Mass Media and the Concept of Ideology

Transcription

1 Mass Media and the Concept of Ideology By Tim Novak Media and Social Theory New School for Social Research November 12, 2005

2 It has been suggested that the whole of Marxism can be summed up in Marx s (1978) now famous declaration, The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles (473). This is, of course, an oversimplification. But the fact remains, with class conflict understood to be the driving force of history, Marx not only effectively challenged the Hegelian orthodoxy of his time, he also put forward a deceptively simple assertion that became a fixed point from which history itself was made. If then, as Marx said, history is inexorably driven toward conflict and the eventual liberation of the working classes, how do we explain the apparent triumph of capitalism? Among the various answers offered, perhaps Marxist theories of ideology offer some of the most intriguing explanations. Indeed, with the ever-increasing ubiquity mass communications, whether implicitly or explicitly, Marx s concept of ideology has taken on renewed currency in terms of providing at least a partial accounting for the apparent absence of any significant challenge to capitalism s ascendancy. Historically, Marx (1978) claims that the capitalist bourgeoisie is unique in the sense that it significantly deepened the extent of oppression and subjugation. By breaking up the feudal ties that bound man to his natural superiors, there was left no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous cash payment (475). Under these conditions, Marx was convinced that with increasing levels of economic tyranny, the capitalist mode of production would inevitably bring about its own crisis. Thus the contradictory logic of capitalism, Marx says, cuts from under its feet the very foundations on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable (483). In short, given the internal logic of capitalism, from Marx s point of view, a proletarian revolution is practically a historical certainty. And yet, despite the fact that through rebellion The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains, and the whole world to gain, so far 2

3 at least, no such movement appears to be forthcoming. For this reason, then, the broader cultural context (i.e., ideology) within which capitalist exploitation is exercised needs to be more fully understood. And although Marx himself never fully operationalized the concept of ideology, he nevertheless opens a line of inquiry that builds on the understanding that the economic base is in some way held in place by the cultural superstructure. To further examine what Marx means by this, it will be useful to first consider in more detail Marx s conception of human consciousness. For Marx, the economic relations of production form the basis of all social organization. In addition to the implications this view holds for the nature of class struggle, in making this claim, Marx also rejected the prevailing philosophical idealism of his day, which believed that social being is intellectually determined. Arguing against the notion that historical development is somehow rooted in the realm of speculation Marx believed that because consciousness cannot be separated from the material facts of existence, there is a necessary unity between mind (consciousness) and being (material conditions). This connection is clarified by Marx (1978) in his now famous admonition, saying that It is not the consciousness of man that determines their being but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness (4). From this perspective, human consciousness, or what social actors take to be objective reality, is understood by Marx to ultimately be conditioned by material existence. Thus for all practical purposes reality, as we experience it, is a social construction. And it is this process that Marx describes when he speaks of commodity fetishism. So that, in his essay, The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof, Marx borrows the anthropological term fetishism to describe the process where cultures created attributions of demons or spirits and then found themselves controlled by their very own mental products. Similarly with commodity fetishism, social relations between men 3

4 come to appear as the natural property of things. This occurs when workers fail to recognize that commodities acquired their value, in fact, from human labor. As a consequence, Marx observes, A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men s labor appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labor (320). For Marx, therefore, it should be self-evident that the actual value of a given commodity is equivalent to the labor power necessary to it. But once the commodity becomes fetishsized, the value determined by the aggregate of subjective social interactions is viewed to be somehow natural. Hence, to the degree that subjective relationships are recast into something independent of the workers themselves, workers internalize a false perception wherein the sum total of their own labor is presented to them as a social relation, existing not between themselves, but between the products of their labor (320). Since workers focus solely on systems of exchange, they fail to perceive the essential relationship between the appropriation of their labor power and the accumulation of profit. In the end, social relationships, which are by no means fixed in nature, come to be understood as given, or reified. Here, by extending the logic of Marx s understanding of commodity fetishism, the contribution of Lukács is significant. That is, as Lukács details in his essay, Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat, not only does the dominance of commodity exchange under capitalism obscure the underlying social nature of economic relations of production, it has a powerful long-term effect on the consciousness of individuals, especially the working class. The commodity relation, Lukács (1971) says, stamps its imprint upon the whole consciousness of man; his qualities and abilities are no longer an organic part of his personality, they are things which he can own or dispose of like the various objects of the external world (100). And this process of objectification, or what Lukács defines more 4

