IMAGINARY AND IDEOLOGY:
Illusions in Everyday Representations and Complex Thought
Abstract: The discussion
of the illusions in a society where these predominate in the human mind is
fundamental and refers to the question of their social roots, that is, the
process of social constitution of illusions. The objective here, however, is only
to observe the relationship between two fundamental forms of illusions, the
imaginary and the ideology, to realize the process of transforming from one
into another and so to advance the understanding of this ubiquitous phenomenon
in contemporary society. So we analyze the illusory forms of everyday
representations and ideology in order to observe their relationships. The
complexification of the simple (imaginary passage to ideology) and the
simplification of the complex (ideology passage to imaginary).
Key-words: Imaginary,
ideology, Everyday Representations, Complex Thought, Illusions
1.
Introduction
The history of human consciousness is marked by
a set of changes that can only be understood if inserted into the history of
human societies. Consciousness can be understood as in Marx's thought, as
"real" or "illusory". Our focus here will be what Marx
called "illusionary representations" of reality, which obviously
makes us refer to the "real representations", because the discussion
of one generates the need, inevitably, to approach the other. The discussion of
the illusions in a society where these predominate in the human mind is
fundamental and refers to the question of their social roots, that is, the
process of social constitution of illusions. The objective here, however, is
only to observe the relationship between two fundamental forms of illusions,
the imaginary and the ideology, to realize the process of transforming from one
into another and so to advance the understanding of this ubiquitous phenomenon
in contemporary society.
The history of human consciousness is, at heart,
a story of illusions. The illusions have always existed, but in different ways
and for different reasons. The word illusion has several meanings, such as
"improbable hopes", but here we use as distortion of reality, false
consciousness, wrong, of reality. Thus, consciousness can be illusory or real,
which means it can express the reality as it is or distort it.
The history of illusions begins with the ancient
myths and reaches the present day in the form of science, philosophy, etc. The
myth as a way of explaining the world proves illusory, as well as the myth of
the explanations also can and most often are illusory (VIANA, 2011). However,
the roots of the general illusions are varied, although the basic
determination, in the case of our society, is social. In simple societies, what
we have are relationships of humans with the environment marked by dependence
and a culture still too marked by forms of reflection whose movement of return
to itself of the thinker is performed non-consciously, with another
unreflective projection. With the emergence of class society and the separation
of manual and intellectual work, the original thinkers, philosophers, advanced
towards thinking this return to himself consciously. When Protagoras launches
the maximum "man is the measure of all things" (PLATO, 1977), he marks
a revolution in human thought.
In slave society, however, if there is an
advance in human consciousness, it suffers other limitations that did not exist
before. The training of skilled workers in their intellectual work, due to the
exploitation of slave labor, allows to extend the reflections on the world and
expand human consciousness, including due to the larger domination of humans over
nature with the development of new productive forces, but creates a new
obstacle: the division of society into classes and derived or subordinated subdivisions
to it generates different lifestyles, interests, values, feelings, also
different. If the simple societies had a single, homogeneous culture, if
everyone believed the same myth, in the class society the social division
promotes different forms of consciousness.
The illusory representations will have as main
determination not to depend on nature but on the social division of labor which
expresses the existence of different and antagonistic social classes and all
that derives from it. Even the division between manual and intellectual work
brings out the figure of the ideologue i.e, specialist in intellectual work
that produces an illusory system of thought, which Marx called ideology. Thus
comes into being not only the illusory representations spontaneously produced
by individuals of various classes from their position in the social division of
labor, interests, values, feelings, etc., but also a new kind of illusionary
representations, systematic and whose producers are the intellectual workers.
It is in this historical context that ideology is born (MARX and ENGELS, 1992).
The development process of human history was,
from that moment, marked by the production and reproduction of illusions,
whether in one way or another, simple or complex form. The complex form is the
realm of ideology, experts in intellectual work that generate real systems of
thought, in the form of philosophy, theology, science, etc. and the simple way
is what later this complex thought called "common sense,"
"popular culture," "popular knowledge", "everyday
knowledge", "social representations", among other names. And
about these forms of consciousness were produced interpretations and
explanations, most often, illusory. In this case, are produced illusions about
other illusions. A true illusory world begins to reign supreme in the class
society and capitalist society. Undoubtedly, as well as the newborn philosophy
provided some advances in terms of human consciousness, later developments
also, in many cases, allowed other advances, but which, however, has not yet
managed to overcome the primacy of illusion in human thought. And beyond the
inversion of reality performed systematically by ideology and the everyday
illusionary representations, there is also a world of illusions that conducts a
mediation of the interpretation of those illusions.
