- 26 Sep 2023 21:22
#15288481
Ultimately, the question comes down to this: why in a democratic society subject to inequality, a significant proportion of individuals in lower income deciles vote for parties which explicitly or implicitly defend the distribution of income which is disadvantageous to them? That a rich vote for a left-wing party indicates a certain idealism, a feeling of solidarity stronger than the desire for possessions. But the opposite seems unlikely: that the “ideal” of an unequal distribution could motivate the vote of less fortunate people. Other factors must therefore be at play. Which?
The two extreme answers are:
- The liberal response: paradoxical voters understand that the efficiency of the capitalist system will provide them with more goods than they would have with a better status in a more egalitarian society.
- The Marxist response: the ideas of the dominant class have colonized their minds.
In fact, these two explanations share the same presupposition: the brains of less well-off voters would have been convinced by the liberal argument. But these ideas would have insinuated themselves there by different paths. This thought would be autonomous according to liberals, heteronomous according to the adversaries of capitalism.
The thesis of heteronomy, with more or less nuance, has been more analysed. In “Power. A Radical View”, Steven Lukes draws up a very instructive summary. The most common conception is that of the insidious action of ideology, which goes back at least to Marx and to which Lukes himself adheres. There are as many versions as there are authors. A well-known one is offered to us by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu who includes it in his concept of “symbolic violence”. The first chapter of his work “Reproduction” (1970) formulates a kind of axiomatization of the subject, by stating a structured and coherent set of propositions which are based on the empirical work of the author. The cornerstone of these proposals is stated as follows:
Bourdieu refutes an ethical reading of his theory, a reading of denunciation. The said concealment must be understood as objective and not intentional. Bourdieu is right to insist on this aspect: ideological reproduction shows apparent normality, behaves like a natural process. Indeed, is it not normal that intellectuals produce theories; is it not logical that they reflect the point of view of the group to which they belong or to which they are linked? Only spontaneous processes occur. Or to put it more precisely, deliberate processes are not essential for ideological reproduction.
Bourdieu deliberately does not use the term “ideology” dear to Marx, because it refers too closely to conscious thought, to reasoning, to knowledge, while the phenomenon studied goes well beyond this framework. The dominant message is addressed as much to affects as to ideas. Bourdieu goes even further: through emotions, the repeated message becomes inscribed in the body over time. The human body assimilates the classifications and dominations required in society. Bourdieu gives the example of gender domination.
All social reproduction relies on two parallel persuasion mechanisms: intellectual persuasions and charismatic persuasions. Bourdieu considers both but I would have more insisted on their complementary work.
The percolation of ruling group ideas into culture, whether we call it symbolic violence or otherwise, is not unique to social classes. Any domination of a particular interest devises and transmits its ideology, whether it is the domination of a gender, a caste, a religion, an ethnic group.
I would like to draw attention to an aspect of ideological reproduction that most authors ignore or underestimate. Emotions and fears affect all levels of society, including members of the privileged class. They too need to be reassured, honoured, motivated, freed of guilt, diverted. Ideology is too often presented as a soup that the dominant class lets swallow to the dominated class. This vision is simplistic. Ideological persuasion is also aimed internally. The world is threatening and contradictory enough to let this need arise.
The ideas developed here above provide a general and abstract understanding of the phenomenon that ideology is. For anyone who would like to concretely feel the ideology of capitalism at work, the deconstruction that Stiglitz makes in the chapter “We are in 1984” of his work “The Price of Inequality” is striking.
The American philosopher Herbert Marcuse wanted to integrate into Marxist thought the new specificities of advanced industrial society characterized by mass consumption. He makes out a kind of coalescence between productive apparatus and thought. Not only do social relations and thought interact but they interpenetrate, as these quotes indicate:
Marcuse characterizes it as “happy consciousness which facilitates acceptance of the misdeeds of this society”(50).
