I don't know WHAT I am doing writing to xmca on Christmas night! I really
OUGHT to have something better to do! :)
But somehow, even at this hour, people seem to be on about issues that also
drive me nuts ... which I suppose is why I participate in the group!
My sense about "false consciousness" (and I don't like the term either) is
that (a) everyone has "true consciousness" grounded in their material being
about core matters of their immediate experience: am I in pain? do I come
up against frustrations and obstacles? who do I like?, (b) all these
meanings and feelings are mediated by cultural categories at a low-level,
i.e. a mostly unconscious level, such as via the semantics of the language
or the most deeply embedded notions in the culture, but that these cultural
models or filters are NOT under any special control of the ruling factions
of society, who are just as subject to them as the rest of us, but (c)
people do NOT have a basis for forming realistic models about macrosocial
issues on scales that are much larger than our personal experience, except
through specialist discourses and networks of information (e.g. economics,
political science, sociology ... or what we wish they were).
At the macrosocial level, there are informal folk-theories about how
society works. These are influenced by the mass media and by the conscious
interests and spin of the ruling factions, but only up to a point (they
cannot be changed rapidly). These theories often reflect hegemonic views
that reflect ruling class interests, but only where such views and
interests have been around and fairly stable for a long time. This is not
false "consciousness", it is incorrect (or at least dysfunctional in
relation to most people's interests) "theory". These are beliefs that do
not arise from direct being and experience. They arise from participation
in a social system that promulgates such discourses, abstract beliefs, and
abstract values. These are in conflict for many people with their direct
experience, but because experience is at the level of the concrete, and the
discourses are at a more abstract level, it is very hard for people to
formulate the contradiction or to feel it. What they feel, eventually, are
the consequences of having voted the wrong way, but even then they cannot
usually backtrack the connections to see that it was their false theory
that betrayed their real interests.
Unfortunately, this is not a good situation for our models of mass
electoral democracy. We constantly ask people to vote on matters about
which they have no direct experience, and no specialist knowledge. Our
democratic theory says that people will make the right choices based on
their genuine interests and lived experience. But this is not correct if
people cannot make these connections (until it is way too late).
It is of course interesting to try to figure out why some hegemonic models
become strongly accepted by people whose interests they do not serve, and
other models do not. Judy had a good point (slightly overstated maybe) that
people accept models that offer them some HOPE. Or that mitigate the danger
of courses of action that would otherwise be implied (like violent
revolution?). Sometimes false models do serve our interests, or at least
some of our interests, particularly in many cases our short-term interests.
It is not clear (in social psychology for example) that people do very
often actually make concrete decisions based on their abstract theories
about things, especially about things outside the domain of their immediate
experience. Voting is one of the few occasions when this may happen. (There
are many possible forms of democracy; the one we have at the moment may not
be a particularly good one.)
Why vote for Arnold? because people want to identify with the image that he
represents: strong, independent, ruthless opponent of The System, winner.
He already had this image, no need to spend millions trying to create it
during a political campaign. All that was needed was for people to see a
relevant cross-over from the domain of acting to the domain of politics.
These are not really very separate domains in American consciousness.
Politicians are widely perceived as actors already. What politicians do,
even wars, are shown in the media in more or less the same form as movies,
or videogames. They are theatre. The direct connections to any individual's
actual life are pretty tenuous and hard to model (unless you get sent to
war personally, or someone you know, and even then, the complexity of
causal factors determining what will happen to you makes it easy to imagine
HOPEfully that it's not a big problem). Try holding elections for people's
immediate supervisors or local bosses and politics might look very
different. The usual candidates are BORING. Who wants to watch them on
television night after night? And how much real difference does it make WHO
is governor of California with regard to the major problems of the state?
Yes, they can make things worse. But where is the evidence that they can
make things better?
Voter turnouts are very low in the US compared to other hi-tech nations. Is
that based on false consciousness?
JAY.
At 05:36 PM 12/25/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>Dear Iraj and everybody-
>
>Iraj wrote,
> > In Lefebvre and Soja's language, there is a 'gap' between the
> > 'perceived' or 'First space' and the produced 'conceived' or 'Second
>space.'
> > What is 'true' here then? Is it not that , based on the same real
>reality
> > we can produce many social spaces--virtual realities, identities,
>conceived
> > or second spaces?
