Jorg Meurkes (5908884) Concepts of Cultural Analysis Final Paper Lecturers: Dr. Murat Aydemir, Dr.

Jan Hein Hoogstad 31 May 2013

Ideology is dead, long live ideology

Since at least the 1960s, the use, or maybe usefulness, of the concept of ideology has been questioned and even discredited (Bell, Lane, Aron). Parallel to the progressive decline of Marxist thought and practice in the second half of the twentieth century, it seems to have slowly but surely withered away from most of academic discourse, only to be preserved in some obscure, orthodox far-leftist cults. The death, or end of ideology, has been declared at multiple times, by diverse authors, both left and right1. Should we accept this almost complete vanishing of a concept one that once stood at the forefront of debates in arts, politics and the humanities as a fair reflection of broader social, cultural and political developments? Yes, of course. The becoming irrelevant of the concept is an important development. But we cannot conclude that if a concept disappears from academic or public discourse, the phenomenon goes as well. We may speak less of racism in the U.S., it is questionable if this points to a similar diminishing of the phenomenon itself. The disappearance of the concept of ideology might point to social, cultural and political developments that are precisely of ideological nature. Although one might characterize our era as post-ideological, and decide that the concept has become old fashioned and useless, this does not imply that ideology as such has disappeared. One could even argue that, paradoxically, the perceived end of ideology is a result of its very success. After fall of the Berlin Wall, liberal democratic capitalism became more or less ubiquitous, and without any serious alternative left, this particular ideology became naturalized to the point of becoming unquestionable. In fact, most Labour parties today accept liberal democracy and capitalism as the reality in which their socialist objectives must be pursued. The end of ideology then more accurately points to an end of an ideological struggle, and consequently the end of the use of the concept, than the end of ideology itself. It seems that ideology can thrive, exactly the moment when it is ignored: to simply deny that ideology exists, may very well be in its service. Without an understanding of how ideology functions, we must For example, Gilles Deleuze writes: There is no ideology and never has been (4). Francis Fukuyama writes: What we may be witnessing . . . is the end point of mankind's ideological evolution (12).
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face the possibility that even our most genuine political endeavours, like that of the social democrats, might be thoroughly ideological. However, a rehabilitation cannot ignore a pressing postmodern critique. Generally, it claimed that the notion of ideology necessarily presupposes an untenable distinction between truth and mere ideology. According to this argument, the concept of ideology must stick to an untenable representationalist argument (the concept necessarily presupposes a true world behind the illusory world of representations). If it does not, no distinction between true and false ideas can be made, thus all ideas are equally ideological. The concept then becomes synonymous with more general concepts as belief system, world view, which could just as easily be described as culture. As Pierre Bourdieu once remarked: [T]he theory of ideology would seem to depend on a concept of representation, and certain models of representation have been called into question and thereby also, so it is thought, the notion of ideology (Mapping Ideology 268). Interestingly, it are precisely these positions (representationalist or all-is-ideology) that the concept from the start has tried to avoid. Every notion of ideology, as we shall see, has somehow faced the problem of distinguishing some notion of truth as opposed to false or mystified ideology, without falling back on a representationlist conception of reality. To understand this, I will first trace the origin of the paradox and examine how different theorist of ideology have tried to tackle it. I will show that the recurrent difficulties in its conception can be explained with Badious formalization of the dialectic. From this, I will argue that a rehabilitation of the concept of ideology must take its cue, not so much from Marxs earlier writings on ideology, but rather his theory of commodity fetishism. Finally, I will conclude that the relevancy of a rehabilitation of the concept of ideology lies in the possibility of a renewed self-reflexivity, or, perhaps more precise: a self-critique of ideology. Ideology and its limit Faced with religious and metaphysical philosophers, those who held ideas to have a transcendent or transcendental origin, ideology came into being in the eighteenth century as the scientific study that set out to reveal the material basis of thought (material here means, the natural and social world, as opposed to, for example, the religious revelation of the law, Platos transcendent ideas or Descartess res cogitans). The ideologues practitioners of the science of ideas called ideo-logy thought that their science could, on the one hand, rid the world of superstitious beliefs, and on the other hand, construct a rational society that would guarantee prosperity: once the laws of human consciousness were laid bare to scientific inspection, that consciousness could be transformed in the direction of human happiness by a systematic
