THL2603 Study Guide PDF

© 2017 University of South Africa All rights reserved Printed and published by the University of South Africa Muckleneuk, Pretoria THL2603/1/2018–2019 70509719 InDesign RST-Style  CONTENTS Page...

© 2017 University of South Africa All rights reserved Printed and published by the University of South Africa Muckleneuk, Pretoria THL2603/1/2018–2019 70509719 InDesign RST-Style  CONTENTS Page STUDY UNIT 1: THEORY OF LITERATURE IN CONTEXT 1 STUDY UNIT 2: IDEOLOGY 11 STUDY UNIT 3: MARXISM 20 STUDY UNIT 4: MARXIST THEORIES OF LITERATURE 34 STUDY UNIT 5: DISCOURSE 53 STUDY UNIT 6: DISCOURSE AND LITERATURE 71 THL2603/1/2018–2019 iii iv  STUDY UNIT 1 THEORY OF LITERATURE IN CONTEXT Introduction Purpose Outcomes Society and context Literature and human activity Social nature of literature Understanding ‘the social’ Relativism Social and political Power and social action Production of literature Language as social action Political turn in literary theory Politicisation of literature Conclusion INTRODUCTION PURPOSE This study unit serves as a general introduction to this module. Its purpose is to provide you with a theoretical framework based on the structure of communication, so that you can socially situate theories of ideology and discourse differentiate between human society in general and particular human societies draw your attention to the interchangeable usage of the terms ‘context’ and ‘social’ differentiate between the terms ‘social’ and ‘political’ introduce the political turn in literary theory OUTCOMES On completion of this study unit, you will be able to place the contextual and social theories of literature within the framework of a general communication model begin the systematic study of theories of ideology and discourse and their applicability to literary theory and the study of literature 1  SOCIETY AND CONTEXT Introduction to Understanding Context In attempting to identify social and contextual matters in literary theory, a useful starting point is to refresh our memory about what we have learned so far. The communication model we used in THL1501: Introduction to theory of literature, page 12, in an attempt to define and explain the nature of literature as a form of aesthetic practice, is a very useful place to return to. There, we devised a diagram, in which the four main elements of communication are set out. These consist of a sender, a message, a receiver and a context. The context was defined as the space and time in which a message is always located. We identified four kinds of contexts: Context 1: the place of words in a phrase or sentence Context 2: the place of the phrase in relation to preceding and following phrases Context 3: the text in which the communication takes place (eg a newspaper, a billboard or a book) Context 4: the historical time and social place in which the message is communicated and received In this module the emphasis falls on the role of Context 4, understood as the social and historical factors. Accordingly, we might retrace our steps to pick out the instances where contextual or social factors have emerged in our studies thus far. This would be useful, if there were indeed clearly demarcated points which we could neatly pick out. That is, if we could say: “Now let us get everything else out of the way, and look at the matter of society in isolation. We will not look at the form of texts as we did when studying Russian Formalism and new Criticism, nor do we look at the role of the author as we did when we discussed Romanticism, nor the role of the reader, as we did when looking at Mukařovský in THL1501: Introduction to literary theory at level 1. Furthermore, we won’t look at the structure and meaning of literary text as we would when studying structuralism and semiotics in THL2601: Theories of the sign and culture. Neither will we look at the question of what is a good or a bad text, and how we are to know that. We will simply peel off from literature and art its social layer, and spread it out before us for our contemplation.” 2 But we cannot do this, simply because literature and art are not like onions: they do not consist of separate layers that we can peel off, one after the other, and so finally arrive at the heart of the matter, the essence of the work. Literature and other art forms are rather to be understood on the model of text as a tissue of interwoven strands. This is, of course, the semiotic metaphor for literature and art, one which has proven extremely rich for literary theorists. According to this metaphor, if we were to attempt to pull out all and only the social threads of literature and art, we would unravel, and so undo, the very thing we are attempting to understand. In order to see how deeply and intricately social factors are involved in literary works, bear in mind that each of the stages you have already gone through in exploring literary theory has, in effect, hinged on social issues. ACTIVITY Identify and explain the four types of contexts and explain how they interact to contribute to the meaning of a text. Illustrate your discussion with any appropriate literary or cultural example. LITERATURE AND HUMAN ACTIVITY The very existence of literary and art works is a social and cultural fact, because they are the products of purposeful activity by humans who do not live in isolation but in communities. The artefacts they produce similarly do not emerge in a vacuum, but within the context of these communities with their distinctive world views, traditions, norms and values. Although, in principle, it is not impossible for an isolated individual to create and appreciate an aesthetic object, this is merely a conceptual possibility. The categories of literature and the aesthetic, as we know, are in important respects cultural phenomena and therefore social categories. The very questions: “What is literature?” and “What is the aesthetic?” themselves emerge only within a particular social context. Some commentators, such as Terry Eagleton (1990) have argued, for example, that the question is a peculiarly Western- centric one. Not only would this question not be answered in the same way by all societies, but it would not even be necessarily asked by all societies. Furthermore, where the concept is in circulation it will take on different meanings in different cultures. We have seen that the concept of the aesthetic is not independent of, but always relative to, social and historical contexts. SOCIAL NATURE OF LITERATURE Once we grasp that literature is deeply social (even when it appears to have sprung from the most private and personal moments of an author’s experience, or even when it elicits an intensely personal response from the reader), we are left with the problem of making the appropriate distinctions that will enable us to explain the social dimension relevant to the work. Because ‘the social’ is a broad and unwieldy category, it is necessary to make some distinctions in order to begin to develop a clear picture of the various ways in which social factors relate to literature and the arts. UNDERSTANDING ‘THE SOCIAL’ What does ‘the social’, in fact, comprise? At the broadest level in the sphere of literature and culture, social factors come into play when we take into account the fact that communities are involved in the production and circulation of literary texts and other cultural artefacts. Literary texts are produced by human beings 3  who live and work in communities. This follows from the fact that all cultural objects, including aesthetic objects such as literature and art, are the products of individuals and groups, and are located in societies. The individual writer, no matter how isolated, is therefore basically a social being who draws on the language and literary traditions of the society in which he or she lives and from other societies to whose literary culture the writer has direct or indirect access. The scope of the community may be either broad or narrow. At its broadest, the community is human society. More narrowly construed, communities are those which have particular geographical and historical coordinates. The distinction between human society in general and societies in the plural is important: when we invoke social factors, we are invoking at least the possibility of variety and hence of multiplicity. Variety here means communities of people, and communities tend to organise themselves in unique ways. The differences between societies can be attributed to a variety of factors: their physical environments, their languages, their traditions, beliefs, histories, the tools they have developed, and so on. Moreover, societies change over time; the changes which occur may be so profound that at different temporal points in the development of a community, we may be dealing with profoundly different societies. Social difference is thus a matter of both geographical and historical difference. Social difference may also be a matter of different strata of societies or of different classes within a society. For example, differentiation that occurs along the lines of the distribution of political power or wealth. RELATIVISM Whatever these differences may be, and however they emerge, generally, when we talk about social factors, we are referring to a relativising tendency. That is, we will tend to say that such and such (whatever object or feature we are looking at) is relative to a society. This means that there will be variation according to the society in which the object or feature occurs. This raises an important question, namely: “How deep are the differences between societies?” There are different degrees of relativism. They range from radical to moderate forms of relativism. Radical relativism claims that there are profound differences between societies. For the radical relativist, there is no point in invoking human society as such because there are such profound differences between societies that the umbrella term “human society” has no useful significance. Radical relativists, therefore, always talk about societies in the plural. It is, however, necessary and appropriate to speak of human society in contrast to societies when we focus on the factors common to all human communities and which cut across their differences. For example, all known human communities communicate by means of language, have oral written literary traditions and produce artefacts of some sort or another, even though there may be important differences in the way they conceptualise, use and value those artefacts. As we have seen in THL1501: Introduction to theory of literature, the difficulty in formulating a universally acceptable definition of the aesthetic is attributable to the fact that ideas of beauty are not independent of, but relative to, personal, social and historical matters. ACTIVITY (1) Consult a dictionary and write down the meanings of the following words: Relative 4  Absolute Independent Diversity Homogeneity (2) Do you think human societies, despite their differences, are basically the same? Explain your answer. (3) Do you think literary and other artworks are related to, or independent of, the societies and historical times in which they are produced? Explain your answer. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL An important area of overlap is that between the social and the political. Also, these two terms are often used almost interchangeably. The political aspect of society relates to the rights of citizens to just and fair treatment by all public and private institutions governed by law. Thus the political dimension of social actions is at issue when the rights of citizens are violated or when there are conflicts of interest between groups of people. Very often, and regardless of the political dispensation, the political dimension is accentuated when attempts are made by one group to dominate another in violation of some principle of equality. What invariably ensues in these circumstances are attempts by one group to coerce and another to resist coercion. ACTIVITY Follow the link below to listen to commentary by Dr Mongane Wally Serote on the role of literature in the struggle for liberation. Serote on the role of literature in the struggle for liberation uploaded 3  May 2014 Dr Mongane Wally Serote in November 2006 (Image in Public Domain) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTjvSEPHdlY Do you agree with the claims he makes regarding the role of literature in relation to society and politics? 5  POWER AND SOCIAL ACTION Miller (1995:95) has remarked on the recent tendency in contemporary literary theory “to become fixated with the power dimension of social action; social action is taken to be principally action driven by sociopolitical forces’’ flowing from coercion, cooption or domination on the one hand and struggles to oppose this, on the other. This assertion can be challenged at the outset. To illustrate this, let us consider an example which appears to be far removed from the kinds of political contestation associated with coercion and resistance. The social act of building a house, an example given by Miller, is quite obviously a joint action which requires cooperation between a variety of individuals: ‘The completion of the house’ Miller (1995:98) writes, ‘is dependent on the work of the carpenter as well as the bricklayer, the roof tiler and the architect’. The completed house is the collective end of all these activities. Accordingly, Miller states: ‘If the house is to be built, and many, many houses are built, there will have to be cooperation, interdependence of action and collective ends.’ Cooperation between individuals is necessary for anything to be accomplished in a society. Hence, Miller (1995:99–100) asserts that cooperation in the service of collective ends is not necessarily, or even typi- cally, the cooption and coercion of individuals in the course of sociopolitical power struggles. Rather interdependence of action, and cooperation in the service of collective ends, are the defining features of joint enterprises, con- ventions and institutions, and joint enterprises, conventions and institutions provide the framework within which most human action takes place. Contemporary literary theory of a political orientation, which Miller seeks to subject to critical censure, will retort that what looks like non-coercive and nonpolitical cooperation on the surface is always, in fact, enmeshed in power relations characterised by crude as well as subtle forms of inequality and domination. In the example of the building of a house, it is correct that various individuals must engage in collective or joint action. However, there are other questions which might be asked of this example. Questions such as: “Which individual from which economic class is more likely to turn out to be the bricklayer and which is more likely to be the architect?”; “Where will the house be built?” “In an affluent suburb, or in an impoverished area?” “Who commissioned the house to be built?” “Is it part of a state housing project, or is the house being built by a person acting in her private capacity?” and even, “In what style will the house be built?” “Will it be a colonial mansion or a no-frills four-roomed house?” In the example above (or any other number of cases), these questions show whether or not non-coerced cooperation or sociopolitical struggle is the more basic framework for joint action, and whether or not political factors are inherent even to human cooperation. The very concept of cooperation involves a set of basic agreements that include tacit political features. In this regard it therefore seems more important to conceptualise the political in terms of power relations which are not always reducible to some form of force. PRODUCTION OF LITERATURE The example given by Miller can be supplemented with a more appropriate example from literature by looking at the networks of cooperation involved in the production of a novel. The process of producing a novel, as we know, involves 6 a process of social cooperation between individual and groups cutting across a range of classes and professions. The idea for the novel usually originates with a writer who, in most cases, will have a fairly good education and be a member of the middle and upper classes. We know, however, that novels have also been written by urban and rural workers with a basic education. In a society such as South Africa and many other societies elsewhere, however, most novels are written by members of the middle and upper classes. Often the motivation for writing the work can range from a personal need for literary and artistic expression to the need to earn a living. Once written, the novel is sent to a publisher where most of the staff, including the editors, are also members of the middle and upper classes. They assess the work’s aesthetic and commercial value. The publishing house may be a small business, a big local company or a multinational company whose owners are involved in publishing, not merely to make a living or to express an artistic need, but for the purpose of making as big a profit as possible from the publication of the novel. Once the manuscript is accepted for publication a contract is entered into. The manuscript is edited and designed into book form by the publisher and sent to a printer. The printer, like the publisher, is in publishing to make a profit and not merely to make a living or even to give expression to an artistic need. The printing process involves large quantities of paper, other printing materials and machines produced and operated by plantation workers, workers in paper factories and printing technicians which are often drawn from the lower middle and working classes who work to make a living which is often meagre. The book is then sent to bookstores, which are in the business to disseminate literature but, in most cases, exist primarily to make a profit. The novel reaches its final destination when it is bought by the public who can afford it. In South Africa the customers of the commercial book trade, which excludes the educational market, are from the middle and upper classes. So the entire process, on the surface of things, involves consensual cooperation between many different people with different skills from different classes. And, of course, some of the participants stand to benefit, financially, far more than others. Quite often, the publishers, printers and bookseller earn a great deal more than the author or the workers employed in the chain of industries which make up the world of books. Furthermore, large numbers of the general public are excluded from this world. LANGUAGE AS SOCIAL ACTION Communication by means of language is another form of social action. For individuals to communicate with one another successfully, each must follow the conventions of the language. Following a convention is itself a form of interdependent, cooperative action. Literature itself depends on a background of linguistic and literary conventions. Whether these conventions are also sites of power struggles and, if they are, to what extent, will be one of the main topics of this course. Not only are there significant differences between the type of social action involved in following a linguistic convention for the purposes of communication but there are important differences between types of conventions. As you work through this module, be aware of the way in which the terms ‘social’ and ‘political’ are used, especially when there is an implication that, if something is social, it is therefore also political. Be aware of the fact that it is often questionable 7  to run the two together and that, whenever they are run together, you should ask yourself whether this is warranted. ACTIVITY (1) Consult a dictionary and write down the meanings of the following words: Social Political Rights Interests Power Cooperation Coercion (2) Briefly explain how you understand the differences in the meanings of these words and why you think it is necessary to maintain rather than conflate their meanings. (3) Discuss briefly how the production and dissemination of a literary work involving cooperation across artistic, economic and social networks, could affect its content and meaning. POLITICAL TURN IN LITERARY THEORY The focus on the social aspects of cultural artefacts has led to three important trends in literary theory: the first is relativism, which has already been touched on briefly above, the second is a shift from literary to cultural studies, and the third is a politicisation of literary studies. In fact, it has been the increasing significance of social factors which has led to literary studies being understood as but one branch of cultural studies. There are several reasons for this, but by far the most important has been the one which we have already come across: the term ‘literary’, like the term ‘aesthetic’, is an implicitly evaluative term. The claim is that what is reflected in a literary canon is not, in fact, the finest literary achievements of writers across the globe, but instead the values of particular cultures. Thus the fundamental question of literary criticism and theory is no longer: by what essential features are all works of literature recognised as such (where it is assumed that ‘a work of literature’ simply is, by definition, a good work of literature)? Instead, the question becomes: what does the value attached to a certain type of literature by a culture/society tell us about that culture/society? This was dealt with briefly in the THL1501 course, and you will have the opportunity to pursue this line of thought further in your current studies. The amalgamation of literary and cultural studies means that literary texts are no longer treated as ‘special’ documents, deserving of a privileged position within the academy, in and for themselves. Instead, literary texts are treated in just the same way as advertisements, comic strips, soap operas and so on. This is a fundamental change in the attitude towards literary texts, and has resulted in a radically different approach (more about this later). In this course you will often find literary texts and other artworks referred to as cultural objects or artefacts: the reason for this is that these are neutral terms. It cannot be denied that literary 8 texts are cultural objects/artefacts, just as advertisements and even rugby matches are; the question is