5 precisely as reification, empties individual subjects of any meaning and agency to such an extent that it impacts on the total outer and inner life of society (84). So, where reification progressively sinks more deeply, more fatefully and more definitively into the consciousness of man, individual subjects lose touch with the essential, objective reality of their existence (93). In effect, reification thus creates modes of thought that can be regarded to have important ideological consequences. That is to say, this mistaken perception, this reified or false consciousness is by no means inconsequential. More than being merely a superimposed illusion, these ways of thinking and being in the world serve to sustain the basic categories of thought to which capitalism owes its very existence. Indeed, modern capitalism not only rests on alienating labor power from the value it produces, but, above all, capitalism s prolongation is proportional to the degree that it conceals from man s consciousness their true place in relations of production. Accepting that the fundamental categories of human thought are rooted in material existence, it follows that the working class is incapable of fully grasping the true nature of its position within relations of capitalist production. Having conceptualized the essential unity between consciousness and material being, Marx theorizes a more precise causal link between dominant and subordinate classes relative to cultural production, when, in what is perhaps his most definitive statement on the subject, Marx (1978) writes: The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e., the class that is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force Hence among other things they rule also as thinkers and producers of ideas and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age. Thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch (172-73). And insofar as ideology is expressed in terms of cultural representation, or the distribution of 5

6 ideas, the correlation between culture, media, and ideology marks a major theme in subsequent discussions related to the larger process of domination and social control. Thus, while throughout most of the twentieth century, later interpreters of Marx have long debated the degree to which Marx s concept of ideology is, or is not, economically determinist in character, there is overall agreement that the concept of ideology demands a more dialectical understanding of the complex relationship between the ideological superstructure and the economic base of modern capitalist society. From this perspective, the work of Louis Althusser stands out as an important transitional figure. That is, against the notion of ideology as a repressively imposed set of descriptive dictates, Althusser works out a theory of ideology that conceptualizes ideology as a cultural apparatus that functions to secure the consent of subordinate groups to their own domination by obscuring the placement of the subject within broader structures of domination and subordination. For Althusser (1969) therefore, ideology (as a system of mass representations) is indispensable in any society if men are to be formed, transformed, and equipped to respond to the demands of their conditions of existence (235). Althusser (1977) thus reformulates earlier Marxist analysis to suggest that beyond the simple imposition of a dominant ideology on subordinate classes, ideology works to constitute the individual within structures of domination whereby the individual is interpellated as a free subject in order that he shall submit freely to the commandment of the Subject, i.e., in order that he shall freely accept his subjection (169). In all, Althusser can be credited with moving toward a conception of ideology as a process through which instilled cultural orientations, in effect, reconcile subordinate classes to their place within social relations of domination. While Althusser went a long way toward working out a theory of ideology designed to rid Marxism from some of its more deterministic tendencies, it is perhaps the work of Antonio Gramsci 6