After this historical context, it is important
to clarify the concepts of ideology and everyday illusionary representations,
or imagined, to move forward in the discussion on the relationship between
these two forms of consciousness. The word ideology has several meanings, being
polysemic. It can be understood as "science of ideas", such as
defined Antoine Destutt de Tracy (CHAUÍ, 1992); as "worldview"
(Gramsci, 1989); among other meanings. These are ideological conceptions of
ideology. And ideology is understood as the concept elaborated by Marx and
misunderstood (and often interpreted ideologically) by their interpreters.
Ideology, in the conception of Marx, is a
systematic false consciousness, wishful thinking system. The systematic nature
of ideology is its imaginary distinctive feature, i.e, the everyday illusory
representations. Marx identifies the birth of ideology with the division
between manual and intellectual work, with the emergence of the figure of the
ideologist and the autonomy of the world of ideas on the part of thinkers,
experts in cultural production. The criticism that Marx directs to ideologues is
the same as to the idealistic philosophers, Neohegelian, which produced real
systems from the work of Hegel and against him. Marx did not address the
illusion of slaves, servants, workers, warriors, bureaucrats, etc. The concept
of ideology, therefore, refers to its producers, the ideologues and these are
the knowledge workers (scientists, philosophers, theologians).
If ideology is a wishful thinking system, it is
not the only form of manifestation of illusions. Because of the social division
of labor and all that derives from it, and the process of exploitation and
domination that is such a division, there is a constant process of producing
illusions. Both individuals of the exploited classes and individuals of the
ruling classes produce illusions, but not in a systematic way. It is up to
ideologues or, as in rare cases, some individuals of these classes can, despite
its position in the social division of labor, have time to create systems of
thought, producing a systematic false consciousness. In Marx, this opposition
exists from his criticism of philosophical ideologies in The German Ideology
(MARX and ENGELS, 1992) until his scientific critique of ideologies, political
economy, in The Capital (MARX, 1988). Marx said that "everyday
concepts" agents of the production process were systematized and made into
science by political economists. Let us return to this later.
The concept of ideology refers, therefore, to the
wishful thinking system. In this sense, the works of Aristotle, Plato, Hegel,
Durkheim, Weber, Locke, Baumann, Giddens, among thousands of others, are
ideological products. The ideology, however, being a thought system has not
only an illusory content, i.e, reverses the reality, but also has a form. It is
a system of thought and its systematic nature give it it’s formal
characteristics. Ideologies are a totality, a set of ideas that are structured
systematically, constituting constructs, misconceptions (VIANA, 2007), which
are interrelated with several other, thus producing a construct system (VIANA,
2012; VIANA, 2007). Ideologies produce a set of constructs organized
systematically. We will not be able to point out here the various features of
ideology, but the key is to understand that it is a form of illusory reality of
consciousness and its distinction from other forms of illusory consciousness is
its systematic character, forming an organized set of constructs.
Everyday representations and Imaginary
Ideology comes with class societies. It is in
this context that many systems of thought arises (which are gaining more
systematic in the course of the historical process and the accumulation of
ideologies, and Platonism and Aristotelianism are some of its first
manifestations, already with a certain degree of systematization, especially in
the case of Aristotle). The myth is a conception of relatively organized and
coherent reality, but that is not yet established as a system. Ideology is
production of ideologues, experts in intellectual work. And those who are not
ideologues? They develop their awareness of the reality and do so in different
ways, with different contents. If ideology takes the form of science,
philosophy, theology, other forms of consciousness are what we call everyday
representations, what others call "common sense", "everyday
knowledge", "social representations", etc.
The common-sense idea is the product of
ideology, or more specifically, of science (VIANA, 2008). The constitution of
the new dominant form of ideology, science, from the rise of the bourgeoisie
and its conquest of the state apparatus with the bourgeois revolutions in
comparison with the widespread ideas in society in the form of utopian
socialism, anarchism, Marxism, produces need to separate both forms of thought
and the disqualification of popular culture, influenced by such conceptions.
The reason is very simple: what comes spontaneously are everyday
representations ("common sense") and it is only when there emerges a
form of complex thinking is that the distinction becomes possible. The earliest
predecessor of the opposition between complex thinking and everyday
representations is found in Plato (1974), which held the distinction between
doxa and logos, opinion and reason, or, more precisely, the world of opinions,
those who mistake the shadows of reality with herself, and those who see the
lights that came out of the shadow world and reached the world of lights, the
philosophers.
