From Dr. Livy Visano’s guest lecture on Ideology, institutions and Law 1. Ideology IDEOLOGY AS A LOCUS OF COERCION “Introduction Conceptualizing Ideology Modernity, Liberalism and Capitalism A notable and surprising feature of traditional social justice is the glaring absence of any meaningful analysis of the intersections of ideology – institutions --identity, that is, cojoint elements in the ideological- institutional—identity nexus, a dialectic that erodes any promise let alone prospect of justice. Social justice and its subsequent responses are related to the constitution of order. injustice is a condition, consequence and context of the underlying fundamental relationships between ideologies and institutions What is the role of culture in mediating injustices? Justice enables us to transcend the given and develop the complexity of being human; knowing and making sense of the phenomenology of being despite its banal claims. Contemporary health social justice is ideologically grounded in evolving traditions of modernity, capitalism and liberalism. Modernity, liberalism, capitalism, and their respective foci on reason, rights and riches provide a synthetic unity to the foundations of health ideas and practices Modernity, as an ideology with its emphasis on both the “rational” and the division of labour, has impacted on society to such an extent that all has been reduced to a rational calculation measuring Reason, Rights and Riches First, let us operationalize the salient concepts inherent in ideologies (cultural values, beliefs): a) modernity: instititionalization: instrumental rationality, bureaucratic and rules , institutional b) liberalism: individualism, rights, freedom c) capitalism: possessiveness, property, inequality, materialism, adversarial Second, let us operationalize the salient concepts inherent in their respective institutions (means) that correspond to the above ideologies of modernity, liberalism and capitalism respectively: a) efficiencies of organizations: bureaucratic and rules, exchange relations, specialization, mechanization (modernity), efficiency, impersonality, and hierarchies; b) contracts, law (common law, natural law), efficiency, (liberalism); c) market: self regulation, corporate capital, private property, private ownership. Third, let us operationalize the salient concepts inherent in identity. Identity includes the self (being, subjectivity): consciousness, the material (physical), mental (intellectual, cognitive), emotional (feelings, passions) and spiritual selves as well as the unconscious selves. -liberalism, capitalism, and their respective foci on reason, rights and riches provide a synthetic unity to the foundations of the social. IDEOLOGY + INSTITUTIONS = INJUSTICE Modernity instrumental reason, specialization, science/ technology Liberalism rights, contract Capitalism riches, market Ideology and the logic of distortion Political Economy <<<>>> State <<<>>> Ideology Marx: “The ideas of the ruling class are, in every age, the ruling ideas” Gramsci: Consent and hegemony Hegemony is the equilibrium between leadership based on consent and domination based on coercion. The prevailing consciousness is internalized and becomes part of a "common sense". Hegemony cannot be purely ideological but secured in institutions in the everyday. But why then do people and communities "consent" to their own exploitation? It is naive to assume that ideology is simply a conspiracy of repressive institutions of control. Think about the vaccine, we are held hostage by politicians, public health and big pharma. eg Refusing to wear masks ? Mouffe, Foucault, Hall, Habermas, Mannheim, Lukács, Althusser Marcuse., Kristeva, Common sense, as Hall (1988:55) clarified, is itself a structure of popular ideology. Ideology cultivates helplessness For Foucault (1979) the "docile body" that is, "a body that may be subjected, used, transformed and improved" (Foucault, 1979:136). The individual is a reality fabricated by institutions of power (ibid:194). As Habermas (1974) indicated, the meanings and symbols of the dominant ideology prevent critical thinking by penetrating social processes, language and individual consciousness. Karl Mannheim (1936), collective unconscious of certain groups obscures the real condition of society Lukács (1971) The world reveals itself only in the form of isolated, quantitative and reducible commodities that are in fact detrimental to the individual. Lukács deems reification to be the historically generated incapacity of consciousness to see the totality of social life. For Marcuse (1972) the creation of this herd mentality, mechanisms of social constraint, the circle of mediocrity and the new cohesive forces of society are inherently in conflict with consciousness Althusser (1971: 66), ideology anchored in historical existence is a ubiquitous set of cultural practices that form the medium through a society experiences the world. Lacan’s (1968) subject is subject only from being subjected to the field of the Other. Ideology is not the reality in which we exist but becomes our imaginary explanation of our social conditions. the objective dimension of self- the "me" consists of mass-mediated images, and the "I" arises through the process of meaning deconstruction and reconstruction, that is, signifying practices (Kristeva, 1976). systems of representations 2. Institution Ideology complements institutions just as, for example, care accompanies control, domination and resistance, subjectivity and material conditions, consent and force. Institutions exist in the marketplace of everyday talk as respected authorities that legitimate legal