Abstract
In the classic sense articulated by Karl Marx, the very purpose of the struggle against the status quo was to break the hold of ideology. Its social origin was clear and its purpose was unmistakeable: to hide the real nature of human relations in a bourgeois society and in so doing keep the wage-labourer bound to his owner by invisible threads. Ideology was the key component in the attempt to prevent the workers from grasping the real nature of their condition and it operated in order to serve the survival and self-interest of the bourgeoisie.1 But a broader understanding of ideology, more focused on human psychology, can put it in a context where proletarian class-consciousness offers no protection from falling into a delusional sphere of errors to which all groups and parties are susceptible.2 The Marxist attack on the enslavement that results from the dominance of bourgeois ideology in capitalist society does not negate the argument that those making the assault share, along with everyone else, a need for contact with sources of legitimacy and creativity and that underlying overtly rational political actions are determinations characterised by undeniable psychological facts or even fictions.3 Taken to its logical conclusion, this perspective on ideology means that any group with a mission, sharing the same psychological dispositions and collective beliefs may be regarded as being imbued with an ideology,4 and it is something that is woven into its sense of identity and purpose.
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Notes
K. Marx and F. Engels, The German Ideology, ed. C. J. Arthur (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1978), p. 65.
K. Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, trans. L. Wirth and E. Shils (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1936), p. 54.
H. J. Eysenck and G. D. Wilson, The Psychological Basis of Ideology (Lancaster: MTP Press, 1978) p. 303.
R. Geuss, The Idea of a Critical Theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt School (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 5.
M. Rodinson, ‘Mouvements Socio-Politiques’, Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie, 33 (1962), 97–113, p. 99. The personal sense of justification that ideology imparts is enhanced by the self-referential nature of ideological discourse, which makes the arguments of its proponents irresistible. In
D. J. Manning, The Form of Ideology (London: Allen & Unwin, 1980), p. 78.
C. Lévi-Strauss, Anthropologie Structurale (Paris: Plon, 1958), p. 231.
In J. Jaffré, ‘Après les municipales et les européennes. Le nouveau décor électoral’, Pouvoirs, 55 (1990), 147–62.
See M. Duverger, La démocratie sans le peuple (Paris: Seuil, 1967).
Figures quoted in L. Billordo, ‘Party Membership in France: Measures and Data-Collection’, French Politics, 1:1 (2003), 137–51. Billordo also identifies the peculiar distortions that occur in the management and representation of party membership figures in France: the lack of a legal obligation to report accurate membership figures, which encourages the parties to exaggerate them in order to bolster their image; the historically occult nature of party financing which meant that inflated reported membership figures made for more plausible explanations concerning the provenance of party funds. Ibid., p. 138.
S. Courtois et al., Le livre noir du communisme (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1997), p. 13. The authors revived Kolakowski’s argument that the absolutist mindset that arises from the certainty that one is in possession of the truth makes terror the inescapable flip side of ideological conviction. Moreover, unlike the religious terror represented by the Inquisition, the step is that much shorter in a secular, revolutionary worldview because the enjoyment of grace is not to be found in an otherworldly dimension but is achieved in one leap in the here and now. In
L. Kolakowski, L’Esprit révolutionnaire (Paris: Editions Complexe, 1978), p. 22. In short, as Todorov argues, the shadow that can hang over an atheist society is not the mythical hell to which rebels were condemned in the past under religious regimes, but the prospect of a real hell being created, in which those who refuse to submit to an absolutist state can be concentrated and crushed, and whose crushing can be used as an example to intimidate others. In
T. Todorov, Nous et les autres (Paris: Seuil, 1989), pp. 226–7.
P. Rigoulot and I. Yannakakis, Un pavé dans l’histoire. Le débat français sur ‘Le livre noir du communisme’ (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1998), p. 219.
See, for example, N. Tenzer, La société dépolitisée (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1990).
See R. Delacroix and N. Tenzer, Les élites et la fin de la démocratie française (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1992). Delacroix and Tenzer make the point that the end of ideology has made what were once Left and Right in terms of political elites, adopt a libertarian individualism that does not allow them to assume a leading responsibility for determining the evolution of collective values, since underlying these are moral choices that are commonly perceived as belonging to the individual alone. Consequently, political elites in particular, find refuge in a quasi-managerial discourse focused on rational organisation and efficiency gains, comforted in their abdication of responsibility by what the authors refer to as ‘libérale-libertaire’ assumptions that function as a default ideology. Ibid., p. 140.
See F. Furet and R. Halévi, La Monarchie républicaine: La constitution de 1791 (Paris: Fayard, 1996).
