Tom's response paper

Response: Ideology

NB. This piece is a more or less informal response to Thursday's seminar. I've included references, but have not felt the need to provide page numbers; if anyone wants these/bibliographic details, please ask. Also, I felt that responding to every point which arose in the seminar and/or reading was not necessary. Rather, I've chosen to comment on those areas which I found interesting or useful, or where I think further clarification may be needed. I've deliberately adopted a slightly provocative stance, in the hope that further discussion can be generated, so please feel free to comment.

Any discussion of 'ideology' has to take into account the material. In this sense, the DeMarrais paper was limited. They chose to emphasize the 'materialization' of ideology - the reproduction of the dominant state ideology in material terms, i.e. ritual, monumental, structural (roads etc.). There is a flaw in this. 'Materialization' implies a process of becoming material, and from this it follows that, at least in this conception of ideology/the ideological, that there is a prior state in which ideology is immaterial. This is problematic; following esp. Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty (1962) has convincingly demonstrated that the physical is a premise of human existence and experience. The physical is a fundamental given, and all action subordinate to that physicality and derived from it. Consequently, the ideological has to be expressed in material terms from the initial point - there can be no process of 'becoming' (the material is the always-already there). By definition, the ideological must be material (cf. Thomas 1996; Tilley 1994).

Following from this. The concept of ideology itself seems to imply a distinct modernist leaning. All the authors we read for this seminar are arguably working within a modernist tradition, esp. the Marxists. Consequently, they attempt to distinguish between two zones of experience, the Cartesian ideational v. the material (mind v. body). This is also evident in the DeMarrais article, working within a processual/positivist (ultimately modernist?) paradigm. However, the existence of a discrete mental | physical divide has been critiqued on a number of levels (maybe post-structuralist, arguably feminist {objectivity is male subjectivity?}); once again, I'd like to bring in Heidegger. The ideational has an inherently material aspect (thinking happens in a context of physicality), and the material is always loaded with the ideational (all material is imbued with meaning). Where am I going with this? Simply that 'ideology' has unfortunate connotations, and is perhaps not the best tag for talking about what it seems to be we wish to talk about (power structures in society?).

Following from this - is ideology actually a useful term? In class we discussed Eagleton's desire to limit the extent to which social relations can be described as ideological, and also whether or not he is contradictory in attempting this. A broad consensus seemed to emerge and, whilst we never defined it fully, arguably we were working on the basis that all social relations can be understood to be 'ideological' (the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, yet also the Professor and his student). I would strongly assert that there are better ways of describing these relations which avoid the unfortunate intellectual connotations of 'ideology.' Althusser, presumably following Gramsci, mentioned Ideological State Apparatuses, and arguably this provides a way in. These apparatuses impose structures, or ways of working which delimit and prescribe behaviors (taboo - some things can be done, others are not possible as they contradict the structure). A better metaphor for this may be the ?Foucauldian one - behavior as prescribed by grammar. There is that which can be done|said, and that which can't. Here, social power resides in the formation of the grammar, in the organisation of the underlying logic. It is in the re-negotiation of the underlying logic that power shifts. Moreover, following point 1 above, this logic is inherently material (the organisation of a forum; a layout of a classroom; wearing a suit to a job interview), and is re-negotiated/contested through material.

More to follow.

casey: Good stuff, Tom. A quick response to your first bullet point (Do I suspect that you were being deliberately provocative here?). It's a bit too late to debate Heideggerian notions of the physical, so I suppose I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but I think DeMarrais et al.'s focus on materialization was one of the few positive things about the article. While I think they "completely" failed to deliver the promise to focus on ongoing process, their wording encouraged me to think about ideology not as something static, rigid, or fixed but rather as fluid, dynamic, and potentially malleable. Eagleton hints at a similar view of ideology in his very first (of countless, it seems) definition of ideology: the process of production of meanings, signs, and values in social life. The emphasis on process--even if it's just conceptual, since I don't think either author really capitalized on the idea--might allow for the material manifestations of ideology to have 'agency' and to operate in ways other than intended (a point you made in class). So, I like the use of the word to think with, even if it tanked in the article.

tom: I suspect I largely agree with you. I have no real problem with the term materialization, just with the way it was being utilized in the article. There are two ways of looking at it as a process, arguably; either with DeMarrais et al. as a one-way manifestation (ideology --> material), or from a slightly different perspective. Specifically, it would seem possible to see materialization as the re-negotiation of ideology through material, but not necessarily having primacy over that material. That is, the materialization of ideology as an ongoing discursive process - am I making sense? An example may be less than helpful, but: the potter works within the tradition (ideology), which is moreover demonstrably material. However, each new pot is crafted in a subtly different manner according to context and his agency, thereby re-making the dominant structure (ideology) through practice, yet also re-defining it - materializing? It's entirely possible that this discussion has reached the end of its natural life. But yes, Heideggerian notions of the physical can probably wait for another day.