Theories of Ideology

[@jigglypufflove]

I keep coming back to this video. It is like an excellent lecture or class I’ve slipped in to and am stealing knowledge for free. Thank you for these video essays.

[@toddmcgowan8233]

Thanks so much for the generous comment.

[@p.a.f.jimenez5687]

x2

[@flashman453]

dankness as always, this content slaps fam

[@stefanseeling]

Don’t worry, while this may sound Oedipal, it is actually a compliment

[@JuanHugeJanus]

I appreciate all the work you have put into making this

[@EMC2Scotia]

Re Althusser's theory, I once was 'hailed' by a cop and acted like I did not hear them, when I knew full well they wanted to speak to me. They did not take kindly to my pretending not to hear, or 'being hailed as a subject'.

[@dm6801]

Found Todd’s great content through RevLeft radio’s podcast on Hegel. Todd has his own podcast named Why Theory which can be found on Apple’s podcast app. Great content, one of my favorite podcasts.

[@helenrollins665]

These uploads are fantastic.

[@epochphilosophy]

Really enjoyed this video! Keel up this content.

[@OH-pc5jx]

Had a fun bit of parapraxis listening to the end of the vid as well, where I heard “every ideology works to comb over contradiction”, a la toupee as male castration

[@letdaseinlive]

Ideology is a specific theory stemming from Locke. It's a sort of materialism of sense data. So, the different versions are all founded on the Locke version of the idea plus a doctrine concerning the why, eg, progress through material labour rather than social orginazational principles.

[@nicktea8796]

this was amazing! it was so clear and approachable

[@NickJovic23]

This is all so awesome! I was just done with The Real Gaze, after which I ran on your video on the Gaze which sums the Introduction part of the book quite nicely, so I'll make sure to share all of these with people as some kind of introduction. I really hate it when some people in academia act as if they have to hide everything, as if making everything publicly available somehow devalues their work (at least where I'm from, even though they're warming up to it more and more), which is why I really do appreciate what you're doing here. Keep up the good work!

[@mathieuclaude-giroux5778]

I looked for the zizek quote from the sublime object, but could not find it, can anyone tell me on which page it is ?

[@peterhails9672]

21:10 Im not so sure that the subjectivity is the point where ideology breaks down, since this reading seems to reduce Ideology to its symbolic determinations, with the Real being the breaking of Ideology. What I got from Zizeks argument is that this Real is the neccesary supplement to Ideology since its the reason that the fundamental fantasy is constructed, as an awnser to the anxiety provoking void of "Che Vou?". Even if the fantasy is an imaginary scenario filling the Real void, this void works as being complicit of Ideology because it creates the conditions of posibility for the construction of the fundamental fantasy. The Facist fantasy of the harmonious order of society is incomplete if we dont acknowledge the Real of objet a in the figure of the Jew that posibilitates the enjoyment of the subject in his ideology. So even if the Real offers of a space to challenge its symbolic determinations, it is also the space that posibilitates the proliferation of ideology through the construction of fantasy and enjoyment in its subjects. The neccesary step of traversing the fantasy is required in order to unlock the emancipatory potential of the Real. So the ultimate paradox of the Real in the formation of Ideology is that the Symbolic needs to leave something out so that desire can articulate itself through the formation of the fundamental fantasy, its not so clear cut as an opposition between symbolic Ideology and the Real of freedom, the Real is also a neccesary component of Ideology.

[@toddmcgowan8233]

I don't disagree at all with what you say about the real, but I don't think that contradicts the notion that the subject is the point at which ideology breaks down. It's a point that I think Slavoj would agree with. You're absolutely right that the real is a necessary supplement to ideology.

[@bhavyasat774]

beautifully explained

[@mirzaardi3274]

Thank you very much, I really appreciated it. I my self still struggle to understand Lacan, Laclau, and Zizek

[@tiw100538]

Can you turn on automatic subtitles of this video ?