whether they are anything more than this. This is a question which will be left open for you to decide, once you have seen the arguments for stripping literary texts of the type of values traditionally ascribed to them (e.g. beauty, understanding, knowledge). POLITICISATION OF LITERATURE The politicisation of literature is an inextricable part of both relativism and the shift to cultural studies. The basic idea is that as soon as we are in the realm of the social, we are in the realm of interests and power. Cultural domination occurs when one culture (e.g. western culture), social class (e.g. the bourgeois/capitalist class in Marxist theory) or gender imposes its values on another; such an imposition serves the purposes of political or economic domination. In fact, it is argued that cultural domination is an indispensable support to these other forms of domination. This view is generally grounded in relativism (the view that values are relative to a culture or society, and that there are no universal values) and results in an approach to literature which not only strips it of inherent or universal value, but which also places great emphasis on the ways in which literary texts can be seen either to support cultural domination, or to subvert it. Thus the literary text is placed in a political light, and all its ideological blemishes are thereby exposed. A term which is often used for this type of criticism is ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’. The idea here is that interpretations of the text do not accept the text at its face value, or on its own terms, but instead try to discover its hidden political agenda. This is not necessarily the author’s political agenda; in this respect, the author can be as duped as is the reader. Later on, we will see the ways in which political agendas make themselves felt in literary works, ways that bypass the author’s intentions, or any reference to what the author himself thought he was doing. The ‘political turn’ in literary theory, which is associated with the hermeneutics of suspicion, was inevitable once the implications of the ‘linguistic turn’ emerged fully. The ‘linguistic turn’ in literary theory occurred with the understanding of language as constructing our experience of the world, rather than as reflecting or expressing that experience. This is the view ushered in by structuralist and semiotic theories, and further developed by poststructuralist theories. Once language is seen as having a properly constructive role, it would appear that our representations of the world are not determined by the way the world in fact is; instead, they are determined by linguistic structures and systems. The question is: to what extent are linguistic structures and systems amenable or even predisposed to being inflected by the interests and power relations of the communities of speakers with which they are associated? Also: do linguistic constructions have an in-built political dimension? What we will be doing in this part of the module, then, is looking at two principal ways of understanding the way in which linguistic constructivism lends itself to this sociopolitical dimension, namely through ideology and through discourse. ACTIVITY Refer to the above and select a poem, a short story, a novel or play which you studied in the genre modules of Theory of Literature or any other course. You may also choose a literary text not connected to your formal studies. Then answer the following questions: 9  (1) Write brief notes on how the social and political factors contribute, or do not contribute, to the form and meaning of the work. (2) Do you think literature or art is relative to, or independent of, social and political factors? Explain your answer CONCLUSION This brief yet broad introduction to contextual and social matters was intended to orient you to the social dimensions of literature and culture and to provide some basic distinctions and clarification. We can now move on to more specific theories that engage with, and attempt to explain, this social dimension. These theories include ideology and discourse. While each belong to two different theoretical traditions, they are, as we shall see, also closely related. For a broad discussion on related issues, follow the link below to watch a podcast of a lecture by John Agard (author, poet and playwright) on the value of literature: http://archive.org/details/TheValueOfLiterature 10  STUDY UNIT 2 IDEOLOGY Introduction Purpose Introduction to Ideology Eagleton (Link to Standford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy) Basic Distinctions Background Ideology descriptive sense World View Ideology in the pejorative sense Epistemic Functional Genetic Positive sense (Geuss) Conclusion INTRODUCTION PURPOSE Following from the general introduction in Study Unit 1, where we considered issues related to social, contextual and political matters, it became apparent that the basic social concepts, however defined in dictionaries, do not necessarily have the same meaning when they are enlisted by literary scholars and other commentators. The purpose of this study unit, therefore, is to highlight the divergent meanings attributed to the concept of ideology provide a basic definition of the concept of ideology draw attention to the importance of the concept of ideology to Marxist theory provide a systematic mapping of the three main meanings of the concept of ideology OUTCOMES On completion of this study unit, you should be able to explain the divergent meanings attributed to the concept of ideology distinguish between the descriptive, pejorative and positive meaning attributed to the term ideology identify the three meanings referred to above as these are used in theoretical and literary texts 11  INTRODUCTION TO IDEOLOGY Eagleton The word ‘ideology’, while often invoked, like most words, can be used to signify a variety of meanings. The concept ideology’ can assume many meanings depending on who invokes it. It can, as Eagleton (1994:1–2) writes, mean any or all of the following: (a) the process of production of meanings, signs and values in social life; (b) a body of ideas characteristic of a particular social group or class; (c) ideas which help to legitimate a dominant political power; (d) false ideas which help legitimate a dominant political power; (e) systematically distorted communication; (f) that which offers a position for a subject; (g) forms of thought motivated by social interests; (h) identity thinking; (i) socially necessary illusion; (j) the conjuncture of discourse and power; (k) the medium in which conscious social actors make sense of their world; (l) action-oriented sets of belief; (m) the confusion of linguistic and phenomenal reality; (n) semiotic closure; (o) the indispensable medium in which individuals live out their relations to a social structure; (p) the process whereby social life is converted to a natural relativity. This is by no means an exhaustive list. Nor, as Eagleton (1991:2), points out, are all the meanings listed compatible with each other. We will see that the meaning of the concept, however defined, is part of the social and political contestations in which it participates. In its denotative, that is, its literal or dictionary sense, an ideology may be defined as a set of beliefs that coalesces into a system that produced a distinctive view of the world. This denotative signification of the word is, however, seldom used. More often than not, ideology has a negative connotation. For example, it is often associated with falsehood, deception or delusion used in the service of a political or other propagandistic agenda. Religion, for instance, is often referred to pejoratively as an ideology in the sense of a delusion or falsehood. These negative associations strike at the cognitive value, that is, the knowledge value, of the beliefs concerned. With their cognitive value questioned, doubt is cast on the truth value or the rationality of the beliefs. In this case, ideology comes to be understood as nothing more than dogma and illusion. At other times, ideology seems to imply a set of subjective beliefs held by particular individuals, classes or groups concerned with advancing their own interests, regardless of those who they construe as ideological adversaries. In this case, the cognitive value of ideology derives from its effectiveness to outwit adversaries. However understood, it should be evident that ideology is deeply embroiled in the politics of social contestation. Larrain (1979:14) points out that ideology, understood in these terms, amounts to ‘a deformation of consciousness, which somehow is unable to grasp reality as it is’. 12 Given the critique of the cognitive value of ideology, whether in the sense of a set of necessary beliefs or in the sense of some grotesque falsehood, the nagging question is whether it is at all possible for human beings, individually or as a group, to grasp reality, uncontaminated by ideology, as it actually is? The counterpart to this question, of course, is whether human conceptions of reality are always necessarily mediated through and thus affected by one or other ideology. This question becomes even more pressing when ideology is seen as the world- view of a class or a cultural group which results in a situation where individuals see and understand the world strictly in terms of the class or group to which they belong. This would mean that, given the variety of world-views which exist, no one could claim to have a true or accurate view of reality and that each view is simple a class of group-based version of the world. In this case, Larrain (1979:14) points out: The question arises as to how one is to tackle the relationships between ideology and science. Ideology may be conceived of as the antithesis of science; that is to say, it may be equated with preconceptions or irrational elements which disturb reason, thus preconceptions or irrational elements which disturb reason, thus preventing it from reaching the truth. So when scientific method is correctly applied, ideology is supposed to vanish. On the other hand, it is possible to stress the common features between science and ideology, rather than their differences, so ideology and science would have a common basis in the world-view of the originating class. On this view, ideology cannot be overcome by science, and science itself may become ideological. However, once we have reached the point where we can no longer distinguish between ideology and science, we are close to the “everything is ideology’’ position, a position that is not particularly useful. In addition, one might ask: if everything is ideology, from what non-ideological position is it possible to proclaim that ‘everything is ideology’? Given this, it is necessary, then, to pause and reflect on the dangers of becoming ensnared in the politics of ideology. To avoid this, a broad mapping of the main features of ideology is required. ACTIVITY (1) Refer to Eagleton’s list of meanings attributed to the concept ideology and make lists of the meanings which are compatible and incompatible with each other. (2) Refer to Larrain’s comments above and discuss briefly whether ideology and science can and should be differentiated from each other. BASIC DISTINCTIONS Background This section is an attempt to map out some of the senses in which the word ‘ideology’ is used, in order to help you make your own way around the material in the textbooks and other reading. For the most part, it is a summary of the article ‘Ideology’ by Raymond Geuss, in Terry Eagleton’s (1994:28–78) anthology of the 13  same title. I have included extensive quotations from the article, which, in my view, is one of the best ‘maps’ to the ideological terrain. This has been supplemented with material from the following publication (with regard to Geuss’s typology or senses of ideology): Geuss, R. 1981. The idea of a critical theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt School. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 22–28. Geuss distinguishes between the descriptive, pejorative and positive senses of ideology on the basis of the different types of the social usage of the term and the various research contexts in which theories of ideology have developed. Ideology in a descriptive sense In the empirical study of human groups, such as is undertaken by anthropology or sociology, a researcher might want to discover various things about his or her subject, ranging from biological make-up to the cultural or sociocultural traditions, and political systems of the group. In these traditions will be included the kinship system, the pattern of land tenure or distribution, artistic traditions, religious and scientific beliefs, legal institutions, political cultural values, agricultural technology, and so on. According to Geuss (1994:280) the scope of the enquiry will vary: the researcher might focus on a particular group, or do comparisons between groups, or try to look for universal or invariant features to be found in all groups, and so on. Geuss (1994:281–282) goes on as follows: The ideology of the group will [...] typically include such things as the beliefs of the members of the group, the concepts they use, the attitudes and psycho- logical dispositions they exhibit, their motives, desires, values, predilections, works of art, religious rituals, gestures, etc. I will call ‘ideology’ in this very broad sense [...] ‘ideology in the purely descriptive sense’. In this broad and rather unspecific sense of ‘ideology’, every human group has an ideology – the agents of the group will have some psychological dispositions, use some concepts, and have some beliefs. In particular “ideology’’ in this sense does not comprise only those beliefs, habits, attitudes, traits, etc. all the members of the group share. Human groups contain variety, diversity and conflict. The more detailed and complete we wish our account of a given social group to be, the more it will have to contain descriptions of such differences of belief, motivation, preference, attitude, etc. Furthermore, this sense of ‘ideology’ is non-evaluative and non-judgmental – one isn’t praising or blaming a group by asserting that its members ‘have an ideology’ in this sense. World-View The ideological sphere can be divided up into ‘political ideology’, ‘religious ideology’, ‘economic ideology’ and so on. In some cases, however, there will be talk of ‘the ideology of the group simpliciter [or as such]’. In these cases, what is most often meant is the group’s world-view or ‘world-picture’. The notion of ideology as world-view is not identical with our original ‘ideology in a purely descriptive sense’. The ‘ideology of a group in the purely descriptive sense’ comprises all the beliefs members of the group hold (or perhaps – if this notion seems too all-encompassing and too indiscriminate to be of any use at all – it includes the characteristic beliefs widely shared among the members of the group), but of course not all the beliefs the members of a group hold belong to their world-view (Geuss, 1994:285). 14 In other words, some beliefs that members of a group characteristically share may be peripheral to the group’s world-view. For example, the belief that one should keep to the left when driving is characteristic of South African society, but is not part of its world-view. The reason why ‘ideology as world-view’ is introduced is that, generally speaking, the beliefs of individuals and groups are not random, but display a certain amount of coherency. The beliefs often fit together more or less systematically. ‘Ideology as world view’ is a subset of the beliefs of a group which display the following properties: (1) The elements in the subset are widely shared among the agents in the group. (2) The elements in this subset are systematically interconnected. (3) They are ‘central to the agents’ conceptual scheme’ in [the sense that] agents will not easily give them up. (4) The elements in the subset have a wide and deep influence on the agents’ behaviour or on some particularly important or central sphere of action. (5) The beliefs in the subset are ‘central’ in that they deal with central issues of human life in so far as they give interpretations of such things as death, the need to work, sexuality or other central metaphysical issues. ACTIVITY Consider the following image: Muslim women waiting for their husband in a shop in Kuwait (Image in Public Domain) Discuss ideology in a DESCRIPTIVE SENSE (be careful not to slip into other ‘senses’) as you identify its effects in the image, above, of four Muslim women waiting for their husband in a shop in Kuwait. Look at the previous page (On World-View). Go through the 5 points listed and respond to the image accordingly. 15  Ideology in the Pejorative sense This sense of the term ‘ideology’ arises in the context of ‘criticism of the beliefs, attitudes, and wants of the agents in a particular society’ (Geuss, 1994:288). Criticism of this type arises from the claim that the agents of the society are deluded or deceived in some way, and from a desire to reveal this to the agents. The aims of such criticism go well beyond the descriptive aims of empirical research described above; although criticism of this type will often try to explain how the agents came to hold the delusional beliefs in question, the more fundamental aim is to ‘free’ agents from the delusional beliefs. The sense of ‘ideology’ which emerges in a critical research programme is negative, pejorative or critical (e.g. ‘ideology as delusion’ or ‘ideology as false consciousness’). The idea here is that ideology is, in some sense, false. This is the pejorative sense of the term. The question is ‘in virtue of what properties can a form of consciousness be ideologically false?’ (Geuss, 1994:287). Geuss considers three possible answers to this question: A form of consciousness is ideologically false in virtue of some epistemic properties in the beliefs which are its constituents. A form of consciousness is ideologically false in virtue of its functional properties. A form of consciousness is ideologically false in virtue of its genetic properties. We will now look more carefully at each of these possibilities: Epistemic Epistemic relates to knowledge. When the epistemic properties of a set of beliefs are taken into consideration, one will ask questions such as the following: Are the beliefs supported by the available empirical evidence? Do they display a confusion between different types of beliefs (e.g. between descriptive and normative or evaluative beliefs)? Geuss (1994:288) distinguishes between several ways in which beliefs can be ideologically false in virtue of their epistemic properties, but I will pick out only three: (a) If there is an ‘objectification mistake’. For example, if a natural phenomenon is mistaken for a social phenomenon, or the other way around. One type of objectification mistake you will come across is that encapsulated in commodity fetishism. (b) If the interests of a sector of the society are mistaken for the interests of all of the society. (c) If self-fulfilling beliefs are mistaken for beliefs which are not self-fulfilling. For example, if we believe that an individual or a group of individuals are lazy and stupid, and we treat them accordingly, this may be a self-fulfilling prophecy. What is wrong with this type of belief is that we may take it to be a true belief, and misrecognise its status as self-fulfilling: in this case, we are making a mistake about the epistemic status of the belief. Functional Functional pertains to the role of ideology in supporting certain practices or in preventing certain forms of development. There are two ways in which the functional properties of forms of consciousness may contribute to their being ideological in the pejorative sense: 16  The first is described as follows: “A form of consciousness is an ideology in virtue of the function or role it plays in supporting, stabilizing, or legitimizing certain kinds of social institutions or practices. Habermas regularly speaks of an ideology as a ‘world-picture’ which stabilises or legitimises domination or hegemony. It is in virtue of the fact that it supports or justifies reprehensible social institutions, unjust social practices, relations of exploitation, hegemony, or domination that a form of consciousness is an ideology” (Geuss, 1994:288). The second way in which a form of consciousness may be ideological in the pejorative sense by virtue of its functional properties is attributed to the Marxist philosopher Gerry Cohen, and is described as follows: “The second kind of functional definition takes ‘ideology’ to be any form of consciousness which hinders or obstructs the maximal development of the forces of material production. This view is usually associated with a reading of Marx which takes him as positing the development of the forces of material production as an inherent goal of human societies. It isn’t hard to see a connection between this notion and ‘surplus repression’– if a form of consciousness hinders the development of the forces of production it will obviously impose on the agents in the society more repression than they need suffer” (Geuss, 1994:271). In conclusion, the functional basis of ideologies is a reason for rejecting the beliefs in question because this basis depends either on our being ignorant about the functions of the beliefs, or on our having false beliefs about those functions. For example, we may believe that our moral principles are based on some idea of the good, whereas they in fact serve the purposes of a particular social system or distribution of power. In this case, we are ignorant about the function of the moral principles we endorse. Or we may believe that our legal system serves the purposes of humanitarianism and justice, whereas it in fact upholds an uneven distribution of power. In this case, we have a false belief about the function of the legal system. Genetic Genetic pertains to the causes, history or origins of beliefs or forms of consciousness. This may include reference to how the beliefs or forms of consciousness came to be acquired, or the motivation of agents for holding the belief. For example, Geuss (1994:272) refers to Karl Mannheim who put forward the view that “forms of consciousness are ideological because they are ‘expressions’ of the class position of those who