File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_1996/96-09-09.212, message 71


Date: Sat, 24 Aug 1996 10:52:23 -0600 (MDT)
From: hans despain <HANS.DESPAIN-AT-m.cc.utah.edu>
Subject: RE: "false consciousness"


i definitely believe Tobin to have some good ideas, i am interested in 
both paper topics expressed.

Tobin, i would *not* define a (or my) 'classical marxian' conception of 
ideology as false consciousness.  False consciousness would be better 
described as a 'pre-Marxian' or Feuerbachian conception of ideology.  
Although the argument could be made that the 'orthodox marxian' 
conception of ideology has been such a conception (fc) up to the present; 
which is not dis-similar to a Freudian conception.

Jorge Larrain and so it seems Bhaskar have attempted to reclaim a more 
classical usage.  Whereby, the usage is not merely definational but 
ontological and epistemological. 

Again this is the direction i still need to do work.  But i do think 
reclaiming a notion of ideology; that is the "inversion" of reality 
itself and not merely 'false conciousness'; hold great importance for the 
possiblity of human emancipation and social transformation.  That is it 
is centeral for reconstruction of the new left, philosophically, 
scientifically, politically, and practically.

The left must become the "enlighted common-sense of our age" (Bhaskar 
Reclaiming Reality, 1989:1).  That is to suggest "simple" common-sense 
does not overcome an inverted soical reality.  A "simple" common-sense is 
quite capable in preforming at a practical level of reproduction, but an 
"enlighted" common-sense is needed to (consciously) tranform the present 
social reality, and to create a more universal freedom for human beings.

The ideological is not merely an epistemological commitment to "simple" 
common-sense; but an ontological commitment to an inverted reality and 
to a (social) practice of reproduction (and hence, the status quo).

That is to say it is an ontological commitment to a 'flat' (non-depth) 
reality.  Where reality is believed to be revealed at an empirical level 
as it (i.e., reality) really is.

Hence, the distinction between ideological and non-ideological is not the 
same as falsehood versus truth (a type of Feuerbachian or Freudian 
distinction).  For an ideological statement can be true, and the 
non-ideological can be false.

For example, it is ture that specific minorities (groups) score lower on 
I.Q. tests (as Herrstein and Murray have emphasized in their *The Bell 
Curve* 1994); but it is ideological to claim that this is itself an 
ontological reflection of these individual's potentialities.  And it is 
certainly an ideological reproduction of this empirical reality to 
suggest that such a result (poor scores by minorities) should be employed 
as a type of policy device to determine post-secondary eduction candidates.

What needs to be explained (in my example) is not the genetics of different 
human beings, but the social structure and social sysetm which would (and 
does) give rise to such an inverted social reality.  How, groups of 
human beings and individual human beings are denied (social) access to 
develop their own potentialities.

Does this help to clairify my intention?

hans d.


   

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