Page 65 - Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies

STUART HALL AND THE MARXIST CONCEPT OF IDEOLOGY 53

Let us clarify these issues. In general, negative or critical conceptions of
ideology refer to a kind of distorted thought, whatever the way in which
we choose to understand such distortion. Neutral conceptions refer to
political ideas, discourses and world-views which are articulated around
some principles related to the interests of some social group, party or class.
A negative concept of ideology is inherently capable of discriminating
between adequate and inadequate ideas, it passes epistemological
judgement on thought, whatever its class origin or the expressed intention
of its supporters. An ideological idea is a distorted idea. The neutral
concept of ideology does not, of itself, discriminate between adequate and
inadequate ideas, it does not pass epistemological judgement on them but
emphasizes that through them human beings acquire consciousness of
social reality and links those ideas to some class interests or to some
articulating political principle. Thus one can speak of bourgeois ideology
and proletarian ideology, liberal ideology and nationalist ideology without
necessarily wanting to establish or prejudge their adequacy or truth.
Within the neutral conception of ideology critical judgement can be
passed on ideologies, but always from the perspective of a different
ideology. Thus when marxists in the leninist tradition criticize bourgeois
ideology they do it from the point of view of proletarian ideology and what
they criticize is its bourgeois character, not its ideological character which
their own marxist doctrine shares. In this conception, ideology of itself
does not entail any necessary distortion. For the neutral version the
‘ideological’ is the quality of any thought or idea that serves or articulates
group or class interests, whatever they may be. For the negative version, on
the contrary, the ‘ideological’ is the attribute of any thought or idea which
distorts or inverts reality.

THE INTERPRETATION OF MARX
It is of course impossible to give a full account of Marx’s theory of
ideology in this article, but having dwelled for considerable time on this
problem in the past, I can at least affirm that, in my interpretation, there
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is overwhelming evidence that he contributes a negative concept of
ideology. When Marx speaks of ideology he always refers to a kind of
distortion or inversion of reality. He never refers to his own theory as an
ideology or proletarian ideology, nor does he ever consider the possibility of
an ideology serving the interests of the proletariat. Marx and Engels always
spoke of ideology in the singular and never referred to class ideologies in
the plural, 4 as Laclau and Hall do, following the leninist and gramscian
tradition. Marx and Engels are always in opposition to ideology. In this
they are absolutely consistent from their early writings to their mature
writings irrespective of whether they are dealing with religion, German
philosophy or the spontaneous economic and political forms of