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pedagogical project (Eagleton 65). In this way the concept immediately encountered a paradox: if all consciousness was conditioned by the material world, the science of the ideologues was too. The ideologues presumed an autonomous vantage point from where they could critique false ideas, while they had al already postulated that all thought was materially (socially) conditioned. How could the ideologues distinguish their true thought, from the false ideas of the philosophers and theologians, if all ideas were of similar origin? In The German Ideology, Marx comes to understand ideology precisely as the illusion that ideas can somehow rise above the determinations of the material world (45). Ideology does no longer denote a neutral science of ideas, but precisely those theories, or systems of thought, that share the implicit assumptions of the ideologues: that ideas are somehow autonomous with regard to their material conditions. Marx substitutes the contradictory conception that the ideologues implicitly held, with consistent deterministic view: ideas are not autonomous, they are embedded in material conditions. But at this point, the concept of ideology seems to lose its critical potential, as all ideas seem equally determined by these material conditions. To save ideology as a proper critical concept, Marx needed a place for truth. However, he could no longer locate it in the realm of (autonomous) ideas. Marx first solution was to claim that, although all ideas or forms of consciousness are determined by material conditions, there is a difference between a practical consciousness that is properly grounded in material production (artisans for example), and an illusory consciousness that conceives ideas to be somehow autonomous (23) . Illusory, then, are the ideas and theories that ignore the material basis of their thought (notably religion and idealist philosophy). Whether or not this solutions works, Marx recognized that a concept of ideology must take into account the contradiction of which the ideologues were not aware. It must be able to show that ideologies are somehow illusory, or mystifications, but at the same time are inextricably bound up with the material world. As Fredric Jameson has put it: [T]o restore to 'ideology' this complex way of dealing with its roots in its own social reality would mean reinventing the dialectic (263). I think that the relation between truth and ideology in Marxist thought can be made clear with Badious formalization of the dialectic. For Badiou, the dialectic does not in some way end in a higher synthesis: it is constitutively split. Every Whole is supported by the unity of contraries (6). This means that we do not go from thesis, to antithesis, to a harmonious reconciliation. On the contrary: the dialectic will never come to rest. Every notion is always split. Badiou proposes the following formula: With Hegel we thus posit the scission A = (AAp), the effect of the completely veiled conflictual relation between A and the distributor of places tow
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which it is connected. Everything that exist is thus at the same time itself and itself-according-toits-place (8). A notion, A, is split between itself or its pure being, A, and its beingplaced, Ap (7). Badiou formulates this as A = (AAp) (the p stands for placed, for example, in a discursive structure). Badious own example is that of the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat: The true contrary of the proletariat is not the bourgeoisie. It is the bourgeois world . . . of which the proletariat, let this be noted, is a notorious element. as the principle productive force and as the antagonist political pole. This seems cryptic, but I think can be made clear. The pure notion: the proletariat is, when placed in a world, no longer pure2. It is determined by the world. This world is not the bourgeoisie, but the Bourgeois world. The bourgeois world is the space in which the proletariat is embedded. It is the distributor of places. It determines what is and what is not. For example, the proletariat is not represented as such, but determined by the bourgeoisie world as the working class. For the bourgeoisie, the proletariat does not exist. From the point of view of the bourgeoisie there is no real contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat (it does not exist as such for the bourgeoisie). All there is, is reality as determined by the bourgeois world: employers and employees, or the economy. However, the proletariat is the locus of the truth of the bourgeois class, as it is the primary productive force (it does all the work). It is the very condition for the bourgeois world: without it, there is no bourgeois world. However, the bourgeoisie cannot recognize this. The proletariat, A, is thus split between itself, its pure being A (not recognized in the bourgeois world), and its being-placed Ap (the bourgeois world, the economy, employers and employees) (7). How does this translate to the dialectical relationship between truth and ideology? I propose the following: truth (ideas are materially embedded, in their social relations), A, (which is what Marx was after) is split between itself (A) and its being-placed in a world (Ap). In other words, truth is split between itself and ideology. Ideology is the distributor of places. In the world of ideas, truth is not represented as such, but determined by ideology. From the point of ideology, truth does not exist (Here we recognize the all-is-ideology thesis). From the perspective of ideology (be it religious, or the science of the ideologues) there is no real contradiction (no class struggle). All there is, is reality as determined by ideologies. Truth (the ideas are materially embedded for the early Marx, social relations for the later Marx, Marxist science for Lenin and Althusser, totality for Lukcs) is ideologys antagonist pole.