Marcuse observes the transformation of the producer into producer-consumer. The blissful acceptance of capitalism that he discerns should not be confused with a similar but simpler, even simplistic idea: the idea that wage earners would let themselves be bribed in exchange for consumer goods, that ambient materialism presses a man to accept everything as long as he is given something to consume. In Marcuse, the productive system adulterates thoughts. Observation of the contemporary world proves him right. Commercial advertising and corporate communication, which have become massive, constitute a kind of para-ideology. Needs are manipulated and therefore behaviours as well. For instance, huge firms are able to cause queues forming nightly, waiting for the opening of a store, by creating among consumers the wholly unnecessary desire to be the first ones to buy a particular new product. One produces gregariousness through the illusory lure of distinction. Another firm has transformed the purchase of its products on the Internet into a kind of permanent game in which blissful consumers are held captive. Much more than the creation of new needs, which is doubtful in my opinion, it is the manipulation of existing needs that is at work.
One-dimensional thinking is the “triumph of positive thinking”, the rejection of transcendence, to which Marcuse opposes “negative thinking”, that which does not accept the limit of what is.
The means at work is “radical empiricism”: “There remains only one ideology, that which consists of recognizing what is. »
Ideology and its variants are not the only possible explanation for the persistence of domination in a democratic framework. In the aforementioned work, Steven Lukes presents two alternative theories which seem very interesting to me.
- James Scott does not believe that the dominant ideology shapes the consciences of the dominated. Their apparent adhesion results from a simulation: they pretend to accept the dominant discourse to avoid conflicts. They opt for forms of resistance, rather passive, which avoid open confrontation. Scott's explanation seems to me perfectly suitable for dictatorial societies like Soviet Union. The fall of the regime is eloquent: suddenly, many of those who, the day before, said they were favourable to communism, welcomed its disappearance. The facade of consent disappears with the loss of its reason for being.
- Jon Elster attributes to the dominated what he calls “adaptive preferences”. They adapt their desires to what society allows them to hope for. The archetype is the fox from La Fontaine's fable: unable to catch them, he claims that the grapes are not ripe enough. This process is entirely endogenous to the dominated group. It allows its members to reduce the cognitive dissonance induced by oppression. Elster's theory seems very sound to me. Human beings have their pride; denying their dominated condition can reassure them. Adhering to the dominant discourse strengthens denial. There is a situation particularly conducive to this attitude: when domination occurs in the presence of outsiders, for example when two communities live side by side. The group that is oppressed in one of them will want to spare to itself the humiliation represented by the spectacle of its disgrace.
I would like to add three causes which emanate from my personal reflection and which seem to me perhaps more effective than some of the aforementioned.
[list=]1. To contest a distribution system is potentially to open a conflict, to sow discord. Faced with conflict, individual psychologies vary, but many of us prefer to avoid it. The psychological preference for harmony can explain passive consent to a system that is known to be unjust. It is tempting for dominant thinking to take advantage of this spontaneous scruple in order to make potential protesters feel guilty.
2. The current state of affairs acquires power simply by virtue of existing. Thinking of what exists as a contingency and not as a necessity requires taking a step back. The intuitive presumption is very common that “what is” must have a reason for being. This idea is present both among philosophers and in common sense.
3. Finally, perhaps the most important factor of all. Conceiving society as we would like it and implementing the change required to move from the current state to this ideal are two approaches with immeasurably different implications. You have in mind the distribution of wealth that seems optimal to you, but the wealth is already distributed in some actual way. Correcting this distribution is a very delicate undertaking, full of risks and pitfalls. The difficulty of redistributing infinitely exceeds that of distribution ex nihilo, an impossible case in politics. Many who accept the goal of a more just society are likely to shy away from the difficulties of transition.[/list]
*
All these difficulties are actual, but I must repeat what I wrote in my preceding article. The main cause of the difficulty of the Left to gain enough votes from the dominated class is its own behaviour. It does not inspire trust in its ability to successfully manage true reforms… because this ability does not exist, neither by social-democrats, nor by radicals.