hold them, that is, their origin can be traced to the particular experiences of a particular class in the society with its characteristic perceptions, interests and values.” Of the three analyses of ideology in the pejorative sense, this is the weakest. In the case of literature, you will find the argument sometimes put forward that Realism as a genre is ideological (in the pejorative sense) just because its emergence coincides with the rise of capitalism, and that it is somehow causally connected with capitalism. Genetic approaches to ideology can help us to understand this better. The problem is to try to pinpoint just how the causes, origins or history of a set of beliefs or form of consciousness makes either of these false or delusional. It is reasonable that if a set of beliefs does originate in an iniquitous social system, we are likely to be suspicious of it. But does this in and of itself make the belief false or delusional? Geuss (1994:273) states the problem as follows: By now there is a long history of criticism of the ‘genetic fallacy’ – one hasn’t shown anything about the truth or falsity of a belief by showing how it arose, one must clearly distinguish ‘context of discovery’ from ‘context of 17  justification’. If the genetic approach to ideology in the pejorative sense is to get off the ground, it must somehow show that the ‘genetic fallacy’, granted its validity for scientific statements, is not necessarily a fallacy for forms of consciousness. In the first sentence of this quotation, Geuss gives a definition of the genetic fallacy. One can say that an argument is invalid if it commits the genetic fallacy. You will remember from your previous studies that a fallacy is not necessarily a falsehood, but an error of reason. Positive sense Geuss subsequently added a third definition or sense of ideology to his mapping of the term. He called this the positive sense of ideology. According to Geuss (1981:22), ideology isn’t just a neutral fact about human groups that each has a ‘culture’ or ‘so- ciocultural system’, a set of characteristic attitudes, habits, beliefs, modes of artistic expression, perhaps even a characteristic world-view; participating in a culture is a way of satisfying certain very deep-seated human needs. Humans have a vital need for the kind of ‘meaningful’ life and the kind of identity which is possible only for an agent who stands in relation to a cul- ture. Traditional religious world-views owe their persistence to their ability to meet some of these basic needs. They do this by providing agents with approved models of action, goals, ideals, and values, and by furnishing in- terpretations of such important existential features of human life as birth and death, suffering, evil, etc. In addition to such basic existential needs, human agents and groups have more mundane needs, wants, and interests which a given set of habits, beliefs, and attitudes, a given ‘culture’, can satisfy more or less adequately. Starting, then, from the wants, needs, interests, and the objective situation of a given human group, we can set ourselves the task of determining what kind of socio-cultural system or what world- view would be most appropriate for that group, that is, what ‘ideology’ (in some descriptive sense of the term) is most likely to enable the members of the group to satisfy their wants and needs and further their interests. I will call this the task of producing for the group an ‘ideology in the positive or laudatory sense’. In this positive sense ideology differs from its descriptive or the pejorative senses. Ideology in the descriptive senses is something which exists in the world as a mental phenomenon which can be found by researchers and investigators, apprehended and described in neutral terms. Ideology in the pejorative sense is also something which can be found in the world but singled out for criticism. According to Geuss (1982:24), ideology in the positive sense, on the other hand, is something ‘out there’ which cannot be found by even by the most careful empirical investigation. It might be a desideratum for a particular society that it have an ideology in this sense, but the ideology is something to be constructed, created, or invented; it is a ‘verité a faire’. That is, it is a kind truth of how things are invariably done in society. In this sense it is something vital to society. Given the pervasiveness of ideology, it appears to be something which societies and human beings cannot do without. The role of ideology in securing the interests, needs and wants of one group over the interest, needs and wants of another, could 18 be understood as a conceptual prerequisite for the attainment of those interests, wants and needs. For example, if workers, women, the colonised or any other exploited or oppressed group is to pursue its interests, needs and wants effectively it requires an ideology based on their specific interests, needs and wants to achieve this. These groups cannot rely on the ideologies of their adversaries. Yet Geuss (1982:24) points that, while it is necessary to differentiate ideology in the positive sense from ideology in the descriptive and the pejorative senses, ‘it isn’t sufficient to say that a positive ideology enables the agents effectively to satisfy some of their needs and desires’. He writes: First, there must be some restrictions on the kinds of wants, desires, and interests a positive ideology is to satisfy – we will want to exclude overtly sadistic desires, desires to enslave, exploit, or dominate others, etc. Then there must also be some restrictions on the way in which the needs and desires of the group are satisfied – we will probably want to disallow conscious or em- pirical falsehoods or patently inconsistent beliefs, inculcation of attitudes of hysteria or paranoia, etc. Suppose that the members of some group have very strong aggressive desires, and suppose further that they cling hysterically to a set of patently false beliefs which focus their hostility on the members of some powerless minority. This set of beliefs may be quite effective in ena- bling them to satisfy their aggressive desires without fear of retaliation, but if we allow it to count as an ‘ideology in the positive sense’, the distinction between an ideology in the positive sense and an ideology in the pejorative sense will become blurred. CONCLUSION Brief Recap [Assessment task] When reading the theories presented in the next study unit, be particularly aware of the points at which the theories merge these distinctions: when they slip between the descriptive, pejorative and positive sense of ideology when they slip between different analyses of ideology in the pejorative sense (i.e. between epistemic, functional and genetic accounts) Establish whether there are good reasons for the ‘slippage’, or is there simply a confusion? Probe and identify precisely in what features the falsity or deception of the ideology consists. 19  STUDY UNIT 3 MARXISM Introduction Purpose Outcomes Basic Tenets of Marxist Theory Dialectical Materialism Historical Materialism Base and Superstructure Ideology (Althusser) Hegemony (Gramsci) Contextualised discussion INTRODUCTION PURPOSE As we pointed out earlier on, Marxist theory has perhaps made the greatest contribution to the study of ideology in society. This contribution ranges from the role of ideology in human affairs, to economics and politics and to art and culture. The purpose of this study unit, then, is to introduce Marxist theory in general explain the difference and relationship between dialectical and historical materialism explain the relationship between the Marxist concepts of ‘base’ and ‘superstructure’ and the place of literature and art in these explain the place and role of ideology in Marxist theory introduce some of the main Marxist theories of literature present a critique and evaluation of Marxist theory and its contribution to literary theory and the study of literature OUTCOMES On completion of this study unit, you should be able to describe the main feature of Marxist theory in general and its relevance to literary theory and the study of literature describe the role of ideology in Marxist theory and its relevance to literary theory and the study of literature apply Marxist literary theories to the study of literature 20  assess the strengths and shortcomings of Marxist theory and its contribution to literary studies INTRODUCTION AND ACTIVITY Watch the video clip below. This is a very basic (arguably oversimplified) introduction to Marxism. When you have completed the entire learning unit, watch the clip again and see whether you agree with all the statements made in the clip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0GFSUu5UzA As a political and economic system communism, based as it is on Marxist theory, has by all recent indications failed in its attempt to replace liberal democracy and capitalism. As an economic system, it is being replaced by capitalist or free market economic policies in countries which, until recently, were based on communist economic principles. As a political system based on what communists referred to as the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ and the one-party state, it is, with few exceptions, such as the People’s Republic of China and Cuba, being replaced by multiparty democracies. Does this mean that Marxist theory is irrelevant to contemporary society and the future? If so, does the study of Marxism boil down to nothing more than wasting time on a discredited and obsolete ideology? These, no doubt, will be the questions you ask yourself when you approach this study unit. This module, however, is neither rooted in any support for Marxism nor is it an attempt to recruit students to its cause. Instead, it is a scholarly investigation of a theory which made significant contributions to the social, political, and economic roles of literature, art and culture and, as such, any scholar interested in the role of context in aesthetics can ill afford to ignore its contribution. In approaching Marxist literary theory, we should note that Karl Marx did not develop a comprehensive theory of aesthetics. His comments on art and literature are scattered throughout his writings. It was therefore up to other scholars to work out a Marxist theory of aesthetics. They did this by drawing on general Marxist theory and applying it to art. The central thrust of Marxist literary theory is to study and explain the literary work as a social and historical product. In other words, Marxist literary theory is concerned with how literary aesthetics is shaped by particular social, economic, cultural and political factors. As a branch of critical and revolutionary practice, Marxist theory is not undertaken merely for the sake of the work, but to examine and explain the role of literature in either the maintenance or change of societies. In the writings of Marx, literary allusions point to the fact that the founder of Marxism was an avid reader of literature and a lifelong admirer of Shakespeare. In fact, Marx published a collection of romantic poetry in German and left behind a fragment of a verse drama and an unfinished comic novel. Eagleton (1978:1) mentions