Theme 2: Ideology and alienation

1
Theme 2 Ideology and alienation

• Ideological power
• Subject positions
• Socialisation
• Hegemony
• Doxia, -doxy
• Alienation

2
Social power - cultural values

• Social power is used to form hierarchical
  relations (categories, positions) between
  dominated and subordinated groups in society
• The dominating group in certain community uses
  power to subordinate the less powerful social
  actors in this community, and to define who are
  excluded
• Cultural values are means to categorise social
  positions
• by means of evaluating good and bad behaviour,
  rules and habits

3
Subject positions as cultural and ideological
constructions

• Subjectivity is, from the point of cultural
  creativity, understood as based on the
  meaningfulness of my existence
• to become a conscious subject- able to act
• Subjectivity is ideologically defined as
  constituted by the (given) social structure (cf.
  language as a signifying structural system)
• to be subjected to the order of the system
• Subject positions are ideologically constructed
  placements in the social power field
• or, according to Althusser, ideological
  discourses construct subject positions as places
  for subjects to make their life sensible, or to
  give them a placement inside the given structure
• S ? s (I/i)

4
Ideological power

• Ideology consists of value judgements on how our
  culture can be defined as including the best
  qualifications (positively defined ideology)
• Inclusively, ideology is based at largest on our
  world view or the way of thinking (consciousness)
  according to which our value structure is formed
  (see Mannheim Ideology and Utopia)
• e.g., Judaism, Christianity, Islamism, western
  values, capitalism, socialism
• The hierarchy of value structure includes
  criteria for exclusion of those (worst) values
  which are inferior in terms of cultural capital
  of our community (negatively defined ideology)
• values of minorities, marginal citizens,
  non-citizens
• Ideology is structured by means of consciousness
  value categories can be judged by means of
  correct and false consciousness (Marx)

5
Socialisation from the perspective of ideology

• Ideology is structured by the society and adopted
  by individuals in the socialisation process
• Socialisation the institutional ways to make
  individuals social beings
• in processes in which the structural order of
  domination in internalised
• Habits - bringing up children inside the family
  structure (parental power)
• Rules - formal education inside the schooling
  institutions (teaching power)
• Legislation strictly defined borderlines of
  norms to follow (citizen rights and
  responsibilities)
• Means of socialisation cultivation and
  subordination
• A problem the linkage between ideology and
  alienation (subordination)

6
Cultural power - hegemony

• Dominant values are maintained by means of social
  authority (ideological power)
• Value qualifications are hierarchically ordered
  according to ascendant/descendant subject
  positions
• Gramsci intelligence ? meritocracy ?hegemonic
  bloc
• Struggle of power by means of consciousness
• Common sense understanding
• Taken-as-granted opinions
• Conscious meaning-forming categorisations
• Publicity as the formation arena for
  meaning-construction

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A definition of hegemony(Antonio Gramsci)

• A continuous process of formation and superseding
  of unstable equilibrium
• between the interests of the fundamental group
  and those of the subordinated groups
• in which the interests of the dominant group
  prevail (but only up to a certain point)
  (Gramsci Prison Notebooks (1968) see Barker
  2000, 61).
• Continued in discussions by
• Williams and Hall (cultural studies)
• Neo-Gramscian studies (e. Laclau and mouffe)

8
Publicity as an arena for hegemonic discourses

• Understanding, expressions, interpretations
• Agreements, different arguments,
  counter-arguments
• Definitions, statements, convictions, convincing
  arguments, opinions
• What is true, what is false?
• Meaningfulness, sensibility, truthfulness.
  consciousness
• Dominating and discriminated opinions
• Majority culture ? universal values hegemonic
  power
• Minority cultures contesting values -
  opposition

9
Ideological means for strengthening hegemonic
rule of majority culture and subordination of the
minorities

• Expressing experiences
• Advertising
• Manipulation
• Negotiating
• Legitimising the correctness of rule by means of
  certificates
• Judgement by means of expertise
• Producing true consciousness
• A problem how the objectivity of knowledge can
  be guaranteed?

10
The problem of heterodoxy in politics of culture

• Cultural doxy
• There is only one truth true cultural values
  are unanimous and universally agreed
• Orthodoxy
• purification of values to represent true
  consciousness is demanded as justified
• because
• the correctness of values represented by the
  earlier dominating group is now argued
• Two contesting value constructions
• Cf. paradigmatic crisis in sciences (Kuhn)
• Heterodoxy
• many contesting value categorisations every
  individual have his or her own truth at least
  as far as questions of subjectivity, identity,
  meaningfulness and taste are considered

11
Aspects of alienation

• Meaninglessness - cultural dimension of
  alienation
• Powerlessness - political dimension of alienation
• Social exclusion social dimension of alienation
• (see Melvin Seeman)
• to become stranger to ones inner self (I/me)
• to be excluded from the social member group
• to be without possibilities for political
  participation
• restricted citizen rights in terms of
• opinion expression
• participating by voting
• interest group representation

12
Alienation and membership

• Inner an outer circles in membership categories
  the core group as related to
• discrimination
• marginalisation
• exclusion
• Dimensions of alienation from my (subjective)
  perspective
• I and the Other we and others
• Strangers them not known by us
• Outsiders those who do not belong to the member
  group
• Aliens ???

13
The membership circle
14
A classical definition of alienation Marx

• According to Marx alienation means that
• oneself loses the meaningful relation to his/her
  own work as a productive capacity
• The orientation toward work and its products turn
  from substantial to instrumental
• Products of the work are used to serve other
  intentions than the inner welfare of the working
  person himself or herself
• The value of the work is taken into the service
  of the economic accumulation of capital

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A classical definition of alienation Durkheim

• Anomie (alienation) means a social situation in
  which structural rules for the stabile societal
  functioning (to keep the equilibrium of the
  social system as balanced) are missing or changed
  unclear (confused) so that the process of
  socialisation cannot be successfully managed by
  social institutions