>
>I was "raised" on Il'enkov's tradition. According to Il'enkov, there is not
>"real" and "virtual" (or "ideal" in his terminology) consciousness because
>by its very nature consciousness is always virtual while any virtual fantasy
>is always reality-based. (Modern philosopher Zizek (sp?) recently made a
>similar statement about "virtual sex" on the Internet arguing that any sex
>has its virtual aspect). Thus, the issue is not "virtuality" versus
>"reality". I do not think that the issue of "false consciousness" is about
>immediate versus mediated experiences (if I correctly understand 'first
>space' vs. 'second space' distinguish "home" vs. "office") because there is
>not such thing as "non-mediated" experience and any experience also has its
>immediate aspect. I think what makes consciousness "false consciousness" is
>not the nature of the consciousness itself (e.g., "virtual" vs. "real"
>artifacts) or the nature of underlining experiences but rather the nature of
>social relations and practices in which the consciousness is embedded in
>(situated) and emerge from.
>
>In this sense, I more incline to Latour's analysis of cultural
>"irrationality" in his book "Science in action" who tries to reconstruct
>cultural practices to understand apparent "irrationality" (or "false
>consciousness"). Latour is definitely right that the issue of irrationality
>or "false consciousness" is about relationship of incomprehensibility
>between I and another (or in an extreme case between I-in-past and
>I-am-now).
>
>What makes sense for a Latino male in California voting for Schwarzenegger
>embedded in his history and his relations does not make sense for Mike
>embedded in his own history and his relations. Often this
>incomprehensibility is based on fragmentation of communities when people do
>not have direct contact with each other and can't talk. Mike, do you know
>any Latino male in California who voted for Schwarzenegger? If so, did you
>ask him a question, why he voted this way and if he was aware about possible
>economic consequences for his family?
>
>What do you think?
>
>Eugene
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: IRAJ IMAM [mailto:iimam@cal-research.org]
> > Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2003 3:21 PM
> > To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > Subject: RE: false consciousness
> >
> > Eugene:
> >
> > 'Mike raised an interesting issue about the nature of so-called "false
> > consciousness" or why and how people willingly choose what is "obviously"
> > bad for them thinking that it is good for them...
> >
> > 1. People sometimes act guided by projective, virtual reality (back to the
> > issue of role-taking play).
> >
> > 2. Cultural models that are widely available to people through media,
> > school, and institutions are essentially middle- and upper-class.
>"American
> > dream" is very much middle-class ideology. People can't invent their own
> > cultural models - thinking tools - each time on individual basis. However,
> > publicly available cultural models are colonized by those who are in
> > power..."
> >
> > iraj:
> >
> > 1. is it not the whole purpose of propaganda(pr/spin/ad) to make people
> > believe in something that it is not 'true' in the first place--ie,
>deception
> > (eg, WMD, imminent threat from iraq, and link to Al-Qaede. Or the add: 'if
> > you drink this brand of alcoholic beverage, good looking young people will
> > surround you')?
> >
> > 2. Put differently, the purpose is to produce "false consciousness" as
> > social space. Here the virtual or 'imagined space' has to NOT to
>correspond
> > to the 'real space.' In CHAT's language, the identity is not matching the
> > activity. In Lefebvre and Soja's language, there is a 'gap' between the
> > 'perceived' or 'First space' and the produced 'conceived' or 'Second
>space.'
> > What is 'true' here then? Is it not that , based on the same real
>reality
> > we can produce many social spaces--virtual realities, identities,
>conceived
> > or second spaces?
> >
> > 3. If people are trapped into a "projective, virtual reality" or "
> > Cultural models" then they act upon them. In CHAT: identities feedback on
> > and shape activities (Eugene's example of the "American Dream"). IN
>Lefebvre
> > and soja's: second space is shaping social space.
> >
> > 4. If ruling ideas of the time come from the ruling classes, then one
>should
> > expect all of this! And hence the opportunity for critical or
> > transformational perspectives. Or time for production of new (imagined and
> > real) space; of identity, of cultural models, of activity, of new and
> > different social space (eg, Freire and others). If people are presented
>with
> > alternative 'cultural model' they may go on to produce their own
>individual
> > and group new spaces, and hence new activities. On by engaging in new
> > activities, they can explore and produce new social spaces (real and
> > imagined). May be that is why our w admin and our dominant cultural
> > productions needs so much censorship--to prevent production of a different
> > space.
> >
> > Cheers!
> >
> > iraj
> >
> >
> >
Jay Lemke
Professor
University of Michigan
School of Education
610 East University
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Tel. 734-763-9276
Email. JayLemke@UMich.edu
Website. www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jan 01 2004 - 01:00:10 PST