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However, this pure notion has no existence before the emergence of the bourgeois world (before that, there is no proletariat). The pure notion or essence is thus retroactively constituted at the moment the bourgeois world comes into existence.

Truth is what determines ideology. However, from the point of ideas, or ideology, one cannot recognize this. One cannot have a positive knowledge of it, because it placed in the ideological world. This sheds a light on the paradox Marx had to face when dealing with ideology. On the one hand he had shown that ideas are determined by its material conditions. At that point, ideology had no outside: everything was equally (neutrally) determined by the material world, so it seemed that no distinction could be made between true or false ideas. On the other hand, in order to save ideology as a critical category, Marx had to conceive of some truth that did not fall completely together with ideology (i.e. all-is-ideology). He thought that he could show that truth was located in the real life process, the embededness of ideas in material production. In other words, he believed that truth could be grasped in a theory, in ideas. However, to the standards of his own theory, ideas could not distinguish between truths and falsities: this was exactly what the ideologues had imagined possible, and at this, Marx initial critique was aimed. To understand this process we can mobilize Badiou again. In the dialectical process: There is the deviation to the right, which leads back to the objective brutality of the place P in order to deny the possibility of the new inherent in the old. But there is also the ineluctable deviation to the left, which vindicates the original and intact purity of force while denying, so to speak, the old inherent in the new, that is determination. The schemas for these two deviations are Ap (Ap) = P, and A (A) = A. (12) This is again rather cryptic, but what this means is for the concept of ideology is that if the dialectic falls apart, we are either left with the representationalist argument, or with the all-isideology thesis. Truth and Ideology are not mediated. A (A) = A here means that truth exist outside of ideology and can be known. Truth is not completely saturated, placed in a world, by ideology, and thus accessible to scientific investigation. Ap(Ap) = P means that all that exist the world of ideology. From this point of view, everything that exists is what is placed in a world, in other words, ideology in the sense of different world views of equal value. Truth is lost in the equation. As we saw, Marx oscillated between the two, between A (truth is accessible) and P (allis-ideology). The concept of ideology thus tends to relapse into a simple contradiction. What the concept of ideology must be able to show is that truth and ideology are dialectically related. Truth and ideology determine each other, and are each others limit. [T]he true terms of all historical life are rather Ap (A) . . . and A(Ap) . . . terms by which the Whole affirms itself without closure, and the element includes itself therein without abolishing itself (Badiou 12).
