The Theory of Ideology: Some Comments on Mepham

whether they are considered as individuals or subgroups, spontaneously create ahierarc~ic structure. All primate communities are hierarchic structures, otherwise they would not be communities. For this reason I believe that a hierarchy of responsible leadership, ~adres and teachers will continue to function in the develoPment and stabilizing of a grass-roots democratic communism in China (providing […]

Personal Autonomy and Historical Materialism

PiRSONAL AUTONOMY a: HISTORICAL MATERIALISM Richard Archer The following is largely a criticism of some of the mistakes and certain tendencies antithetical to an historical materialist conception of the world found in Eoss Poole’s paper ‘Freedom and Alienation’. (Radical Philosophy, Winter 1975). Basically the criticism is this: because Poole never entirely leaves the framework employed […]

Rancière and Althusser

Hegelian Marxism than to the relations that exist in Althusser’s thought. He attacks the latter as ‘philosophy’s police mentality’ but no more. The difference is that between a clear and rigorous analytic distinction between the concepts that combine into a theory – a distinction that Al thus.ser tries to maintain – and a relationship of […]

The production of moral ideology

The pl’oducl.ion of mOl’al ideology Andrew Collier Vly aim in this paner is to throw some light on the nature of moral i~eology hv examining its origin and function in terms of nsvchoanalytical theory, as well as of ‘1″rxi sm, ‘Iv assumntions at the outset are that anv moral irteologv serves a socially renressive function, […]

Discussion: Rancière and Ideology

DISCUSSION Ranciere~a~d Ideology The article by Jacques Ranciere, ‘On the Theory of Ideologv’ (Radical Philosophy 7) is one of the most powerful critiques of Althusser’s work so far to have been produced from the left. Given the wide reception that Althusser’s work is now receiving in Britain it is vital that the issues which Ranciere […]

Marxism and Morality

Ma..xism and mo..alily Tony Skillen You just about need a pass to piss. Tha t a.in’ t no joke. You raise your little hand i f you want to go wee-wee. Then wait maybe half an hour ’till they find a relief-man. And they write it down every time too – cause you’re supposed to […]

Liberal democractic ideology under strain: Allende's Chile and 'The Economist'

Libe..al democ..alic ideology. unde.. sl..aln Allende’s Chile and IThe Economlsl’ John Krige In political, philosophical and ideological struggle, the words are also weapons and explosives or tranquillizers and poisons. Louis Althusserl This paper 2 explores some of the ways in which the ideological discourse associated with liberal democratic theory masks our cognitive access to social […]

Common Sense

Common sen’se State power conceal what it doesn’t want to know a ‘theoretical’ laboratory which has ‘been found to be well-equipped for this universal function of non-thought, the effects of which can be spotted as much in the discourse of Marxist scholars as in that of professional revolutionaries. ——————————————————–(Note added February 1973) Correct ideas, says […]

Who Makes History?: Althusser's Anti-Humanism

Whomakas hislory? Allhassel”s anli-hamanis.. John Mepham Introduction I am very much aware that in what follows I solve no philosophical problems. I attempt some conceptual clarifications and I propose some interpretations of theses of Louis Althusser. I hope this will at least make it possible to pose some problems more clearly than they are posed […]

The Question of Hegemony

TIB QUBSTIOI or BB8BI1011 G. lowell Smith The question of hegemony can be posed as a political problem. How does it come about that a class or group struggling to free itself from oppression or exploitation remains subordinated politically to the group which oppresses or exploits it? And how does it break free from this […]

Class, Consciousness, Control, Communication

Against this apparatus, which does not merely reproduce bourgeois relations in the form of ideological representations but controls access to knowledge and the instruments of power, the subordinate social groups have, traditionally, little to offer. However, two things can happen or be made to happen. One is that the hegemonic apparatus, so massively and yet […]

The Marxist Theory of Truth

THE mARHI5T THEORY OF TRUTH Peter Binns One of the main problems facing marxist theory is that of its own status. On the one hand the theory of the formation of ideology seems to suggest that all beliefs are relative to the believer’s society; while on the other hand there is the assumption that marxism […]

The Theory of Ideology in Capital

IHE IHEORY OF ·IDEOlOIiV In [APIIAL John mepham •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• “There must be some way out of here” Said the joker to the thief “There’s too much confusion I can’t get no relief” (Dylan) Where do incorrect ideas come from? In What is to be Done? Lenin argues that “the spontaneous development of the working-class movement […]

Globalization is ordinary: The transnationalization of cultural studies

The institutionalization and codification of Cultural Studies continue apace. This is evident, for example, in the recurring debates and anxieties about disciplinary boundaries, artistic and ethical values, and the de-radicalization of Cultural Studies itself. Meanwhile, an apparently endless stream of publications – readers, textbooks and collections of (more or less) concrete analyses – feeds the […]