Ichthyophagous
Ideology
Internationale, The
Invalidation of lost documents
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Ichthyophagous
In the eleventh
chapter of Book Two of his Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
tells us that
"If a nation
dwells on an extensive and convenient coastline, let it cover the
sea with ships and foster commerce and navigation. It will have a
life that will be short and glorious. If, on its coasts, the sea washes
nothing but almost inaccessible rocks, let it remain barbarous and
ichthyophagous: it will have a quieter, perhaps a better, and certainly
a happier life."
The Turtle remembers
a debate in the letters page of the Guardian once upon a time,
lamenting the lack of a suitable word to use in order to describe people
who ate fish (although not other kinds of meat). "Ichthyophagous"
may have been the word missing from that discussion. The Latinate concoction
"pescetarian" was canvassed; in the end the more prosaically
Anglo-Saxon expression "fish-eater" is probably to be preferred.
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Ideology
Marx is probably
the most single most influential writer on the subject, but -- as with
his theories of class -- he never draws together his ideas in any systematic
exposition. We have a set of rather sweeping theoretical claims that
beg a lot of questions ("the ruling ideas in any society are always
the ideas of the ruling class", et cetera) and a set of
more detailed analyses in which a fruitful theoretical perspective is
not explicitly stated, but from which one can be inferred.
Take the opening
passage of the Introduction to a Contribution to the Critique of
Hegel's 'Philosophy of Right'. Marx begins on a Feuerbachian note
-- "Man makes religion, religion does not make man". But then
he demands that we move beyond this slogan to note that it is not "man"
in the abstract but real, living, historically-situated men who create
religion. Why? They "produce religion which is an inverted world
consciousness, because they are an inverted world". Something about
their condition induces cognitive illusions, and ideological systems,
like religions, help people to make some kind of sense of their lives.
This means, Marx continues, that "the struggle against religion"
is also of necessity "a struggle against that world whose spiritual
aroma is religion". And when Marx goes on to call religion "the
opium of the people" in the next paragraph, it's important to see
that this isn't just an atheist radical heaping scorn on religion for
the lies and delusions it preaches to the world. Like opium, religion
has a genuinely soothing effect. Like an addictive drug, the
people may need their religion -- it may be the only thing that
makes their lives bearable, so we might not do them good at all by forcing
them into cold turkey. To call for an end to religion, rather, is to
"call to abandon a condition which requires illusions", in
short, to demand massive and far-reaching social change. Religion in
an important sense is a symptom, of which something else is the cause.
(An interesting, if less celebrated passage on powdered and unpowdered
wigs swiftly follows).
In this justly famous
paragraph, we see many of the elements of the Marxian analysis of ideology
present, even if only in the barest outline form. To analyse a set of
beliefs we show how and why they arose, relating them back to the social
conditions that governed their emergence, production and dissemination.
We demonstrate the connection between the particular form of class society
and the particular form of inverted consciousness that obtains. We show
the utility of those beliefs, both to those that hold them, and to the
members of the ruling class (who may or may not share them, and who
may or may not actively or deliberately propagate them). Furthermore,
we show how the criticism of those beliefs can point towards the dimly-perceived
outlines of a new social order in which a classless society no longer
generates cognitive distortions. Marx is clear that the communist future
is a world without ideology. Saint Paul also understood this connection
between (the end of) ideology and (in this case heavenly) paradise,
when he said in his Second Letter to the Corinthians that although
we now see through a glass darkly, then we will see face to face. Under
communism, and in heaven, we perceive in an immediate (or un-mediated)
manner, unperturbed by ideological distortions of any kind.
Perhaps the foremost
exponent of this kind of ideology analysis in the twentieth century
-- concerning the interpretation of culture in general and music in
particular -- was Theodor Adorno.
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Internationale,
The
The greatest song
in the world, and an inspiration its peoples. A useful page of Internationale
links is
this
one
. The original French text by Eugène Pottier (1816-1887)
follows.
Debout! les damnés
de la terre!
Debout! les forçats de la faim!
La raison tonne en son cratère --
C'est l'éruption de la fin.
Du passé faisons table rase,
Foule esclave, debout! debout!
Le monde va changer de base:
Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout!
C'est la lutte
finale,
Groupons-nous, et demain,
L'Internationale
Sera le genre humain
Il n'est pas de
sauveurs suprêmes,
Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun.
Producteurs, sauvons-nous nous-mêmes!
Decrétons le salut commun!
Pour que le voleur rende gorge,
Pour tirez l'esprit du cachot,
Soufflons nous-mêmes notre forge,
Battons le fer quand il est chaud!
L'etat comprime et la loi triche;
L'impot saigne le malheurex;
Nul devoir ne s'impose au riche;
Le droit du pauvre est un mot creux.
C'est assez languir ein tutelle,
L'egalité veut d'autres lois;
"Pas de droit sans devoirs, dit-elle,
Egaux pas de devoirs sans droits!"
Hideux dans leur apotheose,
Le rois de la mine et du rail
Ont-ils jamias fait autre chose
Que devaliser le travail?
Dans les coffres-forts de la bande
Ce qu'il a cree s'est fondu.
En dedretant qu'on le luirende
Le peuple ne veut que son du.
Ouvriers, paysans, nous sommes
Le grand parti des travailleurs.
La terre n'appartient qu'aux hommes,
L'oisif ira loger ailleurs.
Combien de nos chairs se repaissent!
Mais si les corbeaux, les vautours,
Un de ces matins, disparaissent,
Le soleil brillera toujours!
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Invalidation
of lost documents
The Big Soviet
Encyclopaedia (3rd ed., English version, v.5 p.231) gives us this
interesting account of an important bureaucratic procedure:
"In the USSR
the court procedure for protecting the rights of a petitioner who
has lost a document made out in his name (a savings book passbook,
a deposit certificate for the safekeeping of treasury bonds). In court
practice the term "lost" embraces lost, stolen, or unserviceable
bearer documents. The loser of the documents may petition the court
to declare invalid the document in question and to restitute his rights
to it. The petition is filed with the court in the jurisdiction of
the institution that had issued the document. After receipt of the
petition the judge issues a court order prohibiting the issuing institution
from making payments or delivery on the document and also ordering
the placement of an appropriate public notice in the local paper at
the cost of the petitioner summoning the interested persons (hence
the Russian designation of the procedure as vyzvhoe proizvodstvo,
summoning procedure). If after three months from the day of publication
no claim for the rights of the document has been forthcoming from
the person holding the lost document, the judge issues a decision
declaring the document invalid, on the basis of which either the deposit
itself or a new savings passbook or deposit certificate is issued
to the petitioner."
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