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The Whole that is the dialectic, is affirmed by the limitation of both terms on each other (it is never a closed or harmonious whole). Truth is thus determined, or being-placed, by and as ideology. Just as the proletariat is determined by the bourgeois world, ideology determines, or places, truth as ideas, or world view. At the same time, ideas are not all there is, there exist a limit, which is truth (truth itself, as pure being, which in the realm of ideology, does not exist). Both limit each other: we cannot someday know the whole truth positively (as ideology is always determining), but ideology cannot be all there is either, (because there exist truth). There is no possibility of closure, neither on the side of truth (someday we will know it all), nor on the side of ideology (all-is-ideology). After Marx first attempt to think truth and ideology together, at the end of the nineteenth century the concept of ideology quickly falls back into a representationalist model that implied that truth is accessible (knowable). This is the period of the Second International, in which Marxist works were often aimed at the scientific study of the material word, in order to reveal its truths (Lenin being one of them) (Eagleton 90). Marxism then becomes, by its own standards ideological itself (ideology was precisely defined as the idea that thought can be autonomous from material world). Faced with this relapse, Georg Lukcs formulates a new theory of ideology, again trying to tackle the problems inherent in the concept. In History and Class Consciousness (1922), ideology is for Lukcs not opposed to some underlying reality (204). In this sense, for Lukcs, all is ideological. However, he tries not to fall back into the all-is-ideology thesis, as he distinguishes between false, bourgeois ideology, which cannot but see reality as fragmented, and a true proletarian ideology which is able to see the whole. For Lukcs, truth lies in the whole. The bourgeoisie, however, can only see a part as the whole. Rephrased in Badiouian terms: the bourgeoisie can only see the bourgeois world. From the bourgeois point of view, the proletariat does not exist. According to Lukcs, the proletariat, on the contrary, can see the totality. It knows that the proletariat exist (through class consciousness) and therefore knows the truth (i.e. it can know the totality, it can now that A=AAp, while the bourgeoisie takes a part, Ap, (the bourgeois world/ideology), as the whole). Bourgeois ideology is thus fragmented and false, proletarian ideology can see the whole and therefore sees the truth. We can see how Lukcs tries to smuggle in truth as positively knowledgeable category, without having to rely on the representationalist argument. Again the problem is how to we can distinguish true ideology from false ideology. The question remains: from which vantage point is this judgement made? The argument is circular: the proletariat knows the truth, because it is the proletariat. Despite his efforts, it seems that Lukcs theory presupposes again a knowledgeable truth A(A) = A.

The decisive shift in the concept of ideology occurs, I think, when truth is no longer a positive category, as totality or positive scientific knowledge, but conceives as negative (in the sense that it cannot be positively known, that is, it cannot be defined in the form of a knowledge). This theory of ideology, I will argue, has the same structure as Marxs theory of commodity fetishism.

Dialectical ideology In Capital, the theory of commodity fetishism is another attempt to articulate this apparent contradiction: it is a definite social relation between men, that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things (Capital 163) Real relations between men, that is, social relations appear as relations between things, that is, the mystified form of that same social relation. The advantage is that ideology is no longer conceived as a product of some creative consciousness cut loose from the material world: the real social conditions, the definite social relations between men, are themselves the origin of the illusion. The ideological illusion is thus part of objective reality itself. The mystification is not a result of some consciousness, but a result of the economic functioning of the capitalist system. To formulate it in our dialectical terms, social relations among people (A) appear as social relations among things (Ap). The truth (A) appears as the reality of commodities (Ap). Social relations, the truth, do not exists from the point of view of the world of commodities. The social relations are not hidden truth behind the false idea of commodities. Commodities are very real, they are the relations among things. The relations among things, that is, reality, is limited by the social relations. We thus have the formula A(Ap) and Ap(A). Both terms limit each other: we cannot see (i.e. know) the social relations directly, but at the same time, social reality is not wholly reducible to the relations between things. To make sense of this: the bourgeois world appears as a relation among things. These relations are not simply illusory in a representationalist sense, they are very real: they determine the social relations. If one person has a huge amount of capital, it is not simply to be dispelled as an error, it has real effects on the real world. (crudely put, he can buy commodities in abundance while the worker must work). The place, that is, the world as it appears to us (as relations among things), determines what is and what is not (i.e. there are only relations among thing), a such determines the truth of social relations among men, as relations among things: Ap(A). Just like the bourgeois world determines the proletariat as working class. In other words, truth does not exist as such, as knowledgeable: it is distributed, diffused or displaced in the commodities.
