I want to reply to quite a few comments here, so I hope this doesn't get
too confused.
First, I think that it's true that ideology is traditionally conceived as
representational (the ways in which people think about the real social
relations in society) and as such, and as articulated in a simple
base-superstructure metaphor, transcendent. I am happy to agree that D&G
reject this conception.
I am not sure what this "ecological" notion of ideology might be: this
seems to have come from Malgosia's comparison between ideology and the
atmosphere. This sounds like Althusser to me (we inevitably have
imagined relations to the real relations of society, it's a function of
subjectivity). Malgosia's comment was a response to the suggestion that
individuals "make and participate in ideology as much as they receive
it." I'm not sure what that means exactly, what kind of subjectivity is
pre-supposed here. Whatever, I'm a little sceptical, and it doesn't
sound much like D&G to me.
I would still like someone to explain the long quotation from _ATP_ that
I typed out.
My original comments related to Zizek (and later Bourdieu). I don't
think this is just a parlour game to relate D&G to other critical
thinkers: it's an attempt to think the concept of ideology through a
matrix of different positions.
As I remember Zizek (and I always forget his answer to the problem, as I
was unconvinced by it... all too Lacanian) his is a challenge to
conception one above. If traditional notions of ideology could be
characterized in the phrase "they don't know what they are doing" he reads
Sloterdijk's notion of "cynical reason" as suggesting that (in post-68
Germany, post-modernism, or something) at least in some cases people "know
what they do, but still they do it." This would render ideology-critiqe
useless (as there is not ideology to critique, and people are acting much
the same anyway). So he suggests that there is an immanent ideology in
practice as such.
Second, Bourdieu also opposes transcendent, representative ideology to
the structures of the habitus, always embodied dispositions. A couple of
quotations: "the point of honour is a permanent disposition, embedded in
the agents' very bodies in the form of mental dispositions, schemes of
perception and thought... which divide up the world in accordance with
the oppositions between the male and the female, east and west, future
and past, top and bottom, right and left, etc., and also, at a deeper
level, in the form of bodily postures and stances, ways of standing,
sitting, looking, speaking, or walking." (_Outline of a Theory of
Practice_ 15) "The most successful ideological effects are those which
have no need of words, and ask no more than complicitous silence." (ibid.
188). In this sense, ideology is not only non-representational, but also
unthinkable.
Now some of this is perhaps similar to Deleuze's description of the
philosophical "image of thought" in _Difference and Repetition_ chapter
3. But for Bourdieu this is in no way "beyond experience" but is
"written" in and on experience.
Whatever, it makes the claim "there is no ideology and there never has
been" (with which I began, two posts ago) seem disingenous at least.
Now, on transcendence etc., I would be interested if Chris (or others)
could expand on the following: for starters, Deleuzian ontology wouldn't
necesarily seem to negate the above concept of ideology. Metaphor,
however, would seem impossible.
On Thu, 6 Oct 1994 CND7750@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> But back to ideology. Does anyone else think D&G's rejection of ideology
> AND metaphor is a result of their ontology, as worked out by Deleuze
> in D&R and TLS? I can see no other reason. But i'm sure thre could be others.
> Oh, one more thing on the 'transcendental.' i agree with Nathan that in
> D&R and TLS Deleuze uses this term to refer to something beyond experience.
> Perhaps this lead to some misunderstanding and Deleuze stopped using
> 'transcendental' because it gave the wrong impression (like i think he
> feels ideology does). The development of the concept of the fold is very
> important here, i think. Now, rather than refer to a beyond, Deleuze
> uses the fold to speak of an unlimited finity. Outside but nonetheless
> real. His concepts of actual and virtual are important and belong here
> in the folds of unlimited finity too. I think it is this concpt that enables
> D&G to now oppose trancendence to the folds of an unlimited plane of
> immanence. Just some thoughts.
>
> chris
Take care
Jon
Jon Beasley-Murray
Literature Program
Duke University
jpb8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
------------------
too confused.
