> if all of this* doesn't provide a critique of ideology,
> then I have no idea what you mean by "critique" and what you mean by
> "ideology." Perhaps you are using these terms in an esoteric way that
> I don't quite understand. So once again I ask you to please explain.
[*Several books and essays by Chomsky]
When the problem raised here would occur in my classes I would begin by pointing out that there are more 'things' out there in the world than there are words in any language. It follows that one cannot avoid using the same word for many different 'things,' some of which things will, actuallly, be radically different from each other. Jerry here, I think, responded more testily than necessary through a failure to remember this fact (I'm sure he's aware of it). What often flows from this is that one party in a conversation, while insisting on the Humpty-Dumpty privilege him/herself will deny that privilege to his/her interlocutor.
Let me resort to artificial symbolism. I shall use Tq to refer to that feature of any social order which Angelus and I (probably with some differences) have used the _word_ "ideology" to name. Now it is perfectly possible that Jerry and others would wish to deny that there is anything in the world corresponding to Tq. Perhaps according to them Tq like unicorns or golden mountains, simply does not exist, except as a concept in the heads of those who speak of it. If there are those on this list, Jerry or others, who deny the social reality of Tq, a debate over that would be illuminating, _if and only if_ it did not involve pointless squabbles over the meaning of the word "Tq." We can't debate the existence of unicors if some say "unicorn" means a mystical horse-like animal with horn extending from its forehead while others claim it means a beast of burden used in Tibet.
CBC, AN (and others) want to insist that what I here name "Tq" not only exists but that an understanding of it at a theoretical level is of great importance in understanding the world we live in.
And one more thing: If a writer (for example) offers a powerful description of Tq WITHOUT, as it happens, using the word "Tq," that does NOT mean that that description cannot, usefully, by others be labelled an "Analysis of Tq." If I describe a bird in my back yard but call it simply a funny bird (or commodity fetishism), if my description is accurate, it would be perfectly reasonable for some ornithologist to refere to Cox's description of Campephilus principalis; and that would remain the case EVEN if someone pointed out that some decades before Cox has used "Campephilus principalis" as away of referring to a certain treatment for croup.
Now it so happens that Engels once used the word "ideology" to refer to something that overlaps Tq but is not really the same thing. And I think Engels's usage of the word should perhaps be preserved as ONE of the things out there in the world that that word names, namely the widespread belief (or error) that ideas have a history of their own, independently of the practices and social relations in which they are manifested. That error became the premise of one of the major mid-century u.s. academic disciplines, and there is still a journal name for it, _Journal of the History of Ideas_. So I certainly would not object if someone used the word regularly in that sense, _so long as_ he or she did not agnrily proclaim that any other use of the word, for example as a label for the social reality of Tq, was wrong.
And "ideology" _also_, of course, is regularly used to refer to "A systematic scheme of ideas, usu. relating to politics or society, or to the conduct of a class or group, and regarded as justifying actions, esp. one that is held implicitly or adopted as a whole and maintained regardless of the course of events." Now one phrase in this definition (remember: OF THE WORD, not the thing), "exp. one that is held implicitly," shows how different senses of a word, while remaining distinct can still point to overlapping features of the world. Tq does NOT refer toa ny "systematic scheme of ideas," but it _does_ refer to ideas that are implicitly _rather than_ (for the most part) explicitly held.
[Incidentally, while The German Ideology is fascinating reading, at times I've felt resentful of the failure of the mice to complete their critique of that work.]
I have not in this post attempted to descirbe Tq or to provide any analysis of it. My only point is to clarify usages of the word "ideology," and to indicate that the word is and has been used (quite legitimagely) to label rather different things.
Carrol