M. Wieviorka, ‘L’Etat et ses sujets’, Projet, 233 (1993), 17–25.
For example, B. Boccara, L’Insurrection démocratique: Manifeste pour la Sixième Republique (Paris: Democratica, 1993).
For example, A. Finkielkraut, Ingratitude (Paris: Gallimard, 1999).
See A. Minc, Le nouveau moyen âge (Paris: Gallimard, 1993).
J. Ion, La Fin des militants? (Paris: Editions de l’Atelier, 1997), p. 80.
P. Perrineau, L’Engagement politique. Déclin ou mutation? (Paris: Presses de la FNSP, 1994), p. 19.
See I. Sommier, Les Nouveaux mouvements contestataires à l’heure de la mondialisation (Paris: Flammarion, 2001).
S. Waters, Social Movements in France. Towards a New Citizenship (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 22–3.
J. Fabien, Les nouveaux secrets des communistes (Paris: Albin Michel, 1990), p. 123.
S. Griggs, ‘Candidates and Parties of the Left’, in R. Elgie (ed.), Electing the French President. The 1995 Presidential Election (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1996), pp. 96–122, p. 99.
S. Courtois and M. Lazar, Histoire du parti communiste français (Paris: PUF, 2000), pp. 436–7.
See P. Buffotot and D. Hanley, ‘Chronique d’une défaite annoncée: Les élec-tions législatives des 25 mai et 1er juin 1997’, Modern and Contemporary France, 6:1 (1998). 5–19.
G. Grunberg, ‘Que reste-t-il du parti d’Epinay?’, in C. Ysmal and P. Perrineau (eds), Le Vote sanction: Les élections législatives de 1993 (Paris: Figaro/FNSP, 1993), pp. 208–9.
M. Lazar, ‘La gauche communiste plurielle’, Revue française de science politique, 49:4–5 (1999), 695–705, p. 697.
R. Hue, Communisme: La Mutation (Paris: Stock, 1995), p. 339.
R. Hue, Communisme: Un nouveau projet (Paris: Stock, 1999), p. 9.
See J. Jaffré and A. Muxel, S’abstenir: Hors du jeu politique? Les cultures politiques des Français (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po., 2000).
M.-C. Lavabre and F. Platone, Que reste-t-il du PCF? (Paris: Editions Autrement, 2003), p. 69.
P. Martin, ‘Le vote Le Pen, l’électorat du Front National’, Notes de la Fondation Saint-Simon, 94 (1996), 43.
P. Martin, ‘Les élections de 2002 constituent-elles un moment de rupture dans la vie politique française?’, Revue française de science politique, 52:5–6 (2002), 593–606, p. 598.
See F. Greffet, ‘L’évolution électorale du PCF de Robert Hue 1994–2001’, Communisme, 67–8 (2002), 157–79.
See D. Andolfatto, ‘Le parti de Robert Hue, chronique du PCF 1994–2001’, Communisme, 67–8 (2002), 207–64.
G. Marchais, ‘Justice, liberté, paix. Le chemin de l’avenir pour la France’, Report to the 26th Congress of the PCF, 2–6 December 1987, pp. 49–50.
F. Platone, ‘“Prolétaires de tous les pays …”, Le Parti communiste français et les immigrés’, in O. Le Cour Grandmaison and C. Withol de Wenden (eds), Les étrangers dans la cite. Expériences européennes (Paris: Editions La Découverte, 1993), pp. 64–80, p. 80.
See N. Kiwan, The Construction of Identity Amongst Young People of North African Origin in France: Discourses and Experiences, unpublished PhD thesis/ Doctorat de 3ème cycle, University of Bristol/EHESS, 2003, especially Chapters 4 and 7.
M. Silverman, Facing Postmodernity. Contemporary French Thought on Culture and Society (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 160.
B. Pudal, ‘La beauté de la mort communiste’, Revue française de science politique, 52:5–6 (2002), 545–59, p. 546.
P. Bourdieu, Choses dites (Paris: Minuit, 1997), p. 221.
G. Le Gall, ‘Régionales et cantonales: Le retour de la gauche deux ans après le 21 avril’, Revue Politique et Parlementaire, 1029–1030 (2004), 8–24.
See F. Subileau and M.-F. Toinet, Les chemins de l’abstention (Paris: La Découverte, 1993), pp. 193–7.
M. Lazar, Le Communisme: Une passion française (Paris: Perrin, 2002), p. 218.
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© 2005 Gino G. Raymond
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Raymond, G.G. (2005). The End of Ideology. In: The French Communist Party during the Fifth Republic. French Politics, Society and Culture Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230512870_9
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