Theory and Context Term 2, Week 3

What is Ideology?

Do you have an understanding of the term?

“Ideology is the most elusive concept in the whole of the social sciences”

David McLellan, Political Ideologies, p5

• The term ideology is most often used in a pejorative (negative) sense.

• The term was first used in the late 18th C. to refer to a philosophy of mind.

• The term was later used by Karl Marx (1818-1883), in The German Ideology (1846) and it is from this usage that the term has entered political and social thought.

Camera Obscura

Gramsci and Hegemony

• Antonio Gramsci extended the ideas of Marx by developing the concept of hegemony.

• Hegemony is where the flow of information in society is controlled by a ruling elite.– Gramsci was concerned about how the media may serve as

a propaganda tool to promote the dominant ideology(s) of the power elite.

(Repressive) State Apparatuses rely on force to maintain their dominant ideological position:

The PoliceThe ArmyThe Prison system

Althusser and State Apparatuses

Althusser and Ideological State Apparatuses

Althusser’s institutions as ‘ideological state apparatuses’, what we might consider the softer side- depend in reproduction not violence:

• The family• The education system• The church• The mass media

• Within any society, some ideologies will be more widespread or dominant than others.

• The dominant ideologies are those that are most accepted and visible in mainstream society.

– Dominant ideology stems mainly from elites.• They have the most power to spread their world views and to

censor alternative or competing ideologies.

– Dominant ideology tends to be taken for granted by members of society as the “normal” way to view people.

– Dominant ideology is rarely challenged. It tends to be accepted as Truth.

• There are numerous ideologies used to explain and justify specific social relationships: sexism, feminism, racism, capitalism, communism, individualism, classism, etc.

• Ideologies are inherently political. They justify how power should be allocated and which groups, if any, deserve more power than others.

Nazi Propaganda poster: Idealised Aryan family

a) the process of production of meanings, signs and value in social life; b) a body of ideas characteristic of a particular social group or class; c) ideas which help to legitimate a dominant political power; d) false ideas which help to legitimate a dominant political power; e) systematically distorted communication; f) that which offers a position for a subject; g) forms of thought motivated by social interests; h) identity thinking; i) socially necessary illusion; j) the conjuncture of discourse and power; k) the medium in which conscious social actors make sense of their world; l) action-oriented sets of beliefs; m) the confusion of linguistic and phenomenal reality; n) semiotic closure; o) the indispensable medium in which individuals live out their relation to a social structure; p) the process whereby said life is converted to a natural reality

Eagleton, Terry. Ideology: An Introduction (London: Verso, 1991), pp. 1-2

Architecture

• Neo Classical style.

• “A Theory of Ruin Value”

• Official Nazi policy required a monumental neo classical solution to big buildings while local housing was to be in the vernacular of the area.

• Closure of the Bauhaus

Albert Speer and Hitler’s plans for Germania

Triumphal Arch, designed by Hitler 1925

Berlin 1936 Olympic Stadium

Art"Anyone who sees and paints a sky green and pastures blue ought to be sterilized" attributed to Hitler by Dorothy Thompson, N.Y. Post, Jan 3, 1944

Art and peasant ideology

Social realism

Paul Padua, The Führer Speaks, 1939

Adolph Wissel, Farm Family from Kahlenberg , 1939

Degenerate Art• In 1937, Nazi officials purged German museums of works the Party

considered to be degenerate • Works were poorly hung and surrounded by graffiti and hand written

labels mocking the artists and their creations • These works did not match the peasant ideology propagated by the party.

"These artists should be tied to their paintings so as to provide every German with the opportunity of spitting in their faces; not just the artists but also the directors of the musea who in a period of massive unemployment stuffed great sums in the mouths of these horrors."

