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Title: Lenin+philosophy+other Essays
WonderClub
Item Number: 9781583670385
Publication Date: January 2002
Number: 1
Product Description: Lenin+philosophy+other Essays
Universal Product Code (UPC): 9781583670385
WonderClub Stock Keeping Unit (WSKU): 9781583670385
Rating: 4/5 based on 2 Reviews
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Weight: 0.200 kg (0.44 lbs)
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Date Added: August 25, 2020, Added By: Ross
Date Last Edited: August 25, 2020, Edited By: Ross
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Peter Almes
reviewed Lenin+philosophy+other Essays on July 31, 2012I was in London in September 2011 when the rioting occurred. I was staying in Dalston just south of Tottenham where the riots started. Three nights of mayhem ensued, lives were tragically lost and innocent people suffered. But what shocked me most was the style and level of reporting. It was perfectly understandable for those whose livelihood or lives were put at risk to speak of “feral youthâ€; however the way the media gleefully latched on to this language suggested an inability, or an unwillingness, to analyse the events more radically.
The liberal response seemed to be: if these excluded youth see bankers and speculators asset-stripping society for all they can carry off, why should they not smash a plate-glass window and grab as many trainers as they can carry? More needs to be done for these young people so that they feel they have a stake in society.
It was as if a hundred years of cultural theory had never existed. And yet such events - the riots - are indicative of the fractures within society which are the stuff of conjecture which theorists and philosophers speculate over as they consider how society is held together. No-one seemed to be mentioning Althusser’s work on ideology, hegemony and ISAs; no reference was made to Foucault’s theory on the creation of the self-repressing subject. And yet these ideas seemed to me to be glaring out of the riots. (Those who have heard me ranting on about these ideas should stop reading now. Nothing new here.)
Louis Althusser (1918-1990) takes a Marxist line and argues that capitalism (or any power system for that matter) defends itself against rioting and other threats to its legitimacy by evolving a “hegemony†or “ideologyâ€- a way of understanding the world which everyone believes in - as “common sense†and “decencyâ€. In reality, the ideology benefits and legitimises the powerful over the powerless. And so, for example, the ideology within which we live and have our being supports and benefits capitalism and profit. It is crucial that this hegemony works unseen; it’s like when you see the microphone appearing over the actors in an old film - it spoils the “realty†effect and reminds you that what you are watching is artifice. So it’s easier to see ideology at work in a culture that is not our own: consider the feudal model where subjects are indoctrinated into believing the hegemony of “The Divine Right of Kingsâ€; convinced of this, the peasantry will not rise against the master. It would be “unnatural†and sinful - even if unjust taxation is beggaring your family.
Ideology, says Althusser, is buttressed by ISAs - Ideological State Apparatuses - which establish the ideology and (when necessary) RSAs Repressive State Apparatuses which fight tooth and nail to protect it. ISA’s are the church, family, education systems, the legal system, media, even trade unions - which (unconsciously?) create a society of obedience to the status quo. (Basically, we are told in every day and in every way to Obey The Man.) If a rupture appears in this fabric - as happened during the riots - then RSAs will kick in - police and army. I guess Althusser would argue that the RSAs work best if “we†believe they are on “our†side.
Althusser’s critique of the riots would then go something like: if power develops a smokescreen of apparent order, justice and decency to prop up its own exploitation and enjoyment of wealth and resources, it is likely that those below that level of power will occasionally glimpse through the smokescreen of ideology, thus challenging the ideology. (This might seem a grandiose analysis of somebody grabbing a telly, but much of this works at an unanalysed / subconscious level - both in the implementation of and the challenge to ideology. I can quite easily believe that Tory Grandees and Multinational Chairpersons believe the system is “fairâ€, as they see it.) Anyway, the “unrest†is eventually met by the force of the police, the rupture is stitched up and capitalism gets back to business - unless you get a revolutionary situation as perhaps the Arab Spring presents and then... who knows what new historical, economic, cultural process might ensue. The media’s apparent shock and horror about how feral youth could behave in such a way, therefore came across to me as hypocritical, since the media are one of the crucial ISAs which prop up our ideological system. What happened is pretty much exactly how it is meant to work. Pressure cooker.
How about Foucault? Michel Foucault (1926-1984) saw himself as a historian of ideas rather than a philosopher. He was interested in how ideas and attitudes changed through different periods of history. His book “Discipline and Punish†traced how the State controlled crime and dissent through the ages. It begins with a gut-wrenchingly awful four-page detailed description of the torturous execution in 1757 of an attempted regicide. This saw the end of the mediaeval idea of publicly and graphically showing the population just what could happen to them if they challenged / attacked a king. We move then to the Enlightenment and Foucault describes Jeremy Bentham’s “Panopticon†prison - so designed that one guard can see into all the cells to check up that no prisoner is misbehaving, but also designed so that the prisoner does not know when he is being observed. (Thus he is constrained ALWAYS to be on his best behaviour.)
Bentham as an Enlightenment Utilitarian saw this as a huge progression from mediaeval theatrical torture; in contrast, Foucault sees it as more inhumane because this type of regime violates the integrity of the whole person, not just the body. He calls it “disciplinary punishment†and traces how our institutions have been influenced by the idea of the Panopticon. Schools, factories, mental institutions are laid out so that the teacher, the overseer the care worker can see exactly what the pupil / worker / inmate is doing at all times. There can be no slacking and no aberrant behaviour. The “clients†are constantly open to disciplinary observation. It is easy to see how this develops into modern life: phone hacking, computer surveillance, police cameras and all the new technologies invade our private lives without our knowledge. We can be constantly scrutinised and not know it.
Foucault’s is an argument about the rights of the individual. His worst nightmare is the situation we find ourselves in today; the individual (or the “self†- or “subject†as theorists prefer) has been so institutionalised and conditioned to behave and to be “good†AT ALL TIMES, that an overseer is no longer required. We have been conditioned to harshly discipline ourselves. We are our own overseer. That is the triumph of capitalism; it’s strongest allies are those who work for the system. (Reminiscent of the Highland troops who fought for the Empire then returned to find that their straths had been cleared to make way for more profitable sheep.)
It is a libertarian argument. Foucault is not nostalgic for hanging, drawing and quartering, but I think his proposition and critique of the self-disciplining subject is worth considering. It attacks the media’s claim of the moral high ground with its innate knowledge of “right and wrongâ€, suggesting instead that we are merely socialised and conditioned into behaving in a certain way - in fact in a way that will accord with Althusser’s ideas of how social control is mastered. Foucault is arguing that most of us no longer require ISAs or RSAs - we have become them ourselves.
And so... the riots? If, as Foucault claims a violence is being perpetrated on the body politic, and in fact we have been indoctrinated to punish ourselves in a deeply psychotic manner, then is it not to be expected that the body politic will erupt in some apparently psychotic manifestation? And if, as Althusser theorises, the system of power is thrusting an alienating ideology over all our experience, ruling out any other way for our development as the self, might we not expect some unruly Freudian eruption from the subconscious? I don’t know if these thinkers are right, but they have spent their lives developing ideas which seem very powerful and I would expect a responsible and adult media to at least consider these ways of seeing.
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