First, I think that it's true that ideology is traditionally conceived as
representational (the ways in which people think about the real social
relations in society) and as such, and as articulated in a simple
base-superstructure metaphor, transcendent. I am happy to agree that D&G
reject this conception.
I am not sure what this "ecological" notion of ideology might be: this
seems to have come from Malgosia's comparison between ideology and the
atmosphere. This sounds like Althusser to me (we inevitably have
imagined relations to the real relations of society, it's a function of
subjectivity). Malgosia's comment was a response to the suggestion that
individuals "make and participate in ideology as much as they receive
it." I'm not sure what that means exactly, what kind of subjectivity is
pre-supposed here. Whatever, I'm a little sceptical, and it doesn't
sound much like D&G to me.
I would still like someone to explain the long quotation from _ATP_ that
I typed out.
My original comments related to Zizek (and later Bourdieu). I don't
think this is just a parlour game to relate D&G to other critical
thinkers: it's an attempt to think the concept of ideology through a
matrix of different positions.
As I remember Zizek (and I always forget his answer to the problem, as I
was unconvinced by it... all too Lacanian) his is a challenge to
conception one above. If traditional notions of ideology could be
characterized in the phrase "they don't know what they are doing" he reads
Sloterdijk's notion of "cynical reason" as suggesting that (in post-68
Germany, post-modernism, or something) at least in some cases people "know
what they do, but still they do it." This would render ideology-critiqe
useless (as there is not ideology to critique, and people are acting much
the same anyway). So he suggests that there is an immanent ideology in
practice as such.
Second, Bourdieu also opposes transcendent, representative ideology to
the structures of the habitus, always embodied dispositions. A couple of
quotations: "the point of honour is a permanent disposition, embedded in
the agents' very bodies in the form of mental dispositions, schemes of
perception and thought... which divide up the world in accordance with
the oppositions between the male and the female, east and west, future
and past, top and bottom, right and left, etc., and also, at a deeper
level, in the form of bodily postures and stances, ways of standing,
sitting, looking, speaking, or walking." (_Outline of a Theory of
Practice_ 15) "The most successful ideological effects are those which
have no need of words, and ask no more than complicitous silence." (ibid.
188). In this sense, ideology is not only non-representational, but also
unthinkable.
Now some of this is perhaps similar to Deleuze's description of the
philosophical "image of thought" in _Difference and Repetition_ chapter
3. But for Bourdieu this is in no way "beyond experience" but is
"written" in and on experience.
Whatever, it makes the claim "there is no ideology and there never has
been" (with which I began, two posts ago) seem disingenous at least.
Now, on transcendence etc., I would be interested if Chris (or others)
could expand on the following: for starters, Deleuzian ontology wouldn't
necesarily seem to negate the above concept of ideology. Metaphor,
however, would seem impossible.
On Thu, 6 Oct 1994 CND7750@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> But back to ideology. Does anyone else think D&G's rejection of ideology
> AND metaphor is a result of their ontology, as worked out by Deleuze
> in D&R and TLS? I can see no other reason. But i'm sure thre could be others.
> Oh, one more thing on the 'transcendental.' i agree with Nathan that in
> D&R and TLS Deleuze uses this term to refer to something beyond experience.
> Perhaps this lead to some misunderstanding and Deleuze stopped using
> 'transcendental' because it gave the wrong impression (like i think he
> feels ideology does). The development of the concept of the fold is very
> important here, i think. Now, rather than refer to a beyond, Deleuze
> uses the fold to speak of an unlimited finity. Outside but nonetheless
> real. His concepts of actual and virtual are important and belong here
> in the folds of unlimited finity too. I think it is this concpt that enables
> D&G to now oppose trancendence to the folds of an unlimited plane of
> immanence. Just some thoughts.
>
> chris
Take care
Jon
Jon Beasley-Murray
Literature Program
Duke University
jpb8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
------------------