The main elements of this thesis are as follows:
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1. There is a dominant ideology . . . |
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2. Dominant classes 'benefit' from the effects of the dominant ideology . . . |
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3. The dominant ideology does incorporate the subordinate classes, making them politically quiescent . . . |
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4. The mechanisms by which ideology is transmitted have to be powerful enough to overcome the contradictions within the structure of capitalist society. (p. 29 ) |
At least two minimal requirements must be satisfied if these definitions are to be used in conjunction with one another: it must be possible to locate, or at least to distil, the construct from the works making up the identifiable definition; and the modern Marxist' authors who lay such stress on ideology must be referring to the same thing that AHT understand by ideology. Otherwise, there would be no basis at all for the strange equation of 'emphasis on ideology' with 'advocacy of the dominant ideology thesis'. Crucial to the first requirement is the third of the elements given by AHT in their construct definition: the idea that 'the dominant ideology incorporates the subordinate classes'. All the others are irrelevant. AHT themselves hold elements (1) and (2), and element (4) is obviously not pertinent to their later discussion of medieval feudalism. AHT even give us a little help here in clarifying the meaning of the construct definition. They absolve Marx and Engels of the sin of DIT, in spite of ambiguous formulations in The German Ideology, because in the latter 'there was also an ideological conflict involved in the economic and political struggle. . . . We contend, therefore, that Marx and Engels did not adopt an incorporation theory' (p. 8 ). According to AHT's construct definition, then, those who hold a I notion of class struggle at the ideological as well as the economic and political levels' (p. 8 ) should not be included among the proponents of DIT.
AHT never bother to argue that the notion of ideological class struggle has disappeared from the works of the DIT authors they mention. There is at least one good reason for their neglect, however, for a moment's reflection would reveal the sterility of any such attempt. To begin with Althusser, he took pains to emphasize his own view in the postscript to his essay on ideological state apparatuses:
Whoever says class struggle of the ruling class says resistance, revolt and class struggle of the ruled class. That is why the ISAs are not the realization of ideology in general, nor even the conflict-free realization of the ideology of the ruling class. . . . For if it is true that the ISAs represent the form in which the ideology of the ruling class must necessarily be realized, and the form in which the ideology of the ruled class must necessarily be measured
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