No 3 (2013)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://gupea-staging.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/80626
On the analysis and critique of ideology
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Item Did somebody say political religion? Notes on an ideologeme(LIR. journal, 2013) Falk, HjalmarThis article deals with the concept of »political religion«, a term often used to connote certain features of totalitarianism. The aim here is twofold. First, to summarize certain features within this discourse for critical analysis, via an initial naming of it as an ideologeme, a concept developed by Fredric Jameson. Second, the article attempts to show how the ideologeme of the politico-religious narrative or discourse can and has been used in a critical-theoretical agenda by exemplifying its use in the early work of Slavoj Žižek. I argue that certain features of the ideologeme open up for hermeneutical critical work on political ideologies through a confrontation with the growing and many-faceted discourse on political theology.Item Ideological continuity and discursive changes in the Swedish educational system(LIR. journal, 2013) Wedin, TomasIn this article I present a reading of the relationship between discourse and ideology. With two curricula for the Swedish upper secondary school as my empirical basis, I suggest that the rather conspicuous differences between the curriculum of 1970 and that of 2011 ought to be considered as manifestations of discursive but not ideological changes. In the concluding remarks, I argue that the way in which the term discourse has come to be used has contributed to this. As a way forward, I contend that the Rawlsian framework, given the social-liberal values which it is supposed to reflect, provide us with political tools to map the most pertinent flaws in the curriculum of 2011.Item Ideology as a Kantian logic of ideas(LIR. journal, 2013) Jøker Bjerre, HenrikOne of the most original contemporary approaches to the critique of ideology is that offered by Slavoj Žižek, who has shown that ideology, far from being an exception to the »normal run of things«, is the precondition for social reality itself. Žižek’s approach to this question is based predominantly on psychoanalysis, in combination with various insights from German idealism. In this paper, I claim that it is possible to develop a strict logic of ideas by drawing more systematically on one of Žižek’s sources – Immanuel Kant. In Kant’s concept of the regulative idea, we find an approach very close to Žižek’s, alongside a purely philosophical argument for why ideas must govern our everyday apprehension of the world.Item The Ideology of consumption or, What does it mean to live in a tasteless world?(LIR. journal, 2013) Benjamin Hansen, BrianThis article opts for a return to a critique of the ideology of consumption. Following Slavoj Žižek it argues that what must be addressed in present-day consumer-capitalism is the level of the superego. Superego is not about living up to certain norms/standards; rather, superego fits consumerism quite well, in that it is the injunction, even obligation, to go beyond any norms or standards and enhance enjoyment. The article attempts, through a diagnosis of postmodern ways of eating and consuming, a new metaphorization of consumer-capitalism as »tasteless«: We live, basically, in a tasteless world where desires and tastes must be reinvented continuously, and we are trapped in the tastelessness of this same world, caught in the matrix of consumption, whatever we do.Item Religion as ideology and critique: Per Götrek’s Christian communism(LIR. journal, 2013) Jansson, AntonSince Karl Marx, studies of ideology have tended to treat religion as negatively ideological, as social cement hiding real conflicts. But throughout history religion has also been used as a resource for criticizing ideology. This paper investigates the latter function, combining a historical study of one religiously framed critique with a discussion of religion as ideology and critique. The focus is on the work of early Swedish communist Per Götrek, who was active during the mid-nineteenth century. I analyze four of his texts and summarize his Christian critique of society, going on to suggest that in a sociological definition of ideology, religion can function both critically as well as ideologically.Item Freedom under conditions of necessity(LIR. journal, 2013) Pedersson, AndersIn this paper I explore a certain conception of ideology with the aim of situating the subject conducting intellectual work acting under given premises. A theory of ideology based on Paul Ricoeur’s work on the subject offers a frame in which ideology functions in a positive and negative manner, at the same time according to a fundamental structure. In the second half of the paper I discuss the notion of utopia as a way to move beyond ideology, or at least push its limits.Item Objects of history / Objects of ideology(LIR. journal, 2013) von Eggers Mariegaard, NicolaiIn this article I present some preliminary thoughts on what lessons might be learned from modern developments in critical thought if one wants to take up once again Michel Foucault’s project. I start out by discussing a few elements in Slavoj Žižek’s critique of ideology as well his critique of Foucault, and then go on to discuss Agamben and later Derrida, both in relation to Foucault, in order to articulate what I see as some of the most poignant elements of Foucault’s archeological method. Throughout the article I try to introduce to the archeological method what I call ‘split objects’. Even though I will not claim it is unproblematic to bring Žižek, Foucault, and Agamben together, I nevertheless see some affinities, and what I suggest is reading them in such a way that they can work as productive discussants of each other in order to revitalize an archeological critique of ideology.Item The practico-inertia of institutional practices(LIR. journal, 2013) Hein Jessen, MathiasIn this article I seek to give an account of what I call the practico- inertia of institutional practices or the ideology of institutional practices. In the everyday functioning of our institutional, organizational and administrative practices there exists what Slavoj Žižek has termed objective violence, in the »often catastrophic consequences of the smooth functioning of our economic and political systems«. This objective violence is often not questioned fundamentally because it is deeply embedded in our practices and thereby treated as something given, something natural, as something necessary and beyond the control of human beings – it is ideology. In this article I examine the violence inherent in this ‘normal’ state of things and highlight the power that is inherent in institutional practices and the difficulty of changing it.Item Introduction - On the analysis and critique of ideology(LIR. journal, 2013) Falk, Hjalmar; Jansson, Anton; Pedersson, Anders