intrusions. Ideologies provide institutions with ideas about how to present themselves, appearances that signify the way institutions carry out their respective “businesses”. These values, ideas, and images which translate easily into relations of production, accountability and independence strive to demonstrate that institutional rules/ roles and outcomes are inherently just and rational means grounded in historical processes “role of World Bank (WB)and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - social justice becomes irrelevant to law especially as politics depends on instruments of legal authority to facilitate capital control and accumulation. - what are the Influences of international human rights instruments? Economic Servitude - “structural adjustment programs” (SAPs) +results-based conditionalities = further crushing debt, austerities World of Labour Paradoxes, Problems, and Prospects of International Law: The Case of the International Labour Organization (ILO) - freedom of association - the ILO has created a number of international labour standards to promote social justice and “universal and lasting peace.” - first, that governments do not comply with international labour standards because of the inherent weaknesses of the ILO as the source and enforcer of international obligations - second, the parochial politicization of rights defers to the arrogance of ignorance - third, developing societies are overwhelmingly preoccupied with socioeconomic development. The Impunity of Politics and the Arrogance of Ignorance - the ILO, however, does not supervise its labour standards effectively and lacks the political will to sanction non-compliance - “state security” Freedoms of International Law and Controls of Corporate Capital: Cultures of Destruction and Deception - SAP remains inimical to the enforcement of international labour standards - Despite the IMF and WB chatter on the need of developing societies to democratize their political systems in order to qualify for assistance, these U.S.-based financial agencies have no problem relying, let alone supporting repressive governments that deny workers’ rights while favouring corporate exploitation. - The culture of labour law evident in the ILO as well as the current policies of the IMF and WB replete with the rhetoric of democracy manipulate by "de-politicizing" and "cooling-out." The Political Economy of International Policing - a methodical subversion of internal political processes of 'unfriendly' states From Welfare To Warfare Corruption Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), Atrocities: Rwanda, 1994” Western medicine and the Medical Model Foucault,The Birth of a Clinic (1973), American Psychiatric Association’s The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) Constructivism “Culture is a paradoxical commodity. So completely is it subject to the law of exchange that it is no longer exchanged; it is so blindly consumed in use that it can no longer be used. Therefore it amalgamates with advertising. The more meaningless the latter seems to be under a monopoly, the more omnipotent it becomes. The motives are markedly economic” (Adorno and Horkeimer 1944 in MacDonald, 2005) ‘phenomena of seduction’ (Baudrillard) Emergence Holistic Approaches Macro Concerns: Canadian Healthcare Medicare,1972 tiered systems of $$$$$ private profits and health residualist approach Insurance and Pharmaceutical companies Trade agreements Mythologies 3. Law LAW AND SOCIAL JUSTICE how does law socially construct inequalities. What is the role of law in mediating the relationship between ideologies of inequality and the institutions law especially the criminal justice system as relationally situated within wider constituting social contexts that hegemonize reproductions of discipline. Symbols, Mythologies and Metaphors The exclusionary nature of “law talk” and “law thought”, commoditize control by structuring dependency relations. To fully understand the contradictions and complementarities of law, we turn first to a number of interlocking myths. Law: From Trouble Shooting to Trouble Making adversarial justice Rights as Legal Rites law is a political judgement and an articulation of trouble, that is, conflicting moral rules and ordered worlds. “Rights” default to institutions, especially the law and its expansive juridic claims of duties and responsibility. The concept of rights has been appropriated ideologically by the state to legitimate decisions, preserve privilege, and maintain authority relations. Legal responses are cultural products that frame experience, supplies interpretations, legitimates decisions, provides a history and secures a loyalty to rules. How is legal knowledge constructed? What grounds the experiences of knowing anything about law? Moving Beyond the Text as a humanist movement of engagement in an active reading; the development of an interrogative stance and the courage to be informed by history and political economy in looking afresh at the familiar Likewise, law is far too serious a subject matter to leave in the hands of self-proclaimed crime experts such as the police, lawyers or reporters. Law is a site, a historical subject constituted in conflict, contextually determined and discursively shaped. A text without a context is a pretext. Symbolically, law is a partisan expression of powerful interests, a moral construct that produces and reproduces power relations. legacies of exclusionary practices capital of multiculturalism Laws represent the capacity of those in power to use violence to effect practices profitable to them (Tolstoy, 1900). Rights have surrendered to juridic chatter.
