Yudhis and Juna Talks (2)

"'After the Second World War,' Juna continued, 'the expansion of the meaning of ideology in various directions from the 1890s onwards, together with the point of departure provided by Marx and Engels, was confronted by an approach known as critical theory. In contrast to Marx’s understanding of ideology as a spirit disconnected from social processes, Theodor Adorno, for instance, saw it as the force that shapes society and reality. For Adorno, ideology and reality merge in an extremely powerful appearance. In the capacity of a socially necessary appearance, ideology itself becomes the real society. There is no ideology in the sense of a false consciousness opposed to the really existing society.

Another sociological and socio-psychological trend which affected the ideology concept after the Second World War, focused on the function of ideologies for political and social action. The question of function circumvented the earlier problem of the opposition between ideas and reality. Ideologies were seen as instruments for managing societies and social processes.

From the 1950s the pluralist and functional view of ideologies emerged in the framework of the Cold War, which tended towards an ideological polarization, rather than relativization, between a Western democratic and an Eastern socialist supra ideology.

The complex and more finely-tuned understanding of ideas and ideologies after the Second World War—from functionalism to the end of ideology scenarios to Koselleck’s imagination of ideological polarization—provided instruments with which to analyse the function—or disfunction—of democratic societies against the backdrop of the totalitarian era before the war. The three predominant totalitarian regimes that held the world in an iron grip from the 1920s—fascism, nazism, and stalinism—were fundamentally built on ideologies. It became an important task for the social and historical sciences to identify the differences as well as the similarities between totalitarian and democratic ideologies.

‘Totalitarian’ was a term used by the enemies of totalitarianism as well as its adherents. In 1923 Giovanni Amendola used the term to describe Italian fascism as a new system fundamentally different from earlier historical examples of dictatorship. Amendola, a journalist, liberal politician, and activist, as well as a professor of philosophy, was one of the most prominent critics of Mussolini in the early 1920s.

The leading fascist ideologue Giovanni Gentile, referred to totalitario as the aim and the structure of the new state, which would provide the total representation of the nation and total guidance for national goals. The state ideology was an instrument to subjugate the citizens. According to Benito Mussolini, totalitarismo was the cornerstone of an ideology that penetrated all areas of human activity; it was a system that politicized every aspect of life: everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.

The fall of the Soviet Empire in 1989–91 was seen in ideological terms as a new divide, similar to that of 1945. Here too, however, a more sophisticated view about continuities and discontinuities was eventually to emerge. The fall of the totalitarian regimes in 1945 resulted in a growing interest in the preconditions and functions of ideologies in democratic societies among political and social scientists. For a short time after 1989, ideologies were seen as a disappearing category but in a different way than convergence theorists had argued in the 1960s. Here it was argued that their disappearance was due to the fact that there was only one ideology left and no remaining ideological competition.

In 2010, both the globalization and the European narratives have lost their legitimacy and mobilizing power. The war of religions ideology remains strong and has undergone further evolution in the direction of nationalism, populism, and racism. The ideological landscape has changed dramatically in a few years. Ideology is about exclusion as much as inclusion, enemy as much as friend, the Other as much as Self.

Conceptual history, and the linguistic turn more generally, drove the trend for a relativization and historicization of the ideology concept since Mannheim one step further. Ideology was not seen as an objective category that could be studied from an external position, nor was it a function of pre-given interests. Instead it was viewed as contingent on interpretative power and mastery of language. Conceptual history dissolved the old dichotomy between reality and ideas.

Nobody has yet come up with a single adequate definition of ideology. This is not because workers in the field are remarkable for their low intelligence, but because the term 'ideology' has a whole range of useful meanings, not all of which are compatible with each other.'

'To indicate this variety of meaning,' said Yudhis, 'let me list more or less at random some definitions of ideology in circulation:

• the process of production of meanings, signs and values in social life;
• a body of ideas characteristic of a particular social group or class;
• ideas which help to legitimate a dominant political power;
• false ideas which help to legitimate a dominant political power;
• systematically distorted communication;
• that which offers a Po.sitio.n for a subject;
• forms of thought motivated by Social interests;
• identity thinking;
• socially necessary illusion;
• the conjuncture ofdiscourse and power;
• the medium in which conscious social actors make sense of their
• world;
• action-oriented sets ofbeliefs;
• the confusion oflinguistic and phenomenal reality;
• semiotic closure;
• the indispensable medium in which individuals live out their relations to a social structure;
• the process whereby social life is converted to a natural reality.

'Oh, that's just ideological!' the passenger next to them chimed in. 'I have a story, but I don't know whether it will be ideological or not.' Yudhis replied, 'It's okey, just tell us, please!'

'A chemist, a physicist, and an economist,' said the passenger, 'were passengers on a flight that crashed in the middle of the ocean. Swimming to a tiny island, they discovered water but no food, so they were overjoyed when a crate of canned food washed up on the beach. The chemist lost no time in getting to work on a chemical formula that would dissolve the lids of the cans. The physicist picked up a boulder and set to work calculating the angle and velocity of the blow which wculd pierce the cans. Observing their frantic efforts, the economist simply picked up a can, scratched his chin, and said, 'Let's assume we have a can opener!

''Interesting!' said Juna, 'By the way, I'm Juna,' while extending his fist salute, 'And I am Yudhis.'

'And I am Petruk!' said the passenger. 'Patrick?' asked the other two, 'No, Petruk! One of Panakawan's name, known in wayang in the land of the Emerald. In the Mahabharata and Ramayana, there are no figures of Semar, Gareng, Petruk, Bagong, or other panakawan figures. Likewise, the panakawan figures in wayang madya and wayang wasana. Apart from the panakawans, such as Antareja, Antasena, Wisanggeni, Gandamana, and others are not in the Mahabharata. In order not to interfere with the storyline at the end of the story, all the fictional characters of our ancestors were turned to death in various ways.

Thus, when Bharatayuda takes place, only the characters in the Mahabharata appear. And I don't know if it's an ideology or not.'"

Laluna closed the discussion by saying, "I didn't have time to listen to what Yudhis and Juna said, because my time was up and the flight attendant announced that in a few moments, the plane would land, and passengers were asked to tighten their seat belts and so on. And Allah knows best."

Citations & References:
- Michael Freeden, Ideology - A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press
- Terry Eagleton, Ideology - An Introduction, Verso
- Michel Freeden, Lyman Tower Sargent and Marc Stears (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies, Oxford University Press
[Part 1]

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