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However, the relations among things is not all there is, it is not closed, they are in turn limited by the social relations: Ap(A). If the workers strike, production halts, and the capitalist is in trouble. The relations among things is thus not the Whole (as the bourgeoisie conceives it) but is limited by the truth of the social relations among men (in this sense synonymous with class division, and thus class struggle): A(Ap). We can now understand how the mystification of commodity fetishism functions. In the bourgeois world of commodities, everyone and everything is free and equal before the market, extinguishing any intelligibility of the social relations that produced it. Etienne Balibar has summarized the point nicely: The 'Marxist theory of ideology' would then be symptomatic of the permanent discomfort Marxism maintains with its own critical recognition of the class struggle. ... the concept of ideology denotes no other object than that of the nontotalizable (or non representable within a unique given order) complexity of the historical process . . . it requires the articulation of the class struggle to concepts that have a different materiality (such as the unconscious) (173). The theory of ideology is a result of the Marxist recognition of class struggle. However, it cannot produce a positive knowledge about it. Ideology is symptomatic, it points to something that does not exist in the world: it cannot be defined in simple statements. It is like the Freudian unconscious, which can also not be found in the real world. Symptoms, however, point towards its nonrepresentable existence. Similarly, competing ideologies (contradictory in the ways they try to make sense of the world) point towards the disavowed truth of class struggle. However, from the point of view of the bourgeoisie world (or bourgeois ideology), class struggle does not exist. The concept of ideology is now properly dialectic in the Badiouian sense. The truth of class struggle is determined or placed by ideology: Ap(A). But ideology cannot totalize itself, as it is the very result of the class struggle A(Ap). This is precisely how Slavoj ieks defines his conception of ideology: Herein lies one of the tasks of the 'postmodern' critique of ideology: to designate the elements within an existing social order which - in the guise of 'fiction', that is, of 'Utopian' narratives of possible but failed alternative histories - point towards the

system's antagonistic character, and thus 'estrange' us to the self-evidence of its established identity. (Mapping Ideology 7) The critique of ideology cannot define truth positively. It must, within an existing social order (the bourgeois order of commodities for example), designate the elements that estrange us to the self-evidence of its established identity. These elements are symptoms that points toward the precarity of a certain utopian narrative. A sudden economic crisis, for example, can estrange us from the utopian narrative that, with liberal democratic capitalism, we have reached the end of history. This element points towards the systems antagonistic character (the truth, or as iek puts it, the Real of social relations, i.e. class struggle). The idea of an end of ideology, is thus thoroughly ideological. iek relies heavily on a Lacanian conceptual apparatus. We can now see why: Lacanian psychoanalysis in the iekian sense has a dialectical character: what we experience as reality IS not the thing Itself, it IS always-already symbolized, constituted, structured by symbolic mechanisms (Mapping Ideology 21). Ideology is similar to the function of the Lacanian Symbolic Order. Just as ideology, the symbolic order cannot close itself of: the problem resides in the fact that symbolization ultimately always fails, that it never succeeds in fully 'covering' the real, that it always involves some unsettled, unredeemed symbolic debt. This real (the part of reality that remains non-symbolized) returns in the guise of spectral apparitions. The real that eludes symbolization (in the theory of ideology: the unrepresentable class struggle), returns in the guise spectral apparitions (the unrepresentable class struggle returns in the guise of Utopian narratives). The Badiouian dialectical formulas, Ap(A) and A(Ap), can thus be formulated in Lacanian terms. The Real is split between The Real and The Symbolic. The Symbolic determines, places, the Real: Ap(A). But the symbolic can never close itself of completely as it is limited by the Real itself: A(Ap). So far, we have seen what how a concept of ideology must articulated, in order not be vulnerable for the postmodern critique. It must precisely avoid an untenable representationalist argument, as well as becoming synonymous with more general concepts as belief system, world view. With Badiou formalizaion of the dialectic, we know how a conception of ideology can be properly dialectical. However, discourse analysis is still very much alive as a critical practice. Why should we return to the concept of ideology? Towards a self-critique of ideology As we have seen, the concept of ideology is often misconceived as opposing a positive
