Reconciling the Two Principal Meanings of the Notion of Ideology: The Example of the Concept of the `Spirit of Capitalism (original) (raw)
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Capitalist subjectivity can be thought of as being structured by mass-society and ideologies. This seems especially apparent in times of crisis. To a certain extend we can grasp these ideologies as illusions of the collective mind. However, I’m concerned that this perspective is too general to describe the specific character of modern-type ideologies such as nationalism, anti-Semitism and racism. The critical theorists Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer developed a differentiated concept which can help us to understand the specifics of the above ideologies. In this essay I will point to an as of yet unresolved contradiction within their concept. My aim is to resolve this contradiction by reconstruction, using Detlev Claussen’s notion of religions of everyday life (Alltagsreligionen) in the process. After this I will make a case for renewing the concept of ideology as an analytic tool and I will end by sketching some preliminary thoughts on its use in
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The study of the notion of ideology shows that this corpus lends itself to a wide variety of different definitions. A certain opposition runs all the way through this set of definitions. Ideology would appear to be torn between a conception that emphasises its distortion and dissimulation dimensions and another conception which views as a set of social representations. After rapidly presenting the main characteristics of these two polar extremes, Paul Ricoeur’s suggestion that these two conceptions can be united is discussed and illustrated by the concept of the ‘spirit of capitalism’, as defined in the book by Boltanski and Chiapello (1999). It is shown that this constitutes an ideology which is in fact an attempt to encompass both these conceptions. It is also shown that the concept of ‘trial’ as proposed in that book helps greatly to understand how this reconciliation is actually possible.
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This article outlines Marx’s understanding of ideology. It traces his historical-materialist approach to investigating the relationship between ideas, material reality, and modes of production through several of his works. This allows us to take in the theory’s nuances about life and consciousness, as well as to draw out examples that are still relevant and applicable today. In particular, we focus on the theory of commodity fetishism and the function of the wage in producing the bourgeois ideological conception of the atomized individual. Proposing a move from “true/false” to “correct/incorrect,” the end of the article returns to the importance of popularizing and promoting Marxist ideology to understand and transform the world today, as revolutionaries have done throughout the socialist struggle to break the chains of exploitation and oppression.
Revisiting Concepts of Ideology (Rivista Polemós 1/2016)
Le illusioni della mente collettiva
Capitalist subjectivity can be thought of as being structured by mass-society and ideologies. This seems especially apparent in times of crisis. To a certain extend we can grasp these ideologies as illusions of the collective mind. However, I’m concerned that this perspective is too general to describe the specific character of modern-type ideologies such as nationalism, anti-Semitism and racism. The critical theorists Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer developed a differentiated concept which can help us to understand the specifics of the above ideologies. In this essay I will point to an as of yet unresolved contradiction within their concept. My aim is to resolve this contradiction by reconstruction, using Detlev Claussen’s notion of religions of everyday life (Alltagsreligionen) in the process. After this I will make a case for renewing the concept of ideology as an analytic tool and I will end by sketching some preliminary thoughts on its use in this fashion.
What Is Ideology? An Attempt at Reactualising a Category of Social Critique
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Ideology is a key subject of inquiry for the scholars of political science, media studies, sociology, philosophy and other disciplines of Social Sciences. It is excessively used in interpretation, formulation and functioning of many states' political systems. Yet, the literature on the concept of ideology seems wanting in content and analyses. Ideology has been ascribed as something that the 'other' nations are afflicted with. It was a concept that was associated with Germany and Italy during the Second World War and USSR in the Cold War in the last century. And it was also the reason why ideology had acquired much literature during these tumultuous times. But ideology as a concept needs scrutiny which is the aim of this paper. The paper argues that no state in the international system functions without the influence of some significant ideology, whether it is United States of America or Uganda. It also argues that all nations in the international system utilize and operate on some sort of ideology. It also attempts to differentiate between political, economic and moral ideologies. The paper goes on to capture the various aspects, features and dimensions of the term ideology.