Ideology, anarchy and society: A review essay

Abstract

Jan Rehmann Theories of Ideology: The Power of Alienation and Subjection, Brill Publishing, Historical Materialism Book Series No. 54: Leiden, 2013; viii+350 pp: 9789004252301, 110 [pounds sterling] (hbk) Frank Rosengarten The Revolutionary Marxism of Antonio Gramsci, Brill Publishing, Historical Materialism Book Series No. 62: Leiden, 2014; viii+197 pp: 9789004265745, 89 [pounds sterling] (hbk) Jeff Shantz and Dana M. Williams Anarchy and Society: Reflections on Anarchist Sociology, Brill Publishing, Studies in Critical Social Science, No. 55: Leiden, 2013; xiv+209 pp: 97890214965, 80 [pounds sterling] (hbk) The marked commonalities between these three books extend well beyond their having the same publisher and being--at least in the cases of Rehmann's and Rosengarten's books--published in the same series of Historical Materialism. The second uniting element is thematic, covering ideology, society and anarchy. In a possible anti-Foucaultian 'order of things', one might start with Rehmann's general overview of ideology before illuminating the specific ideological investigation of Rosengarten with Shantz and Williams's work providing a possible counter-model to ideology. Following the invention of the concept of ideology by the French philosopher Antoine Destutt de Tracy (1754-1836), who published four volumes entitled Elements d'ideologie between 1801 and 1815, the idea of a 'science of ideas' was born. But soon, Napoleon Bonaparte (17691821) abused those studying ideas as ideologists, ideologues and doctrinaire dreamers. From then on, ideology carried negative connotations, entering the canon of the Enlightenment most successfully through Karl Marx's German Ideology (1845). Even though ideology is a distinctive modern concept with a 200-year-plus history, and though until now 'nobody has yet come up with a single adequate definition of ideology' (Nescolarde-Selva & Uso-Domenech 2014: 1), two schools of thought on ideology have emerged. The first might be called, 'everything is ideological'. But when ideology is viewed in this way, it might conversely also mean that 'nothing is ideology'. With that, the concept of ideology loses the power to critically analyse social phenomena. Today, Freeden et al. (2013) appear to be the prime representatives of, as Leonardo (2003: 212) calls it, the 'everything is ideology thesis', continuing with 'if everything is ideology, then nothing is ideological'. As a consequence, when ideology becomes an all-embracing [concept it also becomes an] almost meaningless' concept (McLellan 1995: 2). In line with that, Hinich and Munger (1992: 428) argue that 'the neutral ideational sense of ideology simply collapses under scrutiny'. Dedicated to scrutiny is the second understanding of ideology that might be called critical, emancipatory and Marxist, with the classical representatives being Gramsci, Althusser and Therborn (the latter's exquisite book is absent from Rehmann's work). Perhaps the most current representatives of the second school are Rehmann and Rosengarten. With these preliminary observations on ideology in mind, Rehmann begins his journey through the history of ideology with the indispensable calling stations of ideology's inventor de Tracy, followed by Napoleon, Marx and Engels, Lenin, Lukacs and the Frankfurt School, Gramsci and Althusser, and continues with Stuart Hall's theory of hegemony and discourse, a critique of Foucault's governmentality studies, postmodernism, Pierre Bourdieu, and the current domination of Herr von Hayek's neoliberal ideology. The journey ends by arriving at the final station of ideology-critique: the Projekt Ideologietheorie (PIT). Through all this, Rehmann is able to close two vital knowledge gaps in the history of ideology when he highlights the concept of ideology from the second international to Marxism-Leninism' and details the Frankfurt School's approximation to ideology when, for example, Marcuse notes that 'the rational rather than the irrational becomes the most effective vehicle of mystification'. …