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knowledgeable truth to mere ideology. However, this was not without reason. In the 1960s and 70s Althusser explicitly opposed a Marxist science to ideology. Without going into detail if the interpretation was correct, it certainly looked like a traditional represntationalist theory. With the advent of Foucauldian discourse analysis, this distinction between truth and ideology became increasingly unconvincing. While it seemed that Althusser still insisted on the scientific study of society in order to reveal its hidden truth, Foucault far more convincingly showed that truth isnt outside power (131). Discourse analysis sought not so much to reveal certain ideas and institutions as true or false, or as functional in sustaining the domination of a certain class, but rather to investigate the horizontal network of power relations. (Vighi and Feldner 142) Since the 1980s, discourse seems to have superseded ideology as the preferred critical concept. Studies of ideology were still pursued, but no longer aim to reveal a false consciousness that sustains and reproduces the oppressive social relations of the bourgeois order. Rather they focus on a more neutral description of systems of beliefs, or world views. Of course, to stay true to the Foucauldian insight, this was not a result of a teleological development from a still too confused concept of ideology to a more precise concept of discourse: it was embedded in a particular historical context. After the Second World War, with the reality of Fascism fresh in mind, the postmodern critique on totalizing, teleological and grand narratives took off. Contrary to Althusserian Marxism and structuralism, which tended to be conceived as universalist and ahistorical, Foucaults genealogical and archaeological methods offered a promising alternative, as it conceived technologies of power as contingent and historically situated (Vighi and Feldner 144). There were alternative histories to be written, not constrained by the Marxist historical dialectic. At the same time, probably aided by the success of the capitalist welfare states, the Marxist notion of class struggle became increasingly implausible, as fixed class distinctions seemed to disappear and replaced by a multitude of differences and identities. Postcolonial, gender and feminist struggles were experienced as more urgent. Furthermore, knowledge of the atrocities in Stalinist Russia and Maoist China discredited Marxist thought as a whole, and, with the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the triumphantly claimed victory of liberal democracy capitalism, seemed to have received its final death blow (145). In this particular historical constellation, discourse analysis was far more productive as a critical tool than the Marxist concept of ideology. However, as Foucault was certainly aware, times change. The situation is no longer the same as thirty years ago. Most obvious is the present economic crisis that has, at least in Europe, engendered a new awareness of the limits and precarity of capitalism. With that, complex and interrelated problems have arisen: ecology, technocracy, widespread cynicism, right wing and
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neo-fascist politics, increased civil control, to name a few. In contrast to Foucaults time, Marxism has almost vanished. Today, not communism or ideology, but capitalism and discourse analysis are hegemonous in their respective fields. In this historical conjunction, the concept of ideology might be better equipped to deal with the problems we face. With our restored, dialectical understanding of ideology, we might even investigate the limits of the concept discourse analysis. As Vighi and Feldner note: In discours analysis one always starts from the presupposition that it is impossible to draw a clear line of demarcation between ideology and actual reality. (148) As we have seen, this will tend to an all-is-ideology thesis. Discourse analysis then concludes that the only non-ideological positions is to renounce the very notion of extra-ideological reality and accept that all we are dealing with are symbolic fictions, the plurality of discursive universes never reality (Mapping Ideology 17). In short: Ap(Ap)=P. As we have seen, this position cannot take into account the dialectical process of ideology (Mapping 17). From the perspective of the concept of ideology, discourse analysis remains in the placed space of ideology (it investigates discursive practices) and, as such, has no eye for the Real, or truth, or class struggle that, in the theory of ideology are precisely constitutive of discursive practises (recall that social relations produce the relations among things). Of course, discourse analysis has yielded tremendous insights in the workings of power, but did that at the cost of a dialectical understanding of ideology. Although I do not think that discourse analysis has become old fashioned or useless, it might overlook certain ideological constellations. I want to approach this from the much praised practice of self-reflexivity. In discourse analysis, because it stresses historical contingency and embeddedness, self-reflexivity often amounts caution to be aware of ones own position in the analysis. For example, I am a white male in a western society with my own particular