendation for a patriarchal society, but an analysis of one (Mitchell, 1975, p. xv). This ambiguity as to the value of psychoanalysis for feminism shows perhaps the pertinence of Foucault's assertion that a discourse cannot have a stable and uniform tactical function, but, as it consists of a multiplicity of discourse elements, it can be the stake of diverse strategies (Foucault, 1976, p. 133). What I shall try to examine is whether elements of psychoanalytic discourse can be unambiguously appropriated and used in order to make clearer and substantiate the very general and all-inclusive claim that gender identity and sexual relations and practices are psychically, socially and culturally defined. Also I shall examine the extent to which Freud managed to clarify the connection between the somatic and the psychical.
Everyday life, under various designations, has been the focus of much sociological theorizing. It... more Everyday life, under various designations, has been the focus of much sociological theorizing. Its exploration has often been associated with its conceptual separation from the 'long-term' institutional development and transformation of society, and rested on the claim that theoretical prominence be given to the creative character of human action, which is seen as ignored by the turgidity of 'abstract' social theory preoccupied with 'macro-social' phenomena and processes. It is because the theoretical perspectives concerned with everyday life throw into relief the central problems of subjectivity, agency and social relationships that they are examined here. The claim that such perspectives concerned with interaction in everyday life – often designating its routines as a reality par excellence – as symbolic interactionism, phenomenology and ethnomethodology advance a more or less satisfactory account of action and subjectivity will be challenged. The usual separation of everyday life from long-term processes will also be criticized. What this distinction has meant in actual sociological theorizing, which has often renamed it micro-and macro-sociology, is either an overwhelming emphasis and concern with the trivia of the 'paramount' reality of everyday life, without questioning the triviality of those trivia, or an arrogant preoccupation with great historical events, whose duration proved disappointingly short-lived, to be permeated after the initial exuberance by the depressing spell of everyday life, or with social structural processes whose societal incidence looks so absent and remote.
Symbolic interactionism is a far from unified perspective and I shall concentrate on H. Blumer's (1969) outline of its basic premisses. Together with other interpretative perspectives, symbolic interactionism stresses the centrality of meaning. It points out that social action is neither the response to stimuli nor determined by values, statuses and system requirements. It differentiates itself from both those who regard meaning as intrinsic in human activities and those for whom meaning arises out of a coalescence of psychological elements in the person. Instead, it locates the source of meaning in the process of interaction between people. Interaction itself is impossible without the handling and modification of meanings through interpretations. Thus, in order to understand how meanings develop, one has to analyse interaction processes. However, the analysis of symbolic interaction is paradoxically impossible without accounting for how the participants interpret and attribute meanings to gestures. It is in this way that the participant to whom the gesture is directed understands what the other participant plans to do; he decides what he is supposed to do; and he anticipates the joint action arising from the articulation of the acts of both (Blumer, 1969, p. 3). In order to account for this capability of human beings to
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Papers by Demetrios S K Kongas
This essay will be no exception and will begin with an exposition and discussion of the main points of Althusser’s investigation with a view to a thorough criticism. The main purpose, though, will be to discuss and criticize what came to be called post-Marxism – including Paul Hirst and Barry Hindess, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, as they developed their post-Marxism as far as ideology is concerned in controversy with Althusser’s ideas. This is not meant as an exercise in by now old disputes. Post-Marxism still sets the problematic for left-wing parties that underwent a mutation from their communist past and influences their programmes and actions, whether in opposition or even in government together with the social democrats.
Modes of thought, views of life, sentiments and illusions are created and formed by social classes out of their material and social relations. Ideologies are relatively coherent forms of becoming conscious of contradictions and fighting them out. The working class consciousness has a cognitive advantage over the bourgeoisie in that it is in a position to grasp real contradictions in the capitalist mode of production and ways of superseding them.
Bourgeois ideology becomes hegemonic as a result of the prestige and confidence enjoyed in the world of production. This implies that in times of crises this prestige and confidence are undermined and lose their legitimacy. Hegemony plays a very important role in the reproduction of existing economic and class relations based on exploitation and domination. Such reproduction is an ongoing process and a very precarious one, given the contradictions of the system and the perpetual struggles they unleash.
Drafts by Demetrios S K Kongas
Symbolic interactionism is a far from unified perspective and I shall concentrate on H. Blumer's (1969) outline of its basic premisses. Together with other interpretative perspectives, symbolic interactionism stresses the centrality of meaning. It points out that social action is neither the response to stimuli nor determined by values, statuses and system requirements. It differentiates itself from both those who regard meaning as intrinsic in human activities and those for whom meaning arises out of a coalescence of psychological elements in the person. Instead, it locates the source of meaning in the process of interaction between people. Interaction itself is impossible without the handling and modification of meanings through interpretations. Thus, in order to understand how meanings develop, one has to analyse interaction processes. However, the analysis of symbolic interaction is paradoxically impossible without accounting for how the participants interpret and attribute meanings to gestures. It is in this way that the participant to whom the gesture is directed understands what the other participant plans to do; he decides what he is supposed to do; and he anticipates the joint action arising from the articulation of the acts of both (Blumer, 1969, p. 3). In order to account for this capability of human beings to
This essay will be no exception and will begin with an exposition and discussion of the main points of Althusser’s investigation with a view to a thorough criticism. The main purpose, though, will be to discuss and criticize what came to be called post-Marxism – including Paul Hirst and Barry Hindess, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, as they developed their post-Marxism as far as ideology is concerned in controversy with Althusser’s ideas. This is not meant as an exercise in by now old disputes. Post-Marxism still sets the problematic for left-wing parties that underwent a mutation from their communist past and influences their programmes and actions, whether in opposition or even in government together with the social democrats.
Modes of thought, views of life, sentiments and illusions are created and formed by social classes out of their material and social relations. Ideologies are relatively coherent forms of becoming conscious of contradictions and fighting them out. The working class consciousness has a cognitive advantage over the bourgeoisie in that it is in a position to grasp real contradictions in the capitalist mode of production and ways of superseding them.
Bourgeois ideology becomes hegemonic as a result of the prestige and confidence enjoyed in the world of production. This implies that in times of crises this prestige and confidence are undermined and lose their legitimacy. Hegemony plays a very important role in the reproduction of existing economic and class relations based on exploitation and domination. Such reproduction is an ongoing process and a very precarious one, given the contradictions of the system and the perpetual struggles they unleash.
Symbolic interactionism is a far from unified perspective and I shall concentrate on H. Blumer's (1969) outline of its basic premisses. Together with other interpretative perspectives, symbolic interactionism stresses the centrality of meaning. It points out that social action is neither the response to stimuli nor determined by values, statuses and system requirements. It differentiates itself from both those who regard meaning as intrinsic in human activities and those for whom meaning arises out of a coalescence of psychological elements in the person. Instead, it locates the source of meaning in the process of interaction between people. Interaction itself is impossible without the handling and modification of meanings through interpretations. Thus, in order to understand how meanings develop, one has to analyse interaction processes. However, the analysis of symbolic interaction is paradoxically impossible without accounting for how the participants interpret and attribute meanings to gestures. It is in this way that the participant to whom the gesture is directed understands what the other participant plans to do; he decides what he is supposed to do; and he anticipates the joint action arising from the articulation of the acts of both (Blumer, 1969, p. 3). In order to account for this capability of human beings to