[@RichEvans]

Hi Todd, great summary video on the history of Ideology. Thank you! .. I didn't know the pre-Lacan era parts.. so I took good notes! .. That said, I am curious about what you described as your own theory of Ideology because what you describe seems to me to be exactly how Hegel responded to Kant (the antinomies of logic are not a bug but a feature ) .. and how Lacan applies that to what he teaches about human sexuality and Love as summarized by his most well-known aphorism on love: ‘loving is to give what one does not have’.. So I get how what you describe is a deviation from Zizek, but I would love to hear more about how it's not a return to pure Lacan. Thank you!

[@buddydinesh]

A nice way of putting it Todd. Interesting stuff.

[@jackri7676]

Awesome video!!

[@paulosuarez8969]

Great stuff! Could anyone recommend some texts or videos where theories of ideology after Marx have been explored in conjunction with critiques of political economy? Thanks

[@toddmcgowan8233]

As far as I know, such an analysis does not exist, but I would really like to see it.

[@MartinThau]

Is there a difference between ideolgy and langugage game as defined by Wittgenstein?

[@toddmcgowan8233]

Since Wittgenstein does not define the language game in relation to politics, it definitely requires some speculation. But I don't think that they can be precisely the same because ideology has to play a justifying role for the subject. I wouldn't say that language games necessarily do that. They might, which would make ideology a narrower category than the language game.

[@MartinThau]

@@toddmcgowan8233 As I read or understand Wittgenstein the subject itself is a language game: images, dreams - even "toothaces" which he mentions frequently as paradigms of subjectivity - wouldn't make subjective sense outside language, i. e. without human company (other human beings reaction or processing of whatever occurs to the subject). The notion of Ideology from this point of view seems to assume a hierarchy of language games, therefore a meta narrative, privileging certain viewpoints over others. If all language games were equal I could move between them freely because nobody could claim to hold the ultimate truth. Ideology, therefore, might consist only in the privileging of one language game over another but not the falsity of its content. It is not possible to have a wrong or even incoherent consciousness. At most it might be gridlocked or out of fashion for certain purposes.

[@yngdav9784]

What philosophy professors think is significant, important, or central is not what is central

[@qiangwen6328]

This is great.

[@jeanlamontfilms5586]

Hey Todd, could one say that atheism is the ideology of religion or that religion is atheism put into practice?

[@leststoner]

👏👏👏👏👏👏

[@JAMESKOURTIDES]

The theory of Ideology is alway already a recapitulation of the story of the fall. When Adam (Adam in Hebrew means Humanity) and Eve (Eve in Hebrew means Life) ate from the forbidden fruit (instantiates Mimetic Desire), tempted by the serpent offering access to the knowledge of good and evil (Ideology), humanity was thrust into the false world (Symbolic Order). The lack, the void, the absence- at the core of subjectivity that grounds human identity (the Phallus)- is the felt presence of this false world; this strange attractor that keeps humanity under the sway of Ideology. The escape from Ideology is always already found in the story from which it originates. How to escape? Here's a hint: It has nothing to do with the afterlife. I speculate we must find the things hidden since the foundation of the world to overcome Ideology. Here's a cool quote from Rene Girard on Desire: "In effect, desire is responsible for its own evolution. Desire tends to become a caricature of itself, or, to put it another way, to cause all the symptoms to become more and more aggravated. In contrast to what Freud thinks in his constant preoccupation with the 'unconscious', desire knows itself better than any form of psychiatry does. What is more, it gets better and better informed because it observes, at every stage, what is happening to it. This knowledge governs the aggravation of symptoms. Desire is always using for its own ends the knowledge it has acquired of itself; it places the truth and the service of its own untruth, so to speak, and it is always becoming better equipped to reject everything that surrenders to its embrace. It always does its best, at both the individual and the collective levels, to generate the double binds in which it gets caught, seeking always to entrap itself in the cul-de-sac that is it's very raison d'etre. The idea of the demon who bears light is more far-reaching than any notion in psychoanalysis. Desire bears light, but puts that light in the service of its own darkness. The role played by desire in all the great creations of modern culture--in art and literature--is explained by this feature, which it shares with Lucifer."