The Platonic opposition between doxa and logos
and subsequently between science and common sense, expresses the self-delusion
of the ideologues whose fundamental element in its distinction is opposing the
true and the false. The philosophy or science would be the true knowledge, doxa
or common sense, the false knowledge. With the historical and social change,
interpretations of common sense change, some ideologues treat it as a
true knowledge (VIANA, 2008). However, what interests us here is the fact that
everyday representations precede the complex thinking, the complex
representations of reality. But, when they come, they seek to distinguish from
everyday representations. No doubt, both forms of representation exist,
however, what differentiates one from the other is not the true character of
one and the false character of another. Ideologies are, in essence, false.
Everyday representations, however, can be true or false, or as Marx says,
"real or illusionary" (MARX and ENGELS, 1992). However, asserting
that all ideologies are false does not mean that all complex representations
are false. Ideology is a complex thought, but beyond ideology there is a theory
(VIANA, 2007; VIANA, 2012). The theory, as opposed to ideology, is an
expression of reality, correct awareness of reality, to use the expression of
the young Lukacs (1989). This design theory as an expression of reality as
opposed to ideology as false consciousness has its origins in Hegel (GOMBIM,
1972) and is manifested in Marx[1] and
later in Korsch (1977), without, however, promoting a more structured
elaboration on this.
Marx did not elaborate any theory of various
forms of in depth representations. But it is clear in The German Ideology and
The Capital, that he conceived the existence of a complex thought, ideology and
theory, and no complex forms of thinking. The complex thought can be true
(theory or to express it another term, which varies in Marx) or false
(ideology), as well as representations may be "true" or
"illusionary" (MARX and ENGELS, 1992). In The Capital he says that
the ideology of political economists actually means, the systematization of
daily representations (he uses the expression "everyday concepts") of
the production process agents (capitalists, managers, workers). However, Marx
devoted more in-depth analysis of ideologies, against which there is the
theory, i.e, Marxism, and the concrete reality and not deepened their
reflections on everyday representations.
Everyday representations can be defined as the
set of ideas or conceptions that people produce in their daily lives,
reproducing its structure: simplicity, regularity and naturalness (VIANA,
2008). Here we are interested in their appearance that distinguishes it from
the complex thought: simplicity. Everyday representations are produced by those
who are not experts in intellectual work and these also when it comes to issues
outside of their specialized training or the whole of their thought before
becoming specialized knowledge workers. They provide simple explanations of
reality. They lack complexity, consistency and systematization (or articulation,
in the case of theory) of complex thinking. Its concrete content, however,
contrary to what some ideological conceptions claim can be true or false not
just fake or just true (VIANA, 2008). Obviously its real content has limits
because it lacks structure and deepening. The real everyday representations are
rarer, they are usually linked to the rise of struggles of the exploited
classes and often mingle with other ways of thinking. They can not have the
structure, coordination, depth and complexity theory.
However, our fundamental interests are not
everyday representations in general, but the imaginary, false everyday representations,
illusory. Thus, the imaginary concept expresses the everyday illusionary
representations, that is, carries with it all the features of everyday
representations and its distinctive element of its illusory nature and therefore
approaches the ideology. The imaginary shares with ideology its illusory
content, although it is distinguished by its simplicity compared to the
complexity of ideological thought. Your false content is more easily perceived
and criticized than in the case of ideologies. The imaginary and ideology are
illusory forms of consciousness, naturalize what is historical and social,
reverse reality. However, what we have here are similarities and differences
between imaginary and ideology. It is important to analyze the concrete
relations between both forms of illusory consciousness, because in actual
reality they coexist and influence each other. From now on we analyze this
relationship, which can occur in two main forms, namely: the imaginary passage
to ideology and the reverse, the transition from ideology to the imagination.
Let's address the two forms, but we will focus on the latter, since this is the
least commonly treated.
From the Simple to Complex: The Ideological
Production
The production of ideology has as its starting
point in the concrete social relations and illusionary everyday representations
produced in society and the values, feelings, interests, existing in the social
classes. The imagery is therefore one of the sources of ideologies. Marx
expressed this when he said that economists systematize everyday conceptions of
the agents of the production process, giving it the scientific, systematic
character. The transformation of the imaginary ideology requires those who will
carry out such a process, the ideologues and the process of systematization of
everyday representations.
This is more understandable to remember a
particular phenomenon and its interpretations. If individuals observe the
appearance of the sun and its disappearance on the horizon, then can create the
illusory representation that it moves. If it is systematized, it becomes
ideology. Aristotle was the first to take this step and Claudius Ptolemy
deepened and gave ideological shape to this conception. If already in ancient Greece
existed those who disagreed, as Aristarchus of Samos, the dominant view was
that populated the imaginary and later the dominant ideologies, until Galileo
and Bruno, when they were refuted in a more structured way and paved the way
for overcoming. However, these two positions did not emerge only from passage
of everyday representations for complex thinking, but also the interests,
values, social processes existing in its time.
