Page 43 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

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14 THE ISA HANDBOOK IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

compete with each other. Prodded by a kaleido- Hegel’s dialectical method and grounded it in
scope of possibilities, on the one hand, and sti- material conditions, the actual lives of living
fled by instant commodified representations, on people. As Marx (1978/1844: 72) put it
the other, the individual’s search for selfhood is (emphasis in the original):
likely to come up against an unruly collection of
fragments that cannot, in essence, be configured The whole history of the alienation process and the
into a coherent, stable respectable self. whole process of the retraction of alienation is
Deliberate escapes from the confusion lead many therefore nothing but the history of the production
of abstract (i.e., absolute) thought – of logical,
of the alienated to take refuge in collective cer- speculative thought. The estrangement, which
tainties such as religious fundamentalisms and therefore forms the real interest of the transcen-
extreme nationalisms. These ideologies foster dence of this alienation, is the opposition of in
rigid identities as adaptations to the rapidly itself and for itself, of consciousness and selfcon-
changing world of today. Yet such fundamentally sciousness, of object and subject – that is to say, it
alienated identities (racist and xenophobic with is the opposition between abstract thinking and
patriarchal and/or homophobic attitudes and sensuous reality or real sensuousness within
mobilizations) are ill-equipped to deal with late thought itself.
modernity (Berlet and Lyons, 2000). On the other Insofar as thought was the subject in
hand, various youth cultures formulate pastiches Hegel’s presentation of objectivity as the
of identity that are marketed as ‘cool’ (Rushkoff,
2001), or shape subcultures that create a carniva- externalization of the idea, thinking objecti-
lesque identity as bricolage (Langman, 2000, fies and alienates itself (Entäusserung), and
2005a). Such subcultures may grant encapsu- objectifies the self into an object. But con-
lated realms for alternative identities, meanings, sciousness, as externalized, doubles back on
and communities, by enabling ‘escape’ from itself, and transcends itself. Imminent in
the social and withdrawal from the political. But thought is the potential of the idea to negate
in the end the presumed alternatives serve to itself, that is, to negate the negations. 2
reproduce the alienating conditions that fostered Marx’s critique of Hegel was based on the
them. separation of consciousness from the actual
human subject that is immanent within mate-
Given the dilemmas evident in contempo- rial conditions. Overlooking material reality,
rary life, it is understandable why there is Hegel presented the subject of the dialectic
renewed interest in Marx’s dialectical as disembodied self-consciousness, with the
approach, including its dialectical methodol- result that even when Hegel did deal with
ogy for uncovering how capitalism fosters material conditions (civil society, the state,
malaise and discontent and also plants the ethical life, etc.), he reproduced the very
seeds of its own demise. dualism that he had earlier critiqued in Kant.
Having concluded that the idealistic aspect of
the Hegelian dialectic was itself an expression
of alienated consciousness, Marx established
MARXIAN DIALECTICS AND his own point of departure.
ALIENATION In direct contrast to German philosophy which
descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend
One of the fundamental differences between from earth to heaven. That is to say ... [w]e set out
Marx and other theorists of modernity was from real, active men, and on the basis of their real
life-process we demonstrate the development of
his adaptation of the dialectical approach
the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-
pioneered by Hegel. While Hegel’s analysis process. The phantoms formed in the human brain
was ideal and abstract, however, Marx are also, necessarily, sublimates of their material
insisted that dialectical analysis must con- life-process, which is empirically verifiable and
sider first and foremost the actual corporeal bound to material premises. Morality, religion,
metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their cor-
human subject that is a constituent compo-
responding forms of consciousness, thus no longer
nent of material reality. Marx appropriated retain the semblance of independence. They have