Reading Material Quiz 1 PDF

14 THE NATURE OF IDEOLOGY enables some process of coercion to acquire the form and the justification proper to a rational, calculated, technically efficient, and so forth, element. (Foucault in Schmidt ed. 1996, 393) Knowledge always conforms to restraints and rules; power also needs something appr...

14 THE NATURE OF IDEOLOGY enables some process of coercion to acquire the form and the justification proper to a rational, calculated, technically efficient, and so forth, element. (Foucault in Schmidt ed. 1996, 393) Knowledge always conforms to restraints and rules; power also needs something approximating to knowledge.4 Thus neither political philosophy nor ideology repre sents any external objective reality. In a similar vein, Richard Rorty suggested the utter uselessness of ‘the distinction between “ideology” and a form of thought … which escapes being “ideology” ’ (Rorty 1989, 59). In this context, there are no clear criteria to differentiate them. If political philosophy still claims a special insight into reality, as distinct from ideology, then it is simply mistaken and abstracts itself fur ther from the realities of politics. The most sophisticated treatment of this issue can be found in the work of Michael Freeden. For Freeden, ideologies are not the poor relation of political philosophy. On the contrary, they provide equally valid insights. Ideologies are also far more subtle and pervasive than commonly understood. Freeden calls his approach to ideology ‘ conceptual morphology’. This is semantically based, focusing on the question, ‘what are the implications and insights of a particular set of political views, in terms of the conceptual connections it forms?’5 For Freeden, meaning is always dependent on frameworks of interpretation. An ideology is ‘thought-behaviour’, embodied in ordinary spoken and written language.6 Ideologies, in effect, are conceptual maps for navigating the political realm; they contain core, adjacent and peripheral conceptual elements.7 Core concepts are the non-negotiable aspects of all ideologies: for example, liberty for liberalism or equality for socialism. Other con cepts are relegated to the periphery of an ideological scheme and will sometimes drop out of use or migrate to other ideologies. Adjacent concepts flesh out the core concepts and confine their ability for over-interpretation. All concepts are essentially contested, although the majority do embody internal logical constraints on how far meanings can be stretched. However, each ideology (to use Freeden’s term) will try to ‘decontest’ the core and adjacent components. Meanings of core concepts will thus be fixed within each ideology. Concepts are arranged in such as way as to form a unique ideology; this ideology is an historically contingent conceptual pattern, a pattern governed by the proximity and permeability of concepts. These patterns can be rearranged within alternative ideological schemes – almost like modular furniture. Concepts such as liberty or equality have manifold meanings; different aspects of these meanings will be fixed, then utilized and arranged within different ideological frameworks. We should not be surprised therefore to find what looks on the surface like the same concept func tioning as either a core or adjacent term within dissimilar ideological structures. Liberty, for example, is not owned by liberalism; it can reappear legitimately within other ideologies. This gives rise, in turn, to protracted competition over concepts between ideologies. This last point underpins another aspect of ideologies for Freeden, namely, they will often be (due to the manifold meanings of concepts) sub ject to vagueness and ambiguity. This does not imply deception. On the contrary, ideologies are often masterful at integrating and accommodating ambiguity or THE NATURE OF IDEOLOGY 15 vagueness. In fact, in ideological discussion, vagueness can be functional, allowing latitude for interpretation, which is often a crucial prerequisite for political activity. For Freeden, ideology ‘includes, but is not identical with, the reflections and conjectures of political philosophers’ (Freeden 1996, 2). Political theory is seen as a capacious category containing political philosophy and ideology as sub-categories. Freeden thus separates out the history of political theory, political philosophy and ideology. The easiest way of looking at the relation of these terms is to articulate, briefly, Freeden’s view of the advantages of morphological study of ideology. It combines a diachronic approach (which traces in effect the historical development of language and records the various changes) with a synchronic approach (which examines language as it is actually is at a point in time with no reference to historical argument). Morphology balances both dimensions (Freeden 1996, 5). This provides a handle for understanding both political philosophy and the history of political theory. Political philosophy has often tended to be overly focused on the synchronic dimension, whereas the history of political theory has been predominantly diachronic. Ideology, among other things, balances both dimensions. Ideologies also contain a mixture of emotion and reason and occasionally flawed logic and vagueness. They are focused on the need to attract the attention of larger groups, not to persuade a small group of intellectual colleagues. They stand in the midst of tense, often contin gent political debates, both within and between groups. In