Page 73 - Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies

STUART HALL AND THE MARXIST CONCEPT OF IDEOLOGY 61

bearers and agents of these relations seek to understand them, is very
much different from, and indeed quite the reverse of, their inner but
concealed essential pattern and the conception corresponding to it.
(Marx, 1974:III, 209)

the confusion of the theorists best illustrates the utter incapacity of
the practical capitalist, blinded by competition as he is, and incapable
of penetrating its phenomena, to recognize the inner essence and
inner structure of this process behind its outer appearance.
(1974:III, 168)
The accusation that Marx’s theory proposed an absolute distinction
between the dupes of history and the few privileged or enlightened who can
see right through into the truth, was dismissed by Marx very early in the
Theses on Feuerbach when he argued that ‘the educator must himself be
educated’ and criticized those who ‘divide society into two parts, one of
which is superior to society’ (Marx, 1976:7). However, this does not
mean that social scientists and philosophers cannot make the critique of
common sense or cannot propose their theories with a claim to truth. It is
not just Marx who is the only one who thinks he has a key to understand
social reality (this is the most frequent criticism of Marx’s theory of
ideology). Surely other accounts of Thatcherism (including Hall’s) are also
propounded with a claim to render evident the essence of the situation,
independently of whether or not it is so apprehended by the people. Why
then deny the same right to Marx?

NEUTRAL VERSUS NEGATIVE VERSIONS OF
IDEOLOGY

My argument so far has been to show that some of Hall’s criticisms of
Marx’s theory of ideology do not apply because he does not adequately
distinguish Marx’s theory from other neutral versions. But this does not
mean that Hall’s Gramscian approach to ideology is inherently flawed. In
order to see what is good in it, I would like now to reflect on the character
and potentialities of the neutral and negative versions of ideology within
marxism. In its inception, ideology was one of a group of concepts such as
alienation, contradiction, fetishism, exploitation; concepts which were
inherently critical, that is to say capable of passing judgement on social
realities which were deemed undesirable, unjust or ‘inverted’ to use Marx’s
expression. A neutral concept of ideology does not make direct reference to
a single objective truth, but underlines the fact that the interests of different
classes, fractions of classes or groups are represented or articulated by
different ideologies. Thus you can speak of bourgeois, Thatcherite, neo-
liberal, proletarian ideologies without necessarily wanting to establish or