Critical review of the text “New ideological struggle.”, written by S.Karaganov. (original) (raw)
2016
Instead of predicted end of ideology and ideological competition due to presumed 15-20 years ago final victory of Western liberalism and democracy the world is sliding into the new ideological struggle. There are many reasons for it: appeal of the West is declining, the democratization and renationalization of international polities push to the fore new leaders and most of them profess traditional and nationalist values. New post-European values did not get hold in Russian society seeking old values it has been cut off during the 70 years of the Communist experiment and also due to the fact that the West pursued a neo-Weimar policy of geopolitical expansion, which provoked defensive reaction to everything coming from the West. The intensity of the new ideological struggle is exacerbated by the moral and ideological vacuum created by modernization, which pushes aside many traditional religious and moral values. Author concludes that mutual resentment between Russia and Europe is quite strong right now, but it's better to build good-neighborly relations while understanding that we are different. And it's needed to try hard to avoid a new systemic military-political confrontation that is desired by many forces.
What Is Ideology? An Attempt at Reactualising a Category of Social Critique
For more than thirty years, the concept of ideology virtually disappeared from philosophical and sociological discourse. It is only recently that there have been attempts to reactivate this concept as a central category of political critique – as it was until the 1970s. In this text I start with an attempt to illuminate the reasons why the concept of ideology, which I believe can serve as a central conceptual tool for diagnosing and analysing the pathologies of the political, was forgotten for years. The main part of the text focuses on an attempt at an actualising reconstruction of this category: a reconstruction that should be capable of meeting the standards of conceptual analysis as defined primarily in modern analytic philosophy. This attempt is accompanied by a discussion of concrete examples of actual ideological constructions as well as by an analysis of their political functions and effects. In this discussion I focus on ideological constructions that have had a significant negative impact on the process of establishing liberal democracy in the former communist countries in Eastern Europe, and especially in Bulgaria.
Sungur Savran, The return of barbarism: Fascism in the 21st century (1): Historical roots: classical fascism Mustafa Kemal Coşkun, Is fascism a non-class ideology? Kurtar Tanyılmaz, Turkey’s economic crisis Armağan Tulunay, The greatest revolutionary woman in history: Rosa Luxemburg Burak Gürel, The road to capitalist restoration in the People’s Republic of China: Maoism, bureaucracy, and mass movements Celia Hart, Welcome … Trotsky Sungur Savran, Captive Bolshevik: Nâzım Hikmet and Stalinism Praxis Collective, How did the Iranian revolution transmute? Araz Bağban, A revolution between two dictatorships Tamás Krausz, The Hungarian Soviet Republic from a century-long perspective Katerina Matsa, October 1917 and the everyday life of the Soviet masses Jock Palfreeman, Marx and human rights
2018
The concept of ideology appears elusive, in it are combined philosophical, political, sociological, historical, epistemological, pedagogical interpretations. This short essay tries to give an interpretation in light of the contribution offered by the reflections of Marx and hermeneutical philosophy and, especially in light of the international phenomena in the Mediterranean and Middle East and recent economic crises, it overcomes the vision of that particular current of late '900 that wanted the era of ideologies as a land no longer fertile and destined for sunset.
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.
Ideology An Introduction • TERRY EAGLETON VERSO London· New York
Consider, as a final example, the attitude of contemporary American liberals to the unending hopelessness and misery of the lives of the young blacks in American ciries. Do we say that these people must be helped because they are our fellow human beings? We may, but it is much more persuasive, morally as well as politically, to describe them as our fellow Americans -to insist that it is outrageous that an American should live wichout hope.
Critique of Neo-Stalinism: Notes on Luciano Canfora and Domenico Losurdo
2013
If I would have more time to speak I would open my talk with a reminder of one of the last great controversies, maybe the last great controversy inside western Marxism before the decline of the socialist Left in the 80's and 90's -with a reminder of the debate between E.P. Thompson and Perry Anderson on the poverty of theory and Louis Althussers theoretical Stalinism. In what follows I am commencing this thread in an indirectly manner and you will see some remnants of the debate in the following, In my talk I will wrestle not only with the Legacy of 20 th -Century Marxism and Socilism -I will wrestle as well with the debates, the international Left has conducted in the first decade of the 21 st -Century. I do this in four parts and the first part is the mentioning of the intensifying transformation of liberal democracy.
Rakovsky Center and Redmed, International Anti-Imperialist and Anti-War Declaration Sungur Savran, Ukraine: NATO’s proxy war Levent Dölek, The myth of Russian imperialism: Why neutrality on the Ukraine war is wrong RM Editorial Board, Issue 50: our very special issue Sungur Savran, The age of egoism Özgür Öztürk, The closing of the age of Post-Marxism Hasan Refik, Stalinism as the meek enemy of the bourgeoisie Savas Mikhail-Matsas, Trotsky as philosopher
The Uncertain Future of Ideology: Rereading Marx
The Sociological Quarterly, 1994
Throughoput its history, "ideology" (the concept and theory) served as social science's foil, an opposing standard against which it defined its own knowledge-as-truth. As social science since mid-century has undergone changes in its idea of itself and its methods of inquiry, the theory of ideology has served as register, visably recording these changes. Works by the structuralists and poststructuralists, especially Althusser and Foucault, forced upon social theorists a profound rethinking of power and its operations and moved "ideology" away from the theory of false consciousness towards a view of ideology as cultural practice. For some, ideology theory is obsolete (due to its classical roots as "false consciousness") or redundant (due to its links to "culture"). Despite the merits of these arguments, a provisional argument on behalf of ideology theory is offered.