addition, they are, strictly, neither true nor false. This conclusion obviously leads to a degree of relativism, which Freeden considers inevitable.8 One problem, though, for Freeden is that Anglo-American liberal political philosophy (Rawls, Dworkin, and so forth), since the mid-twentieth century, has often tried to open up a chasm between itself and political ideology (see Freeden 1998). Freeden takes the primary functions of political philosophy as justifying, clarifying the consistency, truth and logicality of political theories and evaluating ethical prescriptions. However, this role should not be performed to the exclusion of ideological study. Ideology is not imperfect political philosophy. Further, an over emphasis on synchronic abstracted reason and logic can lead to a virtually semi private professional academic language, which bears little or no relation to politics. Overall, Freeden puts in a plea for theoretical ecumenism, mutual fertilization and tolerance between these realms. It is important, in all this welter of argument, to realize that studying ideologies, in this context, is not the same as producing them. We should not confuse these practices. There is one issue in Freeden’s position which remains problematic, but it brings us pretty much up to date with certain key current debates. Is there any way of ascertaining what is and what is not ideological? Further, is there any sense in which we can disaggregate a notion of a political reality independently of ideol ogy? Earlier theories had their own way of resolving this issue, drawing a distinc tion between, for example, social science and ideology or political philosophy and ideology. Ideology, in these latter senses, is seen to blur or distort the real. Freeden’s argument, like those in the postmodern and hermeneutic positions, does not have this facility. He stresses, in fact, that the notion of the political cannot be formed independently of the ideological. A related question is: can certain ideologies 16 THE NATURE OF IDEOLOGY mislead us more than others? This question implies there is some notion of political reality (independent of ideology) which allows us make this judgement. Additionally, how could we criticize ideologies which appear, to all intents and purposes, as unpalatable or just appalling? Some critics would suggest we need some standard – external to ideology – to make any secure judgement. Therefore, is there some way of distinguishing between a sense of a political reality as against political ideology? Certain contemporary writers have their own specific (if quite different) answers to this question. This chapter will not resolve this latter question; however, one example of such a critique has been Jürgen Habermas’s arguments concerning the necessity for a critique of ideology. Basically ideology fails to do justice to the real communicative structure of social relations. Ideology, for Habermas, is implicitly in conflict with the comprehensive ‘power of reflection’: that is to say, genuine communicative reasoning in Habermas is distinct from ideology (Habermas 1996, 170). Without trying to unpack the detail of Habermas’s theories, there are a series of arguments which suggest that there is a form of underlying consensual reality present in the way that we communicate with one another, which is embedded in ordinary human discourse and knowledge claims. This reality is essentially concerned with what we presuppose when we speak and try to genuinely rationally understand each other. Habermas argues that there are common normative consensual underpinning rules which function in any discourse and these in turn embody ethical and political implications. The gist of this perspective, for Habermas, is that any speech act raises ‘universal validity claims … that can be vindicated’. The validity claims are notions such as comprehensibility or intelligibility, truthfulness, sincerity and rightness. Insofar as anyone wants to ‘participate in a process of reaching an understanding, [the agent] cannot avoid raising … validity claims’ (Habermas 1979, 2). The norma tive content is thus presupposed in all genuine communication. In point it is only by engaging in such intersubjective communicative practices that we can arrive at any conclusions about what constitutes a morally worthwhile or autonomous life. Distortion-free dialogue and reasonable communication are the heart of Habermas’s enterprise.9 To turn immediately to ideology, it is clear for Habermas that not all speech acts are aimed at genuine communication; many are purely strategic, instrumental or manipulative, aiming to further an agent’s or a group’s interest. A truly communicative use of language is thus wholly different to a manipulative use of language. Unfettered rational reflection (the power of reflection) will usually in fact reveal the power and manipulation implicit within certain language use – this is the essence of what Habermas sees as ideology critique.10 If we wish to grasp ideology, we have to see it in the field of power, manipulation and distorted communication. Ideology is pseudo communication. In essence, ideology is about the subjugation of the com municative structure of reality. Thus communicative reason is equivalent to the ‘real’ and is distinct from ideology, understood as something which is manipulative and instrumental. Unexpectedly, there is also a subtle distinction between the Real and the ideological present in the writings of Slavoj Žižek, although it is a very different