•      the general material process of production of ideas, beliefs and values in social life

•      ideas (whether true or false) which symbolize the conditions and life experiences of a specific, socially significant group or class

•      the promotion and legitimation of the interests of social groups in the face of opposing interests

•      the promotion and legitimation of sectoral interests, but confined to the activities of a dominant social order

•      ideas and beliefs which help to legitimate the interests of a ruling group or class specifically by distortion and dissimulation

•      false or deceptive beliefs arising from the material structure of society as a whole

[Eagleton, 1991 #52, pps 28 - 30]

This list is helpful, for, while we may not be able to agree on what ideology is, at least we have some way of talking to each other across different usages of the term. A thread that runs through this list is the place and role of ideology in the maintenance of the dominant social order. In claiming that schools are mechanisms of reproducing such domination, I am not claiming that it is teachers themselves who are singularly guilty of that oppression. This is for (at least) two reasons. First, individuals do not only make society, they are also agents for it. Secondly there is the whole area of “unintended consequences of intentional conduct” [Giddens, 1979 #131, p 59]. As Jorge Larrain tells us:

Material conditions and social institutions have been produced in human practice, but they have acquired an independence over and above individuals, constituting an objective power which dominates men and women.

[Larrain, 1983 #195, p 20]

3.3.3 Is ideology ‘false consciousness’?

The claim that Marx saw ideology as determined purely by underlying economic conditions, is a common one, but it is not one that is largely sustainable, because “‘ideological’ and ‘economic’ problems lose their mutual exclusiveness and merge into one another” [Lukács, 1968 #281, p 34]. Alex Callinicos similarly rejects such approaches to defining ideology [Callinicos, 1983 #74].

What I propose is that we dispense with the notion that ideologies are imaginary representation, false beliefs, illusions; ideology is, on Therborn’s definition, ‘that aspect of the human condition under which human beings live their lives as conscious actors in a world that makes sense to them in various degrees’ [Therborn, 1980 #217, p 2]. Secondly if ideology is not false, then neither is it consciousness. To quote Althusser again, ‘ideology is indeed a system of representations, but in the majority of cases these have nothing to do with ‘consciousness’: they are usually images and occasionally concepts, but it is above all as structures that they impose on the vast majority of men’ [Althusser, 1969 #26, p 233]. More precisely, ideologies are practices which function symbolically, usually through the generation of utterances, subject to definite norms and constraints. Very often these norms and constraints derive from the prevailing structure of class power.

[Callinicos, 1983 #74, p 135]

Marx’s most detailed treatment of ideology appears in one of his earlier works, The German Ideology [Marx, 1845 #85], in which his ideas were still in a process of formation and flux [McLellan, 1986, Second Edition 1995 #362, p 17]. Subsequent treatments in Capital (1867) and Preface to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) are much briefer and less developed. We have to conclude then that Marx’s development of ideology is incomplete, and is less a theory than a “cluster of brilliant insights” [Parekh, 1982 #317, p 219].

Antonio Gramsci took ideology somewhat further and attempted to remedy the lack of clarity in previous attempts to operationalise it. Ideology often becomes circulated as what Gramsci called ‘common sense’, or “the incoherent set of generally held assumptions and beliefs common to any given society” which contrasts with ‘good sense’ the “practical empirical common sense in the English sense of the term” [Gramsci, 1971 #282, p 323, Note 1]. One crucial feature of ideology for him was the role it played in solidifying popular beliefs [Gramsci, 1971 #282, p 377]. Terry Eagleton further suggests that enduring ideologies depend less on blatant falsehoods than on accurate but partial representations - ideologies are therefore notable for what they do not discuss.

A work is tied to ideology not so much by what it says, as by what it does not say. It is in the significant silences of a text, in its gaps and absences, that the presence of ideology can be most positively felt

[Eagleton, 1976 #268, p34 - 5]

In addition Clifford Geertz suggests that ideologies represent the world in a way which people find reassuring [Geertz, 1973 #227].

Most commonly, the notion of ideology is associated with one of the classical political ideologies: one of the well organised, action oriented belief systems characteristic of modern politics, for example, conservatism, liberalism, socialism, communism, fascism. What is unique about these belief systems is they contain both an empirical claim about the nature of social reality (a theory of society) and normative claims about how society should be organised. Unlike scientific belief systems, however, the normative or political imperative predominates over the empirical dimension; even when key claims of ideologies may be undermined, adherents tend to persist in ignoring them because of the priority of their values concerns.

This issue of ideology as falsehood is a central one in the understanding of ideology, and has become known as the ‘false consciousness’ conception which sees ‘ideology’ as a distortion of reality. Such distortions may be socially engineered and politically motivated. There are authors who claim that Karl Marx’s conception of ideology was based upon the ‘false consciousness’ imbued upon the working class by the bourgeoisie. Martin Seliger [Seliger, 1977 #202] and Robert Freedman [Freedman, 1990 #175] argue this view for instance, but it the context of Karl Marx’s conception of capitalist society. Fundamental to this is the position that consciousness is not independent of material conditions. Such conditions are a result of individuals being forced to co-operate by the social structure and hence do not do so of their own free will.

One argument counter to this ‘false consciousness’ perspective is that it is empirically false. It can be easily seen that dominant ideology is not universally accepted by other dominated social groups. The existence of resistance, subversion, working class patriotism and so on can be used to water down the view that the state imposes a dominant ideology onto unsuspecting workers. There is little now to gain from considering the ‘false consciousness’ notion, as Stuart Hall forcefully argues on two counts.

It is a highly unstable theory about the world which has to assume that vast numbers of ordinary people, mentally equipped in much the same way as you or I, can simply be thoroughly duped into misrecognizing entirely where their interests lie. Even less acceptable is the position that, whereas “they” - the masses - are the dupes of history, “we” - the privileged - are somehow without a trace of illusion and can see right though into the truth of a situation.

[Hall, 1988 #77,p 44]

Consequently, the false consciousness notion that ideology somehow represents distorted views of reality is not one that holds much credibility.

3.3.4 The link between ‘ideology’ and ‘discourse’

In order to elaborate the interplay between ideology and discourse, I will need to discuss briefly some of the work of Louis Althusser who strove to maintain a commitment to Marxism his operationalisation of ideology. Louis Althusser argued that ideological positions do not always or necessarily represent some truthful representation of social reality. He was more interested in how ideology performs its function, and saw its significance in its material existence in what we do and say. So, although ideology is not an illusory, false representation of some real existence, it is the means through which people live their lives [McLellan, 1986, Second Edition 1995 #362, p 28].

Ideology is distinguished from a science not by is falsity, for it can be coherent and logical, but the fact that the practico-social predominates in it over the theoretical.

[Althusser, 1969 #26, p 252]

Ideology for Althusser plays a role in shaping society

An ideology is a system (with its own logic and rigour) of representations (images, myths, ideas or concepts depending on the case) endowed with a historical existence and role within a given society.

[Althusser, 1969 #26, p 231]

Hence, ideology is a structure of ideas, which places demands on us to conform, and to believe things that fit the structural framework of the ideological position, because ideology is not an idiosyncratic personal possession, but a social form that we buy into. Naturally, some may buy in more than others may, and some may succeed in resisting the demands to conform, but our ideological structure helps us to live our...