The production process of ideology, however,
emerges from an inspiration that is earlier, and therefore the imagery is one
of its determinations. Undoubtedly, at a time dominated by ideologies, the
formation of new ideologies is made from the development, redesign, mix of
existing ones, but in the case of the ideologue as an individual, he first
graduated from the world of everyday representations, imagination which is
dominant to even suit, convince, choose, given previous ideology to produce
their own[2]. The
production of ideologies, therefore, is marked by a progressive process of
imaginary passage, simplistic illusions, for the complex thinking of the
ideological world, systematized delusions.
From the Complex to Simple: The Production of
ideologemes
The maintenance process of the imagery is
distinct. Undoubtedly, everyday representations, real or illusionary, precede
the complex thinking, both in human history as well as in the history of
individuals. No one is born a philosopher, scientist or theologian. However, at
some point in human history, ideology emerges and this influence everyday
representations, more or less intense, covering a larger or smaller number of
people, depending on season and society. The point is that with the capitalist
society, this process acquires specific contours, for various reasons, such as
the emergence of science as the dominant form of dominant ideology (surpassing
the supremacy of philosophy and theology that undergo a process of
marginalization and subordination to the dominant form) and its expansion into
specialized areas and set of social activities, popularization of
rationalization and bureaucratisation of society as a whole. It is in this
context that we address the issue of crossing of the more complex illusions, ideology,
to the simplistic illusions.
Marx did not address this process and few have
paid attention to it. No doubt this will occur with greater incidence in a
certain historical moment, which is in a certain level of development of
capitalist society. This process has several determinations. Undoubtedly, the
very consolidation of science is a precondition for this. Its thematic areas, i.e.,
the themes and phenomena that spans are also fundamental. Among the sciences,
the more influence the population is human, especially psychology, which presents
an explanation of individual behavior in an individualistic society. To a
lesser extent, other human sciences, such as geography, sociology, political
science, etc., influence the everyday representations in capitalist society.
This begins in the 19th century, especially with a certain influence from psychology,
sociology, and other forms of complex thinking, like Marxism, philosophy, etc.
Among the natural sciences, biology, especially the Darwinian ideology ends up
having a greater impact on society, both because of the thematic areas and by
its political character was opposed to religious thought and also by its
influence in the humanities springs.
This influence increased after the Second World
War, especially with the growth of the publishing industry, universities,
oligopolistic media in general. In this context, it is the first more
systematic reflection on this phenomenon, with the study of Serge Moscovici
(1977) on “the social representations of psychoanalysis”. The choice of
psychoanalysis was not free, because their presence in oligopolistic media and
its popularity was evident. However, Moscovici analysis presents some
interesting elements, but as a whole is insufficient. Anyway, it was a first
step to elaborate on the relationship between ideology and imagery towards the
assimilation of complex thought by everyday representations.
A feature of this process is the simplification
that this assimilation promotes. This simplification does not intend to just
simplify it because that usually also deforms the complex thinking. Just as the
idea of Darwin was deformed in order to believe that he said that men descended
from monkeys, also the ideas of Freud and psychoanalysis (who also is
undifferentiated in everyday representations, which, in most cases, are unaware
of the diverse and sometimes antagonistic psychoanalytic concepts) are
simplified and distorted[3].
The process of assimilation of the imaginary
ideologies is generally carried out in the form of production ideologemes. The
word "ideologeme" has been used in different ways by Bakhtin (1990)
and Kristeva (1978), despite some similarities, it is not our interest here to
discuss them. We understand ideologeme in a different way, with a new meaning.
A ideologeme is a fragment of an ideology, is a construct (misconception)
isolated, is a broader part or a simplifying synthesis of a particular
ideological conception or even the reduction of ideology to a buzzword or key
idea.
In other words, a ideologeme is a formal
mutation of an ideology to promote simplification and reduction, transforming a
piece of it on message or main element of a speech, text, message, etc. This
fragment is not an ideology at all, because if so, it would have to reproduce
the set of ideas that constitute it and it would be complex, which not only
requires understanding of it (and this domain is rare in non-specialists), as
also space and conditions for their reproduction.
In a comic book, a film, a newspaper column, a
poetry, to name a few examples, it is hardly possible to reproduce an ideology
without performing the process of simplification that generates the ideologeme.