[@SGTIVLMPC]

Isn't science against always against ideology?

[@toddmcgowan8233]

Science can be anti-ideological, but if it closes up the traumatic hole in the symbolic structure, it can certainly be ideological. Think of Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. It's a thoroughly ideological text--a species of capitalist ideology.

[@SGTIVLMPC]

@@toddmcgowan8233 what do you mean by a traumatic hole in the symbolic structure?

[@toddmcgowan8233]

@@SGTIVLMPC For instance: the failure of the symbolic to say everything. But also the fact that there is an unsymbolizable core to the symbolic structure. If science is predicated on explaining everything, then this is eliminated.

[@ftwolf999]

oftentimes i conflate-and confuse i suppose-‘ideology’ and ‘fantasy’. though they’re related concepts, and to my ears sound curiously similar enough as to be confused with each other, i guess there’s a good reason as to why they should not be conflated. maybe you can save me some homework and disentangle these two for me please?

[@ftwolf999]

it seems like, if not interchangeable terms, that, let’s say, ‘fantasy’ is an element or subset of ideology, as in “the fantasy of the lotto is an element or subset”-a relation to such things even-“of the ideology of capitalism”; ideology here then is the umbrella term and fantasies are it’s detailed elements. one could have added ‘meritocracy’ as a middle link in there: lotto-meritocracy-capitalism, where the lotto is a fantasy of... meritocracy, which is both an ideology, and/or another fantasy relation/ideological element under the wider ranging topic and mechanism, capitalism. ... maybe here you catch my drift re: my conflating/confusing the two terms.

[@toddmcgowan8233]

I do think it's important not to conflate these terms. For me, ideology is the explanation or justification for our lack, while fantasy is how we envision a path out of lack. I see the two working together all the time, but I do think that the two operations are distinct.

[@Nalhek]

r/criticaltheory brought me here. Great talk 😗👌

[@lalaboards]

Here is a little Socratic logic for you .There is no such thing as class struggle , only lazy closed minded complainers who blame class struggle for their own shortcomings !!!!! All of these theories vaporize the personal responsibility that. built the greatest nation in human history .... instead of blaming capitalism why don’t you emulate people who are successful to possess their habits ? I’m waiting for a response .

[@Nalhek]

@@lalaboards ok boomer

[@lalaboards]

Kehlan Morgan every time I ask a question , I never get a logical response ..... just an insult . So now can you answer the question ? Why do you sit and complain like Karl Marx instead of lifting your self up to heights beyond equality with so much opportunity out there ?????Why ????

[@lalaboards]

Kehlan Morgan also what does that mean when you say “ ok boomer “?

[@Nalhek]

@@lalaboards It means go read Marx and stop being an annoying shitlord. I'm not about to explain to you all of leftist political theory just so that you can actually have a competent conversation about it. You're a big kid. Go educate yourself then come back. I have better conversations to attend to.

[@Vickonastick]

But a young Richard Gere is so fine! ❤

[@OH-pc5jx]

I also wanna add on top of ‘opposition’ the alternative option of ‘deviation’, which we see frequently with American liberal ideology, where contradiction is disguised as not as the crack within the logic of a system but a failure to meet that logic. A classic example of this is trump’s incompetence: ‘if America could only get a competent president again, whatever his policies, things would go back to normal’ - in other words, if some president could only administer the logic of capital competently, the deviation from capitalism (and thus the antagonism between people living under it) would vanish

[@OH-pc5jx]

‘There isn’t a contradiction between capitalist and worker! We just need more female CEOs, they’re so much more compassionate’

[@sallymoussawi]

Luv it

[@mohammadaminfatemi6219]

W