Obstacles and distortions: a speculative approach to ideology

Abstract

Building on Hegel’s speculative philosophy, this paper seeks to engage critically with Ernesto Laclau’s highly influential theory of ideology. Three central points of contention are developed. First, while Laclau’s view of ideological distortion as a distortion of a lack is well taken, the paper affirms that in order to sustain itself this distortion becomes a paradoxical two, or in Hegelian terms an oppositional unity. The distortive illusion of fullness (the concealment of basic lack) only becomes operational via a reciprocal supplementary distortive illusion of an external obstacle to that fullness–the illusion of fullness is thus sustained by its opposite. Second, in contrast to Laclau’s view of the extra-discursive as a distant imaginary, it is argued that the existing capitalist power structure functions effectively as its own extra-discursive in a far more immediate sense in the organization of reality. Third, the real problem of ideology is not simply that (extra-discursive) closure is absent and has to be imposed but rather that the very proximity of closure generates unbearable tensions and antagonisms that need to be externalized and re-staged in more manageable ways. Drawing on a range of examples, the paper aims to synthesize an alternative speculative approach to ideology.