that he ‘wrote a sizeable unpublished manuscript on art and religion, and planned a journal on dramatic criticism, a full-length study of Balzac and a treatise on aesthetics’. This interest in literature and culture by a revolutionary is to be expected: a society is a polity in which the political, economic and religious practices are so many facets of culture. Any attempt to change a society therefore requires a range of cultural interventions from the economic and political to the 21  artistic. In fact, it is telling how revolutionaries the world over from Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky in Russia to Franz Fanon in Africa, Mao Zedong in China and Che Guevara in South America valued art and culture and often turned to literature for inspiration. Marx, however never completed a theory of aesthetics: that is, he never completed a comprehensive account of art, literature and culture. This was developed by those adherents to Marxism who had literary and artistic interests. However, to understand how Marxist aesthetic and literary theories developed requires a basic understanding of Marxism as put forward in the writings of its founder. Follow the link below to watch Professor Paul Fry’s Yale University lecture on ‘The Frankfurt School of Critical Theory’. http://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-300/lecture-17 This lecture provides not only invaluable information on Marxism in literature, but also on ideology. We recommend that you watch the lecture now, and then revisit it once you have worked through this learning unit and the next. BASIC TENETS OF MARXIST THEORY The following link gives access to valuable background information on Marx and his theories contained in the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/#4.1 According to Tom Bottomore (1981), Marxist theory consists of three aspects. The first is referred to as dialectical materialism and is widely understood as the philosophy of Marxism. The second is called historical materialism and is understood as the scientific practice of Marxism. The third is the politics of socialism and communism. These distinctions relate to the development of Marxism based on the works of Marx and Engels, the founders of this theory. Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a German intellectual who was forced to leave Germany (and later, France) who eventually settled and died in England. Friedrich Engels (1820–1895), who was also born in Germany, was the son of a textile manufacturer who owned a factory in Manchester, England, where Engels went to work in 1842. Engels also died in London. In a very specific sense what is referred to as ‘Marxism’ is, in fact, the ideas of two individuals. 22 Karl Marx in 1875 (Image in Public Domain)          Friedrich Engels in 1877 (Image in Public Domain) Karl Marx’s most famous and influential book, Capital, published in several volumes of which only the first appeared in his lifetime, is taken as the central text of Marxism as an economic science; this is referred to as historical materialism. This is because it is understood to provide an objective and scientific description and analysis of the nature of capitalism as an economic system. Friedrich Engels’s equally influential book, Anti-Dühring, is seen as the basis Marxist philosophy in so far as it provides, not a scientific method for the analysis of capitalism, but a general theory of the nature of the world in terms of what is called dialectical materialism. The political practice of communism is encapsulated in the Communist Manifesto and outlines the strategies and tactics which worker and the leaders should follow to free themselves from the shackles of capitalism. This distinction, which relates to the two aspects of Marxism, is often conflated by scholars. This is largely due to the fact that these aspects are so closely interrelated that they have frequently come to be treated as interchangeable. In this study unit we will be concerned mainly with relationship between the philosophical and scientific features of Marxism and how these are related to the Marxist literary theories that developed from them. No direct attention will be given to the political strategies and tactics of Marxism. This study unit outlines the differences between dialectical materialism as a philosophy, on the one hand, and historical materialism as an economic theory on the other. It emphasises the interrelationship between these two aspects in both general Marxist theory and in Marxist theory on literature and art. DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM Friedrich Engels’ exposition of dialectical materialism was published in German and appeared as Anti-Dühring in 1894. The book is based on series of articles written for the newspaper Vorwärts between 1877 and 1899. The text is a critique of Eugene Dühring’s critical comments on volume 1 of Karl Marx’s Capital published in 1887. Dühring’s writings, among other things, attacked Karl Marx for his use of Hegelian dialectics to account for qualitative changes in society. In other words, to understand what is meant by the concept ‘dialectical materialism’ 23  requires a basic outline of what is meant by ‘dialectics’, ‘Hegelian dialectics’ and ‘Marxist dialectics’. The term ‘dialectics’ is derived from the Greek dialektos which means ‘discourse’, ‘debate’ or ‘dialogue’. The root of the word signifies a dyad or two aspects which stand in a dynamic relationship to each other. As a form of logic it is based on the relationship between opposites and their resolution in a third. It has been given various roles and meanings in the works of philosophers. Plato, for instance, who favoured the dialogue as mode of philosophising considered dialectics to be the highest form of thought. Aristotle, on the other hand, who preferred a systematic approach to philosophy, considered dialectics as nothing more than opinion and lacking the rigour of philosophical principles. Understandably, therefore, the term had mixed usage during the Middle Ages. It was the German philosopher Kant (1724–1804) who defined dialectics as consisting of a thesis, an antithesis and a synthesis. This triad, which involves a set of oppositions and their resolution in the third term, is basically a theorem of change through a process of conflict and resolution. This conception was reflected through the work of Gottlieb Fichte (1782–1814) to Georg Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) who, in turn, was to have a direct influence on Karl Marx’s conception of the dialectic. Hegel applied Kant’s definition of dialectics and Fichte’s suggestion that the dialectics is purpose-driven and unified to his own philosophy of the development of human consciousness. Hegel conceived this as a process of successive steps following an upward curve of progress from elemental individual sensation to abstract, transindividual universal reason. This progress is achieved because the dialectic involves an assertion in the form of the thesis and a negation in the form of an antithesis. In Hegelian dialectics, the synthesis of the thesis and antithesis is referred to as the negation of the negation. Marx considered Hegel’s dialectics one of the great contributions of German philosophy, but he rejected its idealist character. He overturned Hegel’s idealist concept of the dialectic by giving it a materialist tenor. HISTORICAL MATERIALISM For Marxism, dialectics was a necessary philosophical precondition for developing a theory or science of society. This came down to studying the material means of life, that is, the human means of existence and survival. In dialectical materialist terminology, the means of production and reproduction, in successive societies and under capitalism, in particular, is the object of Marxism’s critical enquiry. Accordingly, the economic modes specific to each epoch of human history in communal, classical, feudal and capitalist societies invariably involves specific relations to the means of life. This, of course, is nothing more than the study of economics from pre-antiquity to modernity. This study revolves around the way economics structure and regulate human relations as these apply to property. Historical materialism, therefore, is materialist in so far as it is concerned with how material concerns, the means of production and reproduction, and in particular changing concepts of property and labour, structure and regulate relations between human beings. The central thesis of historical materialism is that human relations structured along the class patterns of owners and non-owners result in social arrangements characterised by inequality, injustice, exploitation and conflict. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx (1980:38) writes: 24  The history of all hitherto society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lords and serf, guildmaster and journey- man, in a word oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an interrupted, now hidden now open fight, a fight that each ended, either in revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. Marx argues that the modern capitalist society that developed from the ruins of feudal society did not abolish class antagonisms, but established new ones: namely the bourgeoisie and the proletariat or capitalists and workers. By focusing on how the economics under capitalism structures and regulates the relations between human beings in terms of capitalists on the one hand and workers on the other, Marx developed a comprehensive description, analysis and critique of capitalism. This is the basis of historical materialism. BASE AND SUPERSTRUCTURE At the core of historical materialism is Marx’s conception of the structure of societies in materialist terms, in terms of a base and a superstructure. In Marxist theory, this conception is pertinent to the place and role of literature and art in society. As a materialist theory of society, Marxism emphasises the primacy of matter over ideas. In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels (1845:8) write: The production of ideas, concepts and consciousness is first and directly interwoven with the material intercourse of man, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the spiritual intercourse of men, appear here as the efflux of men’s material behaviour... we do not proceed from what men say, imagine, conceive, not from men as described, thought of, imagined, conceived in order to arrive at corporeal man; rather we proceed from the really active man... Consciousness does not determine life: life determines consciousness. Where idealism stresses the primacy of ideas (as in Hegel’s theory of dialectics), Marxist materialism stresses materiality. This reversal informs the way in which society, according to Marx and Engels (1980:62), is organised: In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production on which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material pro- ductive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. The economic mode of production, classical, feudal or capitalist society constitutes the material base which determines the social relations of all members of society. The