Rosen - On voluntary servitude: false consciousness and the theory of ideology

MICHAEL ROSEN

Polity Press

Copyright Michael Rosen 1996

The right of Michael Rosen to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 1996 by Polity Press in association with Black well Publishers Ltd.

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Contents

The truthful presentation of error is indirect presentation of truth.
Novalis

Preface

This is a book that is written against a certain position, a position that, it also claims, has been taken for granted by many of the most influential social theorists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As such, I am aware that it will invite a certain kind of response. Even if its arguments are successful (perhaps, particularly if its arguments are successful) it is likely that many of those whom it addresses will dispute the ascription: deny that they (or those famous names whose authority they follow) ever thought any such thing. Attributions of this kind are, of course, difficult to establish. It is one thing to argue against a position held and stated explicitly, it is another to show that that position is one to which an author is implicitly committed. In the end, perhaps, the most that one can hope for is to reverse the burden of proof. I think that those who believe they can draw the kind of conclusions that are characteristic of the theory of ideology without making the assumptions I attribute to them at least owe us a more explicit account of what different assumptions they make and why these are more defensible.

However that may be, I know of one undeniably appropriate target for my arguments: my own earlier self. I started to think about social theory in the early 1970s, a time when such thinkers as Lukcs, Althusser, Sartre, Habermas, Foucault, Lvi-Strauss, Gramsci and Godelier were first becoming known in Great Britain. It seemed to me then that what these otherwise very disparate writers had in common was their conviction that the determination of ideas in society was something that needed to be explained systematically, as a result of social structure or historical forces prior to the individual. The chief line of cleavage, as I saw it, was between those who believed that the source of this determination lay in some kind of a collective, social subject and those who took the social process to be generative but agentless between, to put it crudely, neo-Hegelians and structuralists. The questions that interested me were: Which of these two was right? and, What would follow philosophically from that fact?

What I did not consider at that time was the possibility that neither of the two positions was correct. Yet, as I continued to think about the issues, it became increasingly clear to me that the claims made on behalf of the social determination of ideas were both excessively sweeping and alarmingly imprecise, while such empirical evidence as I could find to support them was either thin or, to say the least, questionable. Thus another question more and more forced itself upon me: If claims made about the social determination of ideas were, in fact, not true, why should they nevertheless have seemed to be so obvious to so many? The task, then, was to look at the intellectual weaknesses of the position, while, at the same time, looking for the reasons for its appeal.

Having reached this point at the end of the 1970s, I might have set out to write a book whose conclusions would not have been very dissimilar to the ones presented here had it not been for the appearance of G. A. Cohens Karl Marxs Theory of History: a Defence. In that justly celebrated book Cohen advances a position that I had not, until then, considered seriously: that it might be possible to make claims regarding the determination of one element of social life by another very similar in content to those advanced by the Continental theorists but without making any assumptions about collective agency or generative structures indeed, without giving any ontological commitments that the most parsimonious natural scientist should find shocking. I find that position no more persuasive now than I did when I first encountered it, but the imagination and rigour with which its author has defended it set me a serious challenge, one which at once delayed my project and forced me to raise the level of its discussion.

As I have worked my way towards my present views I have incurred many debts that I must acknowledge, even if I cannot repay them. Alex Callinicos and Charles Taylor listened to my stuttering first attempts to articulate my sense of the problems with patience and sympathy. G. E. M. de Ste Croix very kindly gave me the benefit of his extensive knowledge regarding the development of Marxs thought. It was at an early stage, too longer ago than I think either of us would care to remember that John Thompson persuaded me to offer my project to Polity Press. Since then he has been an exemplary editor, fully equal to the heavy demands I have placed on his tolerance. I am deeply grateful for his engagement and support.

Later, I learned a great deal from a seminar at University College London, among whose participants I must single out Matt Brandi, Mark Hannam, Bill Hart and Andrzej Szahaj for special thanks. Martin Jay read a paper of mine that was later to be incorporated into Chapter 7 as well as discussing many other issues with me at, alas, all too infrequent intervals over the years, and I have benefited from his great knowledge of Continental social thought. I am grateful to the Rector and Fellows of Lincoln College, Oxford, for granting me two terms of sabbatical leave, and thank especially my colleague David Goldey for cheerfully taking on the burdens caused by my absence. That I managed to write a first version of the book during that precious time is due to my good fortune in being allowed to concentrate on my work while being able to take advantage of those around me. In particular, I would like to thank Rosamund Diamond and David Ish-Horowicz for their many acts of generosity.

That first version has now been transformed thanks to the enormously detailed comments of three friends: Jerry Cohen, Raymond Geuss and Jonathan Wolff. I cannot overstate how much I owe to their thoroughness, acuity and erudition. It would be impossible to acknowledge individually all the points I have taken from them; suffice it to say that any gross errors of fact or reasoning that still remain have in all likelihood been newly introduced by me or are the result of stubbornness on my part in the teeth of their good advice. In addition, I have received very valuable comments on all or part of the book from Stefan McGrath, Brian OConnor, Alan Patten, Bob Stern, John Thompson, Gavin Williams and Hannes Wittig. I am most grateful to them all.