Date: Fri, 8 Aug 1997 19:38:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: oldmole-AT-pseud.pseud
Subject: Re: M-INTRO: ideology


I think Heraclite has posed a very interesting question here, one which it's
beyond my ability to go into fully.

I think one thing we should bear in mind is that "ideology" as Marx uses the
term deals with largely with unformulated assumptions. As Louis Althusser
put it in _For Marx_:

"Thus, for Marx, an ideology is 'unconscious of its "theoretical
presuppositions", that is, the active but unavowed problematic which fixes
for it the meaning and movement of *its problems* and thereby of their
solutions."

(Quoted in Joe McCarney, _The Real World of Ideology_ (Sussex: Harvester
Press; New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1980)

(You can tell from this that I haven't read Althusser. I tried once, and
gave up when I came to something about history being an illusion in the
minds of intellectuals. What can you say to a Frenchman who's never even
travelled as far as Ireland?)

Anyway, I know this isn't very helpful, but I couldn't keep my mouth shut.



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