Nandigram shows why Foucault was more correct than Marx..
If we see ideology as a system of ideas that seek to explain the world; to add to our knowledge of it, we should expect those claiming to be convinced with an ideology to stand by it. After all, modernity is in part the conviction that we can rationally understand the world and theorise it.
Marx the modernist had the conviction that scientific socialism was the correct path. He saw society in terms of a class struggle between those who owned the means of production and those who owned nothing. He saw economic change as the key to all other change (though later Marxism has gone beyond this classical Marxist formulation). Marx professed to stand by the exploited. This was both his theory and his political agenda.
Foucault saw knowledge as synonymous with power. In other words, our theories, terminologies, our notions of truth, are just discourses that we are conditioned to believe to be true under the influence of power structures in society. Notions of truth and knowledge, and thus ideology, here become markers of subversion and subordination of human agency.
Now if we see Nandigram, we find a party that professed to see Marxism as the correct path and theoretical formulation. They had their "truth" in place. But they willingly acted contrary to it by first embracing capitalism and then killing the poor. Yet many in CPM defend Nandigram. This goes to show that ideology is not a free rational choice. Had it been so, all CPM cadres would have deserted the party by now.
Here we have to agree with Faucault: Marxism is a "regime of truth", a power structure that subverts and suppresses human agency. This alone accounts for the movement being as attractive to its votaries even after the bluff of ideology having been called. In Bengal and in Delhi, it is power that sustains Communist politics -- here power is used in broad hegemonic terms -- and not "truth" or "ideology".
Marx the modernist had the conviction that scientific socialism was the correct path. He saw society in terms of a class struggle between those who owned the means of production and those who owned nothing. He saw economic change as the key to all other change (though later Marxism has gone beyond this classical Marxist formulation). Marx professed to stand by the exploited. This was both his theory and his political agenda.
Foucault saw knowledge as synonymous with power. In other words, our theories, terminologies, our notions of truth, are just discourses that we are conditioned to believe to be true under the influence of power structures in society. Notions of truth and knowledge, and thus ideology, here become markers of subversion and subordination of human agency.
Now if we see Nandigram, we find a party that professed to see Marxism as the correct path and theoretical formulation. They had their "truth" in place. But they willingly acted contrary to it by first embracing capitalism and then killing the poor. Yet many in CPM defend Nandigram. This goes to show that ideology is not a free rational choice. Had it been so, all CPM cadres would have deserted the party by now.
Here we have to agree with Faucault: Marxism is a "regime of truth", a power structure that subverts and suppresses human agency. This alone accounts for the movement being as attractive to its votaries even after the bluff of ideology having been called. In Bengal and in Delhi, it is power that sustains Communist politics -- here power is used in broad hegemonic terms -- and not "truth" or "ideology".
posted by vikaspathak at 9:59 AM
1 Comments:
My friend Cheri disagreed. He said CPM is Bengal is an example of pure opportunism. The "regime of truth" argument would hold when the ideology is being followed as the truth. Moreover, for Foucault, both the ideologue and the public, the whole society, are under the sway of a dispersed, decentered power.
Buddhadeb's deviation, for him, is just opportunism; professing Communism but following not even capitalism( freedom of contract and laissez faire)but brokerage for capitalists. PPoint taken, Foucault's notion of power has to taken in a more dispersed manner.
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