7 (1971) that has come to be the most widely influential in this regard. In particular, it is Gramsci s exposition on the theory of hegemony that informs much of today s conception of ideology as a dynamic cultural process so that domination is understood to be consensual. From this perspective, consent refers to the difference between coercive control, which is manifest through direct force or the threat of force, and consensual control, which arises when individuals willingly or voluntarily assimilate the worldview or hegemony of the dominant group. Which means that controlling interests are articulated in terms of prescribed fields of symbolic discourse that over time allow relations of domination to appear just, natural, or simply the way it is. In short, hegemonic domination works precisely because it is not noticed. This, as Raymond Williams (1977) explains, means that hegemonic domination represents a saturation of the whole process of living to such a depth that the pressures and limits of what can ultimately be seen as a specific economic, political, and cultural system seem to most of us the pressures and limits of simple experience and common sense (110). Ideological-hegemonic outcomes are thus secured primarily through cultural mechanisms whose symbolic practices are embedded in the entire variety of capitalist cultural production (e.g., popular music, television, etc.). As a result, the mass media in particular has come to occupy the central position within current understandings of how cultural texts operate to sustain relations of domination within modern capitalist cultural systems. In terms of the mass media and popular culture, the mass production of symbolic discourse can be understood to establish an ideological-symbolic framework that, in effect, evokes the appearance of normalcy. Seen in this light, domination is achieved insofar as the entire cultural field seems to in some way legitimately represent the values, interests, and desires of everyone in society. All of which goes a long way to explain how ideological-hegemonic domination works to cultivate a willingness on the part of subordinate groups to 7

8 often embrace social arrangements that work against their own interests. It has been argued that Marx underestimated the degree to which, as a result of increased exploitation, subordinate classes might find the intellectual resources to exercise some collective agency. The question though, is not so much whether or not it is theoretically possible to establish countercultural pockets of resistance. The real question today seems to be whether such a desire exists in quantities that could reasonably constitute a significant oppositional force capable of igniting a genuine social transformation. With few expectations, therefore, ideology continues to be a remarkably effective tool in sustaining capitalist relations of domination. If anything, with the continued expansion of capitalism on a global scale, and with the widespread view toward globalization as somehow a given, the ideological underpinnings of capitalism would appear more operative than ever. In truth, as long as labor remains alienated, exploitation will persist. Marx understood that meaningful social transformation can only come about through corresponding changes in the economic base. And before such a transformation is even possible, Marx tells us, existing categories of thought need to be thrown into question. So, for example, employing a more Gramscian approach, it could be argued that today s simple left-right ideological framework (e.g., Democrats and Republicans) produces its own categories of thought conducive to sustaining relations of domination and subordination. That is, the notion of political pluralism works to disguise the centrality of capitalist domination by making it appear as though democratic debate is actually being carried out. In this sense, by framing all competing definitions of reality within the dominant class s range, our contemporary political system achieves its ideological effect by reinforcing the common sense perception that there are viable alternatives to what might otherwise appear to be a monolithic, and thereby illegitimate political framework. Through 8

9 the repetition of debates couched within simple left-right oppositions, what the public perceives to be political pluralism turns out to be firmly anchored within the narrowly confined categories of thought reflective of broader capitalist imperatives. As such, the whole assumption of pluralism is itself ideological. In this regard, it s useful to recall C. Wright Mills (1956), who made the point that encouraging the public to believe all social ills are soluble within existing ideological categories obscures the structure of power as a whole so that "the hopeful ideal of balance often masquerades as a description of fact (245-46). This perception of pluralism thus serves as an ingenious moral device invoked, in perfect sincerity, by privileged groups in order to justify and maintain their dominant position (246). So in conclusion, even while Marx may have failed to predict capitalism s demise, I hope to have illustrated that on the question of ideology, all indications are that Marx was right. With capitalism now expanding on a global scale, to dismiss Marx out of hand, therefore, doesn t address, much less change the fact that, Marxist understandings of ideology are perhaps more relevant today than it has ever been. 9

10 References Althusser, Louis Lenin and Philosophy, and Other Essays. Translated by Ben Brewster. New York: Monthly Review Press For Marx. Translated by Ben Brewster. New York: Pantheon Books. Gramsci, Antonio Selections From the Prison Notebooks. New York: International Publishers. Lukács, Georg History and Class Consciousness. Cambridge: MIT Press. Mills, C. Wright The Power Elite. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Marx, Karl Karl Marx: Early Writings. London: Pelican Books The Marx-Engels Reader. 2nd Edition. Edited by Robert C. Tucker. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Williams, Raymond Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10