If even the "passive ideologues" (mere players) have difficulty to
summarize in popular science works or classes ideologies without causing a
strong simplification and most of the time deformation, so it is more difficult
and common in the case of those working with everyday representations.
Thus, in a film it is possible to pass the
elitist conception of art, reproducing a particular ideology, but as
ideologeme. Understanding this process is easier with a concrete example of
ideologeme demonstration in cinema, our next step.
"Kill Theory": The ideologeme which
kills
The movie "Kill Theory" (Chris Moore, USA, 2009) has as
its starting point a ideologeme (or a "theory", as placed in the
title of the film). The importance of ideologeme in that movie makes it an
excellent case to analyze the filmic reproduction ideologemes as well as for
other types of fiction. Generally, ideologemes are embedded in the fictional
universe and are not easily discernible, well as the values, feelings,
unconscious, etc. Therefore the film "Kill Theory" assumes great
importance when taking as a starting point and motivation of a psychopath an ideologeme.
Obviously, it is only the conscious motivation of the psychopath, as are his
psychic problems that are in the act of origin, being the ideologeme just a
rationalization, in the Freudian sense, and self-justification.
Which ideologeme is exposed in the film? The movie begins with the story
of the killer. He, in his conversations with the psychologist, catching a
debate about what led to the arrest. He climbed a mountain with friends and, at
one point, had to decide between saving his life by cutting the rope that bound
him to the other, which would make them fall and die, or continue and be
supportive, and probably die along with them. After performing this act and
being arrested, he claims that everyone does it. Upon his release, the
psychologist asks if he still believes this and the answer is no.
The scene changes radically, moving the focus to young people who went
to a summer house to celebrate the fact that they finished graduation. However,
soon appears the killer, which seeks to place them in the same situation he had
to prove his thesis (ideologeme) that all human beings fight for survival and,
following his instincts, can kill up to friends. The house is fully insulated
and there was no communication and it required that they kill each other and
the survivor left at 6:00 A.M., will live, but if at that time there is still
more one person living, he'll kill everyone. The film's plot revolves around
it, showing the escape attempts, conflicts, etc.
The ideologeme in question is a common fragment of various ideologies
that point to biological determinism, but is based on the Darwinian ideology
and theory of the struggle for survival and the survival of the fittest[4]. The competition and intra species struggle is naturalized and enhanced
by this ideology and its vulgarization and popularization, in which certain
ideologemes can be identified in phrases such as "struggle for life",
"survival of the fittest", etc.
At first, the ideologeme seems to be confirmed as the group of good friends
– who in the early evening were partying and the son of the owner of the house
who said he loved all end up conflicting, and some seek to save themselves
independently of the others until – in the end begin to enter in the killer's
game and try to kill friends to escape death. But at its end, the film ends up
being marked by an act of solidarity, which refutes the ideologeme. In this
sense, the film is not an ideologeme because it performs a rebuttal to the
ideologeme. And it shows that ideologemes, like ideologies, is a mobilizer,
produces action and interferes with reality[5].
Capitalist society is lavish in producing
illusions. Capitalism is a society of illusions. Of course, the rationalization
and the alleged belief in advances in science and technology, among other
things, produce an illusion of overcoming illusions. The illusion of illusions
is the most problematic of illusions. Obviously, the intellectual effort,
research, reflection, are important for such improvement, but not enough, if
not from a perspective which has the need, value, purpose, overcoming the
illusions and, especially, if the social relations that are the illusions of
society base is overcome. That is why Marx said that "the requirement to overcome
the illusions about its condition is the demand to overcome a condition that
requires illusions" (MARX, 1968).
We approach the two main forms of illusion in
contemporary society, the imaginary and ideology, as well as the transformation
of one into another. In previous work we have already placed a discussion of
this issue (VIANA, 2008), but we feel the need to return to the subject to
clarify some aspects that were not developed or perceived at that time, such as
the existence of ideologemes, and this was the main focus of our analysis. To
further clarify the meaning of the concept of ideologeme, we start from an
example of a film that expressed a certain ideologeme. In the case we chose a
film that expressed one ideologeme without, however, affirming it. This shows
one of the possibilities of ideologemes manifestation in artistic production,
because it can be the position expressed by those who produce a certain
artistic work or can be presented to be refuted. The most common, however, is
that the ideologemes are the views of the producers of culture and artistic
works, as it is in accordance with the dominant everyday representations, the
dominant ideas.
Finally, this text opens up a space for a
discussion that should be deepened and that only launches an initial reflection
that should have insights and developments, aimed at increasing the
understanding of imagination, ideologies and ideologemes.