The two extreme answers are:
- The liberal response: paradoxical voters understand that the efficiency of the capitalist system will provide them with more goods than they would have with a better status in a more egalitarian society.
- The Marxist response: the ideas of the dominant class have colonized their minds.
In fact, these two explanations share the same presupposition: the brains of less well-off voters would have been convinced by the liberal argument. But these ideas would have insinuated themselves there by different paths. This thought would be autonomous according to liberals, heteronomous according to the adversaries of capitalism.
The thesis of heteronomy, with more or less nuance, has been more analysed. In “Power. A Radical View”, Steven Lukes draws up a very instructive summary. The most common conception is that of the insidious action of ideology, which goes back at least to Marx and to which Lukes himself adheres. There are as many versions as there are authors. A well-known one is offered to us by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu who includes it in his concept of “symbolic violence”. The first chapter of his work “Reproduction” (1970) formulates a kind of axiomatization of the subject, by stating a structured and coherent set of propositions which are based on the empirical work of the author. The cornerstone of these proposals is stated as follows:
“Any power of symbolic violence, i.e. any power which manages to impose meanings and impose them as legitimate by concealing the power relations which are the basis of its force, adds its own force, i.e. properly symbolic, to these power relations.”
Bourdieu refutes an ethical reading of his theory, a reading of denunciation. The said concealment must be understood as objective and not intentional. Bourdieu is right to insist on this aspect: ideological reproduction shows apparent normality, behaves like a natural process. Indeed, is it not normal that intellectuals produce theories; is it not logical that they reflect the point of view of the group to which they belong or to which they are linked? Only spontaneous processes occur. Or to put it more precisely, deliberate processes are not essential for ideological reproduction.
Bourdieu deliberately does not use the term “ideology” dear to Marx, because it refers too closely to conscious thought, to reasoning, to knowledge, while the phenomenon studied goes well beyond this framework. The dominant message is addressed as much to affects as to ideas. Bourdieu goes even further: through emotions, the repeated message becomes inscribed in the body over time. The human body assimilates the classifications and dominations required in society. Bourdieu gives the example of gender domination.
All social reproduction relies on two parallel persuasion mechanisms: intellectual persuasions and charismatic persuasions. Bourdieu considers both but I would have more insisted on their complementary work.
The percolation of ruling group ideas into culture, whether we call it symbolic violence or otherwise, is not unique to social classes. Any domination of a particular interest devises and transmits its ideology, whether it is the domination of a gender, a caste, a religion, an ethnic group.
I would like to draw attention to an aspect of ideological reproduction that most authors ignore or underestimate. Emotions and fears affect all levels of society, including members of the privileged class. They too need to be reassured, honoured, motivated, freed of guilt, diverted. Ideology is too often presented as a soup that the dominant class lets swallow to the dominated class. This vision is simplistic. Ideological persuasion is also aimed internally. The world is threatening and contradictory enough to let this need arise.
The ideas developed here above provide a general and abstract understanding of the phenomenon that ideology is. For anyone who would like to concretely feel the ideology of capitalism at work, the deconstruction that Stiglitz makes in the chapter “We are in 1984” of his work “The Price of Inequality” is striking.
The American philosopher Herbert Marcuse wanted to integrate into Marxist thought the new specificities of advanced industrial society characterized by mass consumption. He makes out a kind of coalescence between productive apparatus and thought. Not only do social relations and thought interact but they interpenetrate, as these quotes indicate:
the productive apparatus tends to become totalitarian to the extent to which it determines not only the socially needed occupations, skills, and attitudes, but also individual needs and aspirations (8)
The products indoctrinate and manipulate; they promote a false consciousness which is immune against its falsehood (17).
Marcuse characterizes it as “happy consciousness which facilitates acceptance of the misdeeds of this society”(50).