legal, political and cultural institutions make up the superstructure of society. This model can be illustrated as follows: 25  DIAGRAM 1 SUPERSTRUCTURE cultural  legal  educational  religious  political economic    relations Mode of Production BASE According to this model, economic relations determine the social relations between members of society and pervade all aspects of social life. In capitalist society the division of society into two main classes, namely capitalists and workers, results is a social order dominated and controlled by the capitalist. This division is not only visible in the non-economic structures of society but the legal, cultural, artistic, religious, ethical and political institutions serve to legitimise the economic relations in the base. The superstructure, which consists of ‘definite forms of consciousness’ is thus the domain of ideology whose main function is to justify and legitimate the prevailing social order. BASE AND SUPERSTRUCTURE Literature and art are therefore part of the superstructure. As such, literature and art are conditioned, shaped, influenced and determined by the economic and social relations of society at every given point in time. On the face of it, this is an economic form of determinism which suggests that to understand a work of literature one needs to understand the economic and social conditions and the ideologies that shaped it. As Eagleton (1979:8) writes: To understand King Lear, The Duciad or Ulysses is therefore to do more than interpret symbolism, study their history and footnotes about sociological facts which enter into indirect relations between those works. It is first of all to understand the complex, indirect relations between those works and the ideological worlds they inhabit – relations which emerge not just in ‘themes’ and ‘preoccupations’, but in style, rhythm, image, quality and (as we shall see later) form. But we do not understand ideology either unless we grasp the part it plays in the society as a whole – how it consists of a definite, historically relative structure of perception which underpins the power of a particular social class. This is not an easy task, since ideology is never a simple reflection of a ruling class’s ideas; on the contrary, it is always a complex phenomenon, which may incorporate conflicting, even contradictory, views of the world. To understand an ideology, we must analyse the precise relations between different classes in a society; and to do that means grasping where those classes stand in relation to the mode of production. The above citation suggests that Marxist theory posits a direct one-to-one relationship between the economic base, the social relations and the form and meaning of a literary text or a work of art as phenomena in the superstructure. This, however, is not necessarily the case. Complete the following activity to understand why. 26  ACTIVITY (IMPORTANT FOR FURTHER ARGUMENT) Read the following excerpt from a letter by Engels in a reply to a letter from Joseph Bloch concerning the relationship between the base and superstruc- ture and then answer the questions that follow:   According to the materialist conception of history, the determining element in history is ultimately the production and reproduction of real life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. If therefore somebody twists this into the statement that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms it into a meaningless, abstract and absurd phrase. The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure – political forms of the class struggle and its consequences, constitutions established by the victorious class after a successful battle, etc. – forms of law – and then even the reflexes of all these political struggles in the brains of the combatants: politi- cal, legal, and philosophical theories, religious ideas and their further development into systems of dogma – also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form. (1) Write a brief commentary on the relationship between the base and the superstructure and their respective roles in determining history. (2) What do you think the role of literature is in relation to Engels’s reference to the role of elements in the superstructure in determining the ‘ form’ of historical struggles? This refutation is supported by Marx. For Marx and Engels, the relationship was dynamic and elements in the superstructure, including literature, while not capable of changing material reality on its own, was capable of playing an active and sometimes formative role in such change. It should be clearly understood that, while Marx and Engels made a clear distinction between the ‘base’ and ‘superstructure’ and accorded a primary determining role to the base in so far as it shaped the contents of the superstructure, they did not uphold the reductive view that the traffic between the base and the superstructure was a one way road from the base to the superstructure. They viewed the process as dialectical, involving a constant commerce and interaction between the base and superstructure. This interaction was such that the base and the superstructure came to bear upon each other in complex and diverse ways as opposed to a simple and single manner determination. In stressing the ultimate determining role of the base, they sought to emphasise the materialist nature of Marxism in distinction to idealist theories, which invariable emphasised the primacy of ideas, and the role of the superstructure in economic, social, political and cultural life. IDEOLOGY Marxism and ideology Marxist theories of ideology developed from a critique of Hegelian idealist philosophy of consciousness on the one hand and of religion on the other. It is primarily concerned with exposing the inverted and distorted relationship ideology 27  has with the material conditions of existence. Accordingly, viewed from the outset in negative or pejorative terms ideology, in Marxist theory, is regarded as part of the superstructure. Marxism argues that there is a link between the base, that is the economic foundation of a society, and the dominant ideology which supports it. Marxist literary theory consequently argues that there is a direct link between literature and real social, political, economic and cultural conditions. Marxist approaches to literature are therefore preoccupied with describing and analysing this link. Ideology is thus the key concept of Marxist literary theory. According to historical materialism, the replacement of the power of the nobility by that of the bourgeoisie marks the advent of bourgeois democracy. Initially, political structures did not reflect the increasing power of the bourgeoisie by their accumulation of wealth, since monarchic political structures and beliefs were still in place. The bourgeoisie advocated democratic principles, the most fundamental of which is the government of the people by the people, that is, by the citizens themselves, instead of by the then still all-powerful king and the aristocracy. Other basic democratic principles are equality before the law, universal enfranchisement, freedom of speech, the emancipation of human beings. These all rest on claims to individual rights and individual freedom. In other words, in order for the bourgeoisie to establish and entrench their dominance as a class in control of the economic base, the political and ideological superstructure had to be changed to reflect the power of the base. Democratic principles had to become institutionalised in all areas of social and public life as means of providing support in bourgeoisie dominance. In this sense, democracy is conceived as a direct consequence of the underlying economic structure. One of the clearest examples of this is the way in which the rights to individual or private ownership and free trade (which replaced feudal forms of ownership which were restricted to king and the aristocratic class with direct ties to the king and who controlled all trade), came to give rise to the right of individual freedom as something natural and proper in an economic system based on private property and free trade. The claim that individual freedom is a natural right, according to Marxist theory, is an instance of bourgeois ideology. It serves the interests of the bourgeoisie as a class, and not of people in general as democratic principles ought to. Private property in practice means that property and capital become concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie while the workers become pauperised. This account of the nature of things, as given out by the bourgeoisie, is termed ‘false consciousness’. It is false because it seeks to present individual freedom as a natural human right due to all persons, but this only conceals its relationship to the material base. This base is established on the exploitation of labour. The bourgeoisie refuse to concede that the principle of individual rights functions to support the economic system of private property and the capitalist mode of production. The Marxist notion of ideology rests on the materialist premise that it is not thought that determines reality, but the opposite: real, material practices determine thought or consciousness. Ideology is commonly held to refer to sets of beliefs, attitudes and generally accepted and used meanings which are taken to be self-evident, natural facts or truths with universal applicability; in fact, these beliefs are determined by their social and economic function. This function is always to protect the interests and power position of a specific – usually dominant – social group in a specific society. 