Wassily Kandinsky

Yellow, Red, Blue 1925

Paul Klee

Ancient Sound, Abstract on Black, 1925

Fashion

For the ideal German woman, devoted to her family’s well being, beauty stemmed not from cosmetics or trendy fashions, but from an inner happiness derived from her devotion to her children, her husband, her home, and her country.The two images most often proposed and put into visual forms of propaganda were the farmer’s wife in folk costume, usually referred to as Tracht or dirndl, and the young woman in organizational uniform. The rhetoric surrounding these two proposals advanced the “natural look” for women and condemned cosmetics and other “unhealthy vices,” such as smoking and drinking, as unfeminine and un-German. Stress was placed on physical fitness and a healthy lifestyle, both of which would facilitate a higher birthrate. Moreover, while the folk costume looked to the past and promoted an image that illuminated the Nazis’ “blood and soil” ideology, and the female uniform spoke to the present and exemplified the idea of conformity over individuality... http://angelasancartier.net/fascist-and-nazi-dress

Graphic Design

Documentary

• Leni Riefenstahl - Triumph of the will (1934)- Olympia (1936),

• ??? is the dominant economic ideology in the U.K.

• ??? is the dominant religious ideology.

• ??? is the dominant political ideology.

• Capitalism is the dominant economic ideology in the U.K.

• Christianity is the dominant religious ideology.

• Democracy is the dominant political ideology.

Some contributory factors to the rise of the Nazi party in

Germany.•Defeat in World War I

•Versailles Treaty resentment

•Great Depression: High Employment,

•German Military Tradition

•Anti-Semitism—Jews as Scapegoats

Hitler’s Promises to the people of Germany

• Hitler promised Germans:– Stability– Jobs– To be Proud Again– To Reverse the Versailles

Treaty– To End “Weak” Democracy– To “Get Rid of” the Jews– Lebenstraum— “Living

Space for Germans

Significant developments

• President Hindenburg Names Hitler Chancellor in January 30, 1933.

• February 27 Reichstag Fire—Legislature Building Burns Down

• March 5 New Elections: Nazis 288; Nationalists 52; Center 74; Socialists 120; Communists 81; Others 23—Nazis win only 44% of vote

• March 23, 1933—Reichstag passes (with huge majority) the Enabling Act which made Hitler dictator until April 1, 1937

• July 14, 1933—Nazi Party was made only legal party

• November 12, 1933 Nazis win 92% of the vote

• Main Point:– Only at this date does Hitler

behave illegally– July 1934-SS and Army purge the

SA and they begin to secretly arm the army

– 1935 Denounces Versailles Treaty– 1936 Remilitarizes the Rhineland

Significant developments

The Nazi Revolution• June 30 “Night of the long

knives” – Nazis kill 77 people, mostly high ranking SA members—Ernst Roehm, Gregor Strasser

• August 1 Law combining President and Chancellor

• August 2 Death of President von Hindenburg

• August 19 Plebiscite approves Hitler as President with 88% voting yes

David Low, They salute with both hands now (1934)

Racism in Nazi Germany

• Belief German “Aryan” Race Master Race– Jews inferior– Slavs inferior– Gypsies inferior– A corruption of Darwin’s ideas

• 1935 Nuremberg Laws– Identify Jews (with Yellow Star)– Deprive Jews of Citizenship– Allows only so many Jews in specific jobs– Outlaw marriage and sex between Jews

and non-Jews

Kristallnacht ,9th November 1938Night of Broken Glass or Kristallnacht– In response to assassination of

German diplomat in Paris:• Nazis set synagogues on fire• Broke Jewish shop windows• Beat up Jews—91 killed;

thousands injured• Confiscated Jewish property• Jews forbidden to collect

insurance• 20,000+ Jews sent to

concentration camp

• 1931: Fall of the monarchy and establishment of (Second) Republic

• Separation of church and state

Meanwhile in Spain...

Salvador Dali, Soft Construction with Boiled Beans(Premonition of Civil War), 1936

1936

On 18 July, Spanish Civil War begins in Morocco (ends 1939) as General Francisco Franco leads a rebellion against the left-wing Popular Front government.

Spain as ‘Dry Run’• Both sides in the conflict

were supported by outside parties; most significantly the Nationalists had Fascist (Italian) and Nazi support, the Loyalists had support from Russia and the International Brigades.

• Hitler infamously used the conflict as an exercise for his Condor Legion.

Guernica, 1937

Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937