Page 62 - Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies

50 JORGE LARRAIN

objectives I can agree except in his calling all discourses ‘ideological’. This
in itself is symptomatic of a theoretical decision which Hall has legitimately
taken from the beginning but which one can easily lose sight of at this
point, namely, the fact that his discussion and partial rescue of the notion
of ‘distortion’ has not been done with a view to adopting Marx’s critical
concept of ideology. In fact Hall continues to uphold the definition he
started with, a definition which leaves out the problem of distortion as
inherent in the ideological phenomenon. Nevertheless, his effort to
understand and accept the best senses in which Marx spoke of distortions,
leaves one the impression that for Hall, at this stage (1983), Marx’s critical
notion of ideology has a place; it could be partially rescued from the critics
even if it is not the way in which Hall himself proposes to deal with or use
the concept.

CONFRONTATION BEFORE THE TRIBUNAL OF
THATCHERISM

Reading ‘The toad in the garden: Thatcherism among the theorists’
(1988a) leaves one a different impression. The point here, Hall states at the
beginning, is not pure theoretical critique and refutation but to refer
theories to the analysis of a concrete political problem, Thatcherism, in order
to ascertain which theory is able to give a better account of it. In this
practical confrontation the so-called classic variant of the theory of
ideology derived from The German Ideology is said to be unable
adequately to explain the Thatcherite ideological phenomenon whereas
some of Althusser’s key insights are said to be positively confirmed. One
can only conclude from such a comparison that Marx’s variant has lost its
analytical capabilities to deal with new ideological developments and
should therefore be replaced by a better theory. Hall presents four main
arguments. First, the basic correspondence between ruling ideas and ruling
class postulated by Marx overlooks ideological differences within the
dominant classes and the fact that certain ideological formations, like
Thatcherism, must vigorously fight against traditional conservative ideas in
order to become ‘the normative-normalized structure of conceptions
through which a class “spontaneously” and authentically thinks or lives its
relations to the world’ (Hall, 1988a:42). For Hall,

the conventional approach suggests that the dominant ideas are
ascribed by and inscribed in the position a class holds in the structure
of social relations…it is not assumed that these ideas should have to
win ascendancy…through a specific and contingent…process of
ideological struggle.
(1988a:42)