Marcuse observes the transformation of the producer into producer-consumer. The blissful acceptance of capitalism that he discerns should not be confused with a similar but simpler, even simplistic idea: the idea that wage earners would let themselves be bribed in exchange for consumer goods, that ambient materialism presses a man to accept everything as long as he is given something to consume. In Marcuse, the productive system adulterates thoughts. Observation of the contemporary world proves him right. Commercial advertising and corporate communication, which have become massive, constitute a kind of para-ideology. Needs are manipulated and therefore behaviours as well. For instance, huge firms are able to cause queues forming nightly, waiting for the opening of a store, by creating among consumers the wholly unnecessary desire to be the first ones to buy a particular new product. One produces gregariousness through the illusory lure of distinction. Another firm has transformed the purchase of its products on the Internet into a kind of permanent game in which blissful consumers are held captive. Much more than the creation of new needs, which is doubtful in my opinion, it is the manipulation of existing needs that is at work.
One-dimensional thinking is the “triumph of positive thinking”, the rejection of transcendence, to which Marcuse opposes “negative thinking”, that which does not accept the limit of what is.
The power and efficiency of this system, the thorough assimilation of mind with fact, of thought with required behaviour, of aspirations with reality, militate against the emergence of a new Subject (140)
The means at work is “radical empiricism”: “There remains only one ideology, that which consists of recognizing what is. »
Ideology and its variants are not the only possible explanation for the persistence of domination in a democratic framework. In the aforementioned work, Steven Lukes presents two alternative theories which seem very interesting to me.
- James Scott does not believe that the dominant ideology shapes the consciences of the dominated. Their apparent adhesion results from a simulation: they pretend to accept the dominant discourse to avoid conflicts. They opt for forms of resistance, rather passive, which avoid open confrontation. Scott's explanation seems to me perfectly suitable for dictatorial societies like Soviet Union. The fall of the regime is eloquent: suddenly, many of those who, the day before, said they were favourable to communism, welcomed its disappearance. The facade of consent disappears with the loss of its reason for being.
- Jon Elster attributes to the dominated what he calls “adaptive preferences”. They adapt their desires to what society allows them to hope for. The archetype is the fox from La Fontaine's fable: unable to catch them, he claims that the grapes are not ripe enough. This process is entirely endogenous to the dominated group. It allows its members to reduce the cognitive dissonance induced by oppression. Elster's theory seems very sound to me. Human beings have their pride; denying their dominated condition can reassure them. Adhering to the dominant discourse strengthens denial. There is a situation particularly conducive to this attitude: when domination occurs in the presence of outsiders, for example when two communities live side by side. The group that is oppressed in one of them will want to spare to itself the humiliation represented by the spectacle of its disgrace.
I would like to add three causes which emanate from my personal reflection and which seem to me perhaps more effective than some of the aforementioned.
[list=]1. To contest a distribution system is potentially to open a conflict, to sow discord. Faced with conflict, individual psychologies vary, but many of us prefer to avoid it. The psychological preference for harmony can explain passive consent to a system that is known to be unjust. It is tempting for dominant thinking to take advantage of this spontaneous scruple in order to make potential protesters feel guilty.
2. The current state of affairs acquires power simply by virtue of existing. Thinking of what exists as a contingency and not as a necessity requires taking a step back. The intuitive presumption is very common that “what is” must have a reason for being. This idea is present both among philosophers and in common sense.
3. Finally, perhaps the most important factor of all. Conceiving society as we would like it and implementing the change required to move from the current state to this ideal are two approaches with immeasurably different implications. You have in mind the distribution of wealth that seems optimal to you, but the wealth is already distributed in some actual way. Correcting this distribution is a very delicate undertaking, full of risks and pitfalls. The difficulty of redistributing infinitely exceeds that of distribution ex nihilo, an impossible case in politics. Many who accept the goal of a more just society are likely to shy away from the difficulties of transition.[/list]
*
All these difficulties are actual, but I must repeat what I wrote in my preceding article. The main cause of the difficulty of the Left to gain enough votes from the dominated class is its own behaviour. It does not inspire trust in its ability to successfully manage true reforms… because this ability does not exist, neither by social-democrats, nor by radicals.
Paul Jael
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