culture, values and beliefs that will influence my investigations. If I just plunge into the world, thereby making universal, Eurocentric judgements like capitalism is in crisis, I forget that these notions make sense only in relation to my particular position. It could well be that there exist countries (if I am allowed another Eurocentric notion) that do not feel the effects of global capitalism. This awareness is of course valuable. However, it has its limits. If we take up the concept of ideology, and use for the purpose of self-reflexivity, we come to other forms of awareness. Our most genuine political conviction, for example, could be thoroughly ideological. Self-reflexivity would then start with a self-critique of ideology. iek has often points to tolerance (Tolerance 660).While tolerance seems to be a laudable practice, iek claims that it obfuscates class relations. It depends on an utopian narrative that implicitly assumes that if we were to tolerate each others differences, we would come closer to a
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harmonious society. However, it would be strange to say that, that feminist want to be tolerated by men. A successful emancipation would not mean that someday, men would tolerate women. Another, example would be the relation between a capitalist and a worker. It would be in the interest of the capitalist, if the worker was to tolerate him. Here we see that tolerance obfuscates the real of (class) struggle, and is therefore ideological. A self-critique of ideology might thus make us aware of our own ideological presuppositions. Recently, Lisa Romig has pointed to similar ideological formations in academia. For Romig, queer theory is sometimes blinded by what she calls freedomism. Freedomism is the assumption that certain social problems are the result of hidden forms of oppression, and thus can be cured with more freedom: The mode of critique employed in this project is almost exclusively rooted in freedomist ideology and in its attempt to cure the current social situation, sticks rigorously to the 1960s feminist remedy of ascribing more and more freedom (10). In the attempt to cure the current situation we readily recognize a utopian narrative at play. As such, it possibly ignores the reality of class struggle, as freedomism is very much in compliance with Post-Fordist capitalist objectives as flexibility, mobility, individual self-expression and actualization (11). Romigs account shows how a self-critique of ideology may look like in practice. Especially when we are committed by a seemingly legitimate political projects, a selfreflexivity of this sort can be illuminating. I think a return to the concept of Ideology can prove very productive today. As I have argued, in understanding ideology dialectically, we can avoid a simplistic represtationalist argument. At the same time, we are not forced to adopt a self-defeating all-is-ideology thesis. Truth and ideology are not necessarily to be opposed. In understanding ideologies as utopian narratives that point to the truth of class struggle, we have an again a sharp critical tool at our disposal. This is not primarily because it can denounce the beliefs of other as delusional, but rather because we can aim it at ourselves. Our most genuine political projects could be flawed, and a self-critique of ideology may help to lay this bare. More generally, a renewed critique of ideology can offer new insight in the workings of the social, particularly in our present historical predicament.

Works Cited: Badiou, Alain. Theory of the Subject. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2009. Print. Bell, Daniel. The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties: with The Resumption of History in the New Century. Harvard University Press, 1962. Print.
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Deleuze, Gilles, and Flix Guattari. EPZ Thousand Plateaus. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004. Print. Eagleton, Terry. Ideology: An Introduction. Verso, 1991. Print. Fukuyama, Francis. End of History and the Last Man. Simon and Schuster, 2006. Print. Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Duke University Press, 1991. Print. Lane, Robert Edwards. Political Ideology: Why the American Common Man Believes What He Does. Free Press, 1967. Print. Lukcs, Gyorgy. History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics. MIT Press, 1971. Print. Manning, D. J. The Form of Ideology: Investigations Into the Sense of Ideological Reasoning with a View to Giving an Account of Its Place in Political Life. G. Allen & Unwin, 1980. Print. Marx, Karl. Capital Vol 1. Penguin Books Limited, 1992. Print. Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. German Ideology, Part 1 and Selections from Parts 2 and 3. 1St Edition. Ed. Christopher John Arthur. Intl Pub, 1970. Print. Romig, Lisa. Freedomism. TS. 2013 Vighi, Fabio, and Heiko Feldner. Ideology Critique or Discourse Analysis? iek Against Foucault. European Journal of Political Theory 6.2 (2007): 141159. ept.sagepub.com. Web. 31 May 2013. iek, Slavoj. Mapping Ideology. Verso, 1994. Print. iek, Slavoj. "Tolerance as an ideological category." Critical Inquiry 34.4 (2008): 660-682.

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