Page 75 - Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies

STUART HALL AND THE MARXIST CONCEPT OF IDEOLOGY 63

unsound. In fact Lyotard says it in so many words. ‘It is never a question
of one massive and unique reason—that is nothing but ideology. On the
contrary, it is a question of plural rationalities…’ (Van Reijen and
Veerman, 1988:279). Lyotard does not realize that he can affirm this only
on the basis of another totalizing meta-narrative: ‘the concern with
“preserving the purity” and singularity “of each game” by reinforcing its
isolation from the others gives rise to exactly what was intended to be
avoided; “the domination of one game by another”’ (Weber, 1985:104).
Similarly, Baudrillard argues that since postmodernity is characterized by
simulation, by the fact that we live in a world of images and pure
simulacrum which makes reference to no other ultimate but concealed
reality, a critique of ideology is no longer possible because ‘ideology
corresponds to a betrayal of reality by signs; simulation corresponds to a
short-circuit of reality and its reduplication by signs’ (Baudrillard, 1983:
146). However he also ends up re-introducing a critical concept of ideology
through the back door. One example is his analysis of the Watergate affair
which showed the scandals and illegalities of the Nixon administration.
The ideological function of such wide media presentation, he argues,
was to conceal or mask the fact that the system of government itself is
fundamentally corrupt (Baudrillard, 1983:26). In another example
Baudrillard comments on a conference about ‘the end of the world’ in New
York, 1985. For him this makes no sense because New York is already the
end of the world. But the discussion about the idea of the end of the world
masks this fact (Baudrillard, 1987:286). Another example is Disneyland. It
is presented as an infantile imaginary world to conceal the fact that the rest
of America is infantile, to mask the fact that the real country is Disneyland
(Baudrillard, 1983:25). True it is not an inner, twisted, inverted reality
which is concealed (the real contradictions in Marx’s terms); what is
concealed is the fact that that which is presented as real, is no longer real
but hyper-real, a mere reproduction of a model. What is masked is the fact
that reality itself has been dissolved.
The change in the concept of ideology from a critical to a neutral notion
is therefore less simple and innocent than it appears. In the context of
postmodernism the change is celebrated as the triumph of
incommensurable language games and the demise of the terroristic meta-
narratives which are at the basis of the critical concept of ideology.
Paradoxically, the aggressive postmodernist stand fails fully to eradicate,
and implicitly postulates, the totalizing perspective it seeks to abolish and
therefore ends up contradicting itself. On the contrary, the analyses within
the Gramscian tradition, for instance those of the early Laclau and Hall, do
not involve a loss of faith in reason and truth, and make a very important
contribution to the understanding of how political discourses and currents
of thought are formed or transformed, and how social groups seek to
articulate their interests with those of other groups. The critical concept of