28 The notion of false consciousness implies that this falsity can be corrected by a true consciousness and that the correct theory, based on correct materialist practices, will provide the foundation for ‘true consciousness’. Marxism would then have to prove that a practice based on materialist objectivity is possible, even while capitalism still reigns supreme, and, secondly, that such a practice will be absolutely pure of ideology. This argument was put forward by Georg Lukaćs, when he defined ideology as class consciousness. Lukaćs’s definition of ideology presupposes that society consists primarily of classes and that the beliefs and attitudes of individuals are determined by the class to which they belong, through birth or education. Georg Lukaćs (Image in Public Domain) According to Lukaćs’s philosophy, the proletariat was the one class whose view of themselves within society need not be ideologically coloured but could, on the contrary, be pure. Understanding that one is repressed meant, according to Lukaćs, understanding the structure of society as a whole. Since the proletariat was the one class which could potentially be free of ideology, it could also become the subject of history, that is, the factor through which history could move towards a final eradication of class differences and social contradictions. Many facts have proved Lukaćs wrong. Modern theories which tried to account for the exact link between ideology and the individual seem to point to the conclusion that all individuals are always ‘in’ ideology. Ideology as social practice According to Louis Pierre Althusser, ideology is a structural effect which depends on certain social practices and which allows for these practices to exist unchallenged. Ideology is not merely a specific belief or lifeview located in the heads of those who support it. It is an effect of concrete social structures which contain contradictions and therefore call for generally shared attitudes or beliefs to cover up such contradictions. This is shown in the example of the claim that the right to individual ownership is a natural right. Ideologies are defined as much by their content as by the function they have in specific societies at specific times. This function is always to secure the successful functioning of social, economic or political structures which serve the interest of a dominating class only. It serves this function by obscuring contradictions in the system. It has this obscuring effect because ideology always presents itself as a natural, universal, self-evident truth. For example, whereas racism and sexism are today a generally rejected ideology, 29  the rejection does not automatically lead to the eradication of racism and sexism in many societies that publicly censure racism and sexism. In the case of racism and sexism, which contradict human equality, the enlistment of the biological function was used to rationalise the contradiction that, while European society was generally democratic, this democracy was not extended to women and the inhabitants of colonised countries, since both groups were considered naturally inferior and primitive to European men. In other words, racist and sexist ideology, validated by natural ‘science’, obscured imperialist exploitation of colonised people and the gender exploitation of women. These ideologies have also obviously been evident in South African history, even today after the colonial and apartheid period. They can now be seen in the so-called ‘clash of civilisations’, as manifest in the conflict between the West and Islam. Individuals and Ideology The link between ideology and the individual is described by Althusser as the relationship between institutionalised practices and modes of thought. Althusser tries to answer the following question: if ideology is a relation between individual thought and social, economic or political structures, how exactly does the individual fit into these structures? Althusser’s proposal also tries to explain how individuals reproduce existing ideologies, or how ideological structures reproduce and thus maintain themselves. According to Althusser, ideology is the imaginary relationship between the individual person or subject and his or her ‘real conditions of existence’, as the often-quoted formulation of Althusser states. ‘Real conditions of existence’ refer to the specific roles, functions and social and institutional structures in which an individual finds himself or herself. These functions are not the individual’s choice but are always already present, and determine the individual’s life. The relationship refers to the types of behaviour the individual adopts from his or her environment with respect to these functions and structures and it describes common behaviour such as going to school or to church, being a child or a parent, a man or a woman, an employer or employee, or a sportsperson – or any of the similarly structured social positions in which individuals find themselves. Behaviour here takes the form of specific, almost ritualistic practices such as, for example, the practice of obeying one’s teachers or of regarding a minister of the church with respect. These practices are, according to Althusser, specific to the structures in which they appear and, in fact, reproduce these structures. Althusser calls these structures ideological state apparatuses or ISAs. Ideological state apparatuses do not refer to state power or political matters as such, but to social and other institutions of power: ‘I shall call Ideological State Apparatuses a certain number of realities which present themselves to the immediate observer in the form of distinct and specialised institutions’, which include ‘the religious Ideological State Apparatus; the family ISA; the legal ISA; the political ISA; the trade union ISA; the communications ISA; the cultural ISA’ (Althusser, 1984:17). The relationship is imaginary since individuals who perform these practices believe them to be their intention or decision whereas, according to Althusser, these practices are imposed on individuals. In short, individuals’ belief that they are the controlling subject of these practices is an illusion. 30 An example from literature A poet discovers that his specific way of writing poetry is very successful. He therefore decides to develop this particular style even further and refine his poetry more and more in this direction. The poet regards this as his or her personal decision and talent. Let us presume, in this example, that the literary mode of writing is individual, intellectualistic and highly symbolic. In the society which reads the poet’s poetry, this kind of writing is regarded as sophisticated and of high quality, complexity being a sign of quality. Indeed, this is the generally held belief of the society’s academic intelligentsia, the group of people who decide on quality, awards, reviews, and who decide which books should be prescribed and taught to students of literature, etc. The poet therefore does exactly what the literary establishment expects him or her to do without realising this. The poet does not realise this, since he or she regards him- or herself as an autonomous human being, a closed subject who can make individual choices and decisions. In fact, the poet misrecognises himself or herself. This implies that being an autonomous subject, in the humanist sense, is in fact not to be in control, but rather to be subjected to structures which position individuals by prescribing and thus limiting their choices. From the above, we can see that the problem of ideology centres on the contradiction between subjective autonomy or individuality on the one hand and determining or constituting social structures, on the other. The relationship cannot be seen as crudely deterministic with human beings being utterly dependent on these structures. If that were so, no criticism nor the proposal of new ideas would be possible. It would rule out change or revolution initiated and led by individuals. In fact, it would make it impossible for any individual, social group or class who do not derive any material benefits from a prevailing ideology to propose an alternative or counter ideology that serves their interests. HEGEMONY Ideology and Hegemony In Marxist theory, the term ‘hegemony’ has two meanings. In one sense it refers to a form of domination of the ideas of one group over another. As such it was seen as the means by which the bourgeoisie established its domination over other classes and maintains its rule. In its other sense, it implies a form of consent to a particular form of leadership. Its fullest Marxist theorisation can be attributed to Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist. Antonio Gramsci in 1916 (Image in Public Domain) 31  According to Sasson (1893:201–202), for Gramsci, hegemony refers to the means, other than coercion, a class uses to exert moral and intellectual leadership over a variety of groups and classes in a society. This is done by both going beyond its narrow self-interest (by making some concession to opposing groups) and by convincing these opposing groups that its leadership is in their common interest. This provides the basis of consent, in which the hegemony of the ruling class is reproduced by means of a range of interlocking institutions, social relations and ideas. Intellectual and other organising agents are mainly responsible for this ‘web’ or ‘fabric of hegemony’ in class society. While distinct from the state and located mainly in civil society, the hegemonic activities of intellectuals overlap with and reinforce those of the state. Hegemony thus refers to the manner in which a specific ideology may become the dominant view in a particular society or era. Hegemony refers to processes of the reproduction of this dominant view and of the cooptation of public opinion. Hegemony is only possible because of broad public willingness to be subjected to this view in the belief that it serves the public’s interest. In this regard, Gramsci’s concept of hegemony suggests that it is not possible to maintain hegemony solely by means of pursuing one’s own interests. Instead, it involves a strategy in which the leadership of one class and its dominance over society is seen as being in the interest of society as a whole. Semiotically, hegemony refers to the dominant code of meaning, interpretation or behaviour in a particular culture. For example: to the question: ‘What is good literature?’ most ordinary teachers, readers and lecturers would answer that it is a formal or aesthetically well-written text. This notion of literary quality, if accepted by writers from diverse backgrounds, classes, cultures and languages, can therefore be said to be hegemonic. In this respect, hegemony is something which all groups or classes who seek to lead and secure the consent of other classes to their leadership must achieve. According to Gramsci, this does not simply involve a deliberate and cynical ideological duping of society, but a range of accommodations to opposing ideologies which secures the holders of these ideologies consent to a particular group’s rule. CONTEXTUALISED DISCUSSION In recent South African history, many supporters of protest culture opposed what they referred to as the hegemony of western and colonial aesthetics in South African culture. The use of the term ‘hegemony’ in this context appears to be an error. The colonial systems and the apartheid system were never hegemonic in the sense of Gramsci’s use of the term, since both systems relied mainly on state coercion and the exclusion of the majority of the population from its institutions to maintain the dominance of certain groups in South Africa. The post-apartheid democratic dispensation, which is based on power-sharing and strategies aimed at co-opting former adversaries and a cross-section of classes to serve in the government led and dominated by the African National Congress (in which the scope of coercion and constraint is minimised) appears to be closer to Gramsci’s meaning of the term. ACTIVITY (1) Explain the two main meanings given to the term ‘hegemony’ in Marxist theory. 32  (2) Do you think that the concept of hegemony, as outlined by Gramsci, provides a better explanation than ideological deception and coercion of how one class or group can come to dominate society? Motivate your answer. (3) Follow the link below to watch Professor Paul Fry’s Yale University lecture on ‘The Frankfort School of Critical Theory’ again [You were instructed to watch it at the beginning of this learning unit.] http://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-300/lecture-17 With your expanded knowledge of Marxism, you should be able to gain much more from the lecture than when you watched it before. 33  STUDY UNIT 4