Page 64 - Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies

52 JORGE LARRAIN

dupes of history, we—the privileged—are somehow without a trace
of illusion and can see right through into the truth, the essence, of a
situation.
(1988a:44)

What can one say about these arguments? First of all, one must recognize
that they are not at all new and that Hall had already expressed them
in other contexts, even within the same article where he dealt at length with
Marx’s notion of distortion (1983). However, the celebratory context of
that article and the careful scrutiny of Marx’s texts allowed a far more
balanced outcome. In the new version (1988a), before the tribunal of
Thatcherism, the criticisms take over completely and very little of Marx’s
theory seems to be worth saving. Second, Hall’s arguments against the
classical variant show some confusion in that a flawed neutral concept of
leninist origin seems to be conflated with Marx’s negative concept. Third,
although Hall is careful to state that his criticisms are no reason to throw
over some of the insights of the classical marxist explanation (1988a: 44),
his account of such insights is insufficient and rather partial (only a couple
of paragraphs) whereas the accent is put overwhelmingly on the fact that
Thatcherism has positively confirmed Althusser’s key insights. In
examining Hall’s arguments I shall try to demonstrate three main points.
First, that Hall’s approach to ideology is important and necessary to the
analysis of Thatcherism and indeed of any ‘ideology’ which succeeds in
attracting widespread support. Second, that important and necessary as
that analysis may be, it is still partial and limited, and must be
complemented by the critical approach. Third, that Marx’s theory of
ideology is also indispensable to the analysis of Thatcherism although from
a different point of view.
First, one can agree with Hall that the ideological unity of classes is non-
existent and that Thatcherism had to fight to gain ideological ascendancy
within the ruling classes, let alone the dominated ones. But this assertion
presupposes a concept of ideology which is different from Marx’s. For
Marx ideology was not equivalent to ‘the ruling ideas’, nor, for that
matter, to ‘those images, concepts and premises which provide the
frameworks through which we represent, understand and make sense of
some aspects of social existence’, as Hall prefers to put it. Marx did not
speak of class ideologies or ‘ideological discourses’ in the sense Hall does.
It seems to me that there are three problems with the way in which Hall
argues. First, he chooses to ignore in this particular context the negative
character of Marx’s concept of ideology. Second, he imputes to Marx, and
particularly to The German Ideology, a neutral concept, albeit a flawed
one. Third, in so far as the ruling class is concerned, he identifies Marx’s
supposedly neutral concept of ideology with the dominant ideas.