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CC2015 Sociology, Culture and Modernity notes WITH few MOCK QUESTIONS!!!
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Gramsci & AlthusserQuestions:
1. Gramsci: Main differences between traditional intellectuals and organic intellectuals
2. Gramsci: Explain cultural hegemony and counter-hegemony, and make examples
3. 1 similar and 1 different point between Bourdieu and Althusser
Introduction
Marxism-historical materialism (sociological sense)
1. Marx: "A coherence arises in human history" ⇒reject “human history is simply a series
of accidents”
2. Historical materialism is the "view of the course of history which seeks the ultimate
cause and the great moving power of all important historic events in the economic
development of society, in the changes in the modes of production and exchange, in the
consequent division of society into distinct classes, and in the struggles of these classes
against one another.
1. Subjective culture: interpellation but little agency
- Interperllation: pre-existing social structures construct individuals human organism as
subjects. Althusser thinks the “state apparatuses” (family, school, government) keep
informing us the role of them and us in the society to maintain the social order
- Relevance to Adorno: Adorno didn’t focus on the nations but cultural industry as a state
apparatuses, rather he states that the mass media plays a powerful complementary role in
the creation of a passive consumer BUT, Adorno also insist on the concept of subjectivity
that was not limited to an institutional definition. <->Althusser: Police as the one
reinforces the ideology of democracy and law.
2. Objective culture: hegemony/ideology(education)
3. Social structure: social inequality under capitalism
Marxism and cultural theories
Althusser: Topology of Marxism
Base/infrastructure:
1. Productive forces
- Means of production: using tools, equipment/raw material to produce
- Human labor power: Needs strength/skill/knowledge to utilize means of production
2. Relations of production (Marxists’ focus)
- Technical(subject-object) = relations of ownership ->who owns big data?
- Social(subject-subject) = relations of class
⇒two points increasingly overlap
Superstrucutre:
, 1. Politico-legal: state and law
2. Ideology: education, family, church etc…
Conventional Marxist: base determines superstructure
New Marxist: agency
Cultural Marxists
Gramsci and Althusser->revision Marxism
1. Apply more nuance to the role of culture-> seeking for more autonomy in the
superstructure (like Adorno)
- Relative autonomy of the superstructure
- Reciprocal action of the superstructure on the base
2. Explaining the absence of the revolution Marx predicted
3. The humanist Marx (new Marxist) vs. the strucutralist Marx (old Marxist)
- Subjective culture vs. objective culture
Althusser
Influences: theory on ideology- ISA,RSA
Althusser’s RQ:
Q: How is the reproduction of the conditions of production possible?
Q: How is the economic base legitimized and thus reproduced?
A: Ideological state apparatuses
⇒ If you want to reproduce labor force, you have to keep your worker happy. Althusser is
more interested in the relations of reproduction
Q: How are the class relations reproduced?
- The superstructure comes in: the superstructure reinforces inequality
- You need to legitimize inequality, otherwise people will protest
⇒Culture therefore plays a big role
Marx and Althusser
, - Epistemological break in Marx’s thought
- Starting point: base-superstrucutre model ⇒But no vulgar materialism
- Superstrucutre is relatively autonomous and necessary for the survival of the base
- Base = determination in the last instance
Role ISA: how is capitalism reproduced?
- All ISA contributes to the reproduction of the conditions of productions(here:capitalism)
- Each ISA helps to reinforce inequality, each in a specialized way
- The ideology of the ISA is the ideology of the dominant classes
⇒contradictions: remainders previous classes&proletariat
Dominant ISA:
- pre-capitalism:religious ISA(church)
- capitalism: educational ISA(education)
⇒Learning about the country and its history and culture in a neutral environment E.g., NL
teaching its colonial past
Althusser on ideology
, - Marx on ideology: the class which is the ruuling material force of society, is at the same time
ruling intellectual force
- Althusser on ideology: ideology is a representation of the imaginary relationship of individuals
to their conditions of existence
- Contempt. Definition: an ideology is a system of shard beliefs that is relevant for social action,
integration and social stabliilty, though it is not entirely true (e.g., neoliberalism)
- Objective culture⇒ideology: it exists without the specific individuals. E.g.,
neoliberalism as an ideology, it exists but individuals think about it differently *subjective
culture)
1. Ideology has no history
- Ideologies have a history of their own
- Ideology in general has no history
⇒ Power of ideology lies in its structure and functioning as non-historcial,external fact (thw way
things are by its nature)
2. Ideology and reality
- Imaginary relation(thesis I): ideologies do not by definition correspond with reality and are
therefore often imaginary
BUT
- Material base(thesis II): ISA represent the relations in society in their pratices and thereby give
ideology a material and thus difficult to redute existence as they are praticed by “free” subjects
⇒people put ideology in practice but often don’t realize that they are living in an ideology; they
tend to think that they make choices themselves but they are making choices within an ideology
3. Ideology, the subject and interpellation
- Interpellation(subjective culture):
a. We are and feel attattraced by ideology and therefore are willing to form ourselves to the
normative image that ideology presents to us
b. Ideology is what turns individuals into subjects
c. If we don’t respond to the call of the ideological system, we will not be reconginzed as
subjects
d. Not being addressed in a society means that you fall out of the system, and this is not an
enviable position
⇒ but we are already subjects
Example: Interpellation in advertising
1. Individuals give meaning to ads
- The ad draws you as a consumer
2. The ad makes us subject = interpellation
- Ads tell us that consuming determines who you are
3. Ideological misjudgment
- You in ad = many like you (pseudo-individualization)
- You in ad = you created by ad (target group identity)
Critiques on Althusser
1. There seems to be little room for social actors to determine their own destiny(agency)
2. Are interpellations always successful?
- Competing interpellations?
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