Page 95 - Critical and Cultural Theory

SOCIAL IDENTITIES
received, enjoyed and recycled in different economic contexts
(Raphael 1980: 105). Pierre Macherey corroborates this point by
stressing that: 'Works of art are processes and not objects, for
they are never produced once and for all, but are continually
susceptible to "reproduction": in fact they only find an identity
and a content in this continual process of transformation'
(Macherey 1977: 45).
In emphasizing the primacy of the economic base, Marx concur-
rently stresses that capitalist ideology hinges on the repression of
the body and of the world of the senses. 2 In promoting private
property, for example, capitalist ideology reduces the potentially
infinite richness of sensuous life to a single urge, the longing to
own: 'all the physical and intellectual senses have been replaced by
the simple estrangement of all these senses - the sense of having 1
(Marx 1975: 352; emphasis in original). The division of labour
intrinsic to the capitalist mode of production is largely responsible
for desensualizing people's lives since, in refining individual skills,
it inevitably channels them into one limited - and hence alienating
- activity. The capitalist is ultimately as sensuously deprived as the
labourer, for his entire existence is dominated by the desire to
accumulate as an end in itself: the capitalist denies himself both
intellectual and bodily pleasures to ensure that his capital will go
on growing. Whatever pleasures he allows himself are thoroughly
organized and mapped out, and thus take the guise of culturally
sanctioned release mechanisms.
Several philosophers have attempted to transcend the economic
determinism characteristic of certain strands of Marxism in the
belief that it supplies a reductive interpretation of the relationship
between ideology and reality. Particularly important, in this
respect, is the concept of hegemony, as theorized by Antonio
Gramsci (1891-1937). Gramsci seeks to identify the mechanisms
which enable a system to preserve its hold even when it is overtly
based on the rule of one class over others. Hegemony is the
answer proposed by Gramsci. This form of power is not simply
sustained by economic or political dominance. In fact, it thrives
by persuading the subordinated social groups to accept the system
of cultural and ethical values treasured by the ruling group as
though these were universally valid and embedded in human

2 i^See also Part II, Chapter 3, The Body' and Part III, Chapter 1, The Mind'.

78