Against Ideology?
From notes for a panel discussion at the 2010 Babylonia festival in Athens, Greece, at which a CrimethInc. agent was invited to speak about “The End of Ideology and the Future Events”
While religious fundamentalism is still a powerful force, ideology seems to be on the wane as a motor of secular revolutionary activity. The days are long past when groups like the Communist Party could command millions of adherents worldwide. Should anarchists celebrate this decline, positioning ourselves atop the crashing wave of history? Is ideology itselfthe problem?
But what would it mean to be against ideology? To get to the bottom of this, we have to understand precisely what we mean by the term.
These waters have been muddied by countless Marxists before us. Marx insisted that ideology is determined by who controls the means of production, and functions to blind the proletariat to their own exploitation. But isn’t Marxism the ideology par excellence, that has blinded untold millions? And how could class-based relations of production suffice to explain its proliferation throughout the 20th century? If some of Marx’s disciples have attempted to update his analyses to keep up with a world that has never borne out his predictions, we should be as suspicious of them as we are of all ideologues.
It’s easy to see the pitfalls of ideology when we examine the dogmatism of our enemies. But unless ideology is simply what we call the ideas of those with whom we disagree, we should be able to critique it in ourselves as well.
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