Describing the phenomenon of false consciousness

Posting mode: Reply [Return]
Name	a⚐2⛨kLJfAOD@<uIBbxQ'☁zv⛘t~VS[K,
Email
Subject	Spoiler Image
Comment
Captcha Tor Only
Flag
File
Embed
Password	(For file deletion.)

File: 1626878237184.png ( 333.64 KB , 512x345 , ClipboardImage.png )

Describing the phenomenon of false consciousness Anonymous 2021-07-21 (Wed) 14:37:17 No.392078

False consciousness is generated by the capitalist mode of production which requires as a condition for its functioning the reification of its economic categories. This reification is done by individuals that operate within the capitalist mode of production as members of classes, groups of people that relate to each other socially based on their roles in capitalist production. Class consciousness develops from self-consciousness as individuals identify their material interests as proletarians or capitalists. An individual, as a member of a social class, can be said to harbor a false consciousness when their material interests are obscured by ideology. False consciousness prevents the individual's self-consciousness from developing into class consciousness, a process which on a mass scale prevents the formation of a conscious social class.

The development of false consciousness stifles the struggles between classes, which occur due to the conflicting objective interests of each social class. By preventing the consciousness of the proletariat from interfering with the fulfillment of the material interests of the bourgeoisie, false consciousness directly protects the well-being of a particular social class, the capitalist class. Class-conscious proletarians aware of false consciousness and of their own material interests should consider the abolition of false consciousness a necessary political action for the complete fulfillment of their interests - a necessary action in the process of becoming the dominant class in society.

So far, the concept of false consciousness has been limited in that it has explained only the intelligible social relations of production. Those intelligible relations still structure our thinking, but mass consciousness from the 19th century until today has do-cohered and metamorphosed to the point that it is no longer possible to describe the content of false consciousness using those categories. To explain the source and content of false consciousness, it isn't sufficient to point to the fetishism of commodities, the capitalist phenomenon of interpreting social relations as relations between things, because the false consciousness generated in capitalism is no longer constricted to the domain of production, it has dominated all other aspects of self-consciousness. The traditional Marxist explanation presented, which focuses on commodity production and all of its associated social relations, does not explain false consciousness with respect to the other elements of self-consciousness.

This Marxist sketch of false consciousness does not even attempt a complete explanation, since for the Marxist the ideological structure of every mode of production is the determining effect on all other sources of ideology operating under that mode of production, making it the only object that needs to be explained in order to describe false consciousness. Whether this belief is true is irrelevant for describing false consciousness today, because it cannot be explained in the intelligible categories of capitalist production that the Marxist explanation requires. As stated previously, anyone who is class conscious should be attempting to destroy false consciousness, but the question is: how can we get rid of it if we can hardly describe it?

Anonymous 2021-07-21 (Wed) 17:57:34 No.392348

I'll contribute further by laying out an element of false consciousness: the schedule. The scheduled day is an exercise in renting out mental space to the false consciousness. When work becomes automatic, it is further transferred to the domain of the unconscious. By instrumentalizing the day, schedules lay out the day as a set of predetermined actions instead of a landscape of possible decisions. This is not a moralist observation; after all, breathing is a biological necessity, and such a basic one that we prefer it remains in the domain of the unconscious. It's a logical progression to treat other instrumental activities as necessities, and therefore eligible to be unconscious behaviors. Maybe one of the ways false consciousness can be attacked is to take back determination over the working day with mass actions, such as strikes, which simultaneously affirm class consciousness.

Anonymous 2021-07-21 (Wed) 18:33:34 No.392458

>>392078
>>>freud f(l)ag
*sigh*

<False consciousness is generated by the capitalist mode of production which requires as a condition for its functioning the reification of its economic categories.
Consciousness is always already *false consciousness* since you have literally no access to the thing itself (Kant), not to mention that human languages are incapable to fuse the signifier/signified dichotomy (Saussure, Lacan) together. No, this does not mean that actual science is impossible or meaningless. It's just a statement of fact.

Yes, you can actually argue that there are non- (or less-) obfuscatory means to address class relations.

>This reification is done by individuals that operate within the capitalist mode of production as members of classes, groups of people that relate to each other socially based on their roles in capitalist production.
First of all, faggot, even the main intellectual (Lukács) coming up with said theory of reification was already incorporated in the same reification and capitalist production as the rest of us. Second, the very theory of "reification" is one of the dumbest mother fucking shit-tier theories to come out of the Marxist tradition. "Thing-ification" is already hard-coded into the human condition. Language *is* *thingification.* Sex is *thingification* (of the partner). Opposing the bourgeoisie is *thingification.* The proposed "un-thingified beyond" was never available to us.

>An individual, as a member of a social class, can be said to harbor a false consciousness when their material interests are obscured by ideology.
Already in "primitive communism" ideology operates and obfuscates the social's access to nature, which it typically and quite spontaneously approaches as spirits or gods, or whatever. Furthermore, as an atheist living in the 21st century: even my own "ilk" (of atheists) are spooked to shit, not to mention the vast majority of my supposed "comrades."

>>>>An individual, as a member of a social class
This is like a pre-modern understanding of the dichotomy of the individual and the social, neither of which could exist without the other.

>>>>>>>>>mass consciousness from the 19th century until today has do-cohered
wut

>To explain the source and content of false consciousness, it isn't sufficient to point to the fetishism of commodities, the capitalist phenomenon of interpreting social relations as relations between things, because the false consciousness generated in capitalism is no longer constricted to the domain of production, it has dominated all other aspects of self-consciousness.
You think this is a revolutionary insight of yours, but Marx himself already covered ALL of this, you fucking pseud:
<Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.

>Marxist sketch of false consciousness does not even attempt a complete explanation
Marx's """sketch""" comes from the 19th century. My post proves that you yourself haven't moved beyond that framework, btw.

yawn

Anonymous 2021-07-21 (Wed) 18:36:27 No.392463

And yes, I've actually read Marx, Engels, Freud, Lacan, Zizek, as opposed to OP.

Anonymous 2021-07-21 (Wed) 19:29:10 No.392586

>>392458
Thanks for your thorough reply, it helped me refine my position. I'll go through and clarify some points.
>Consciousness is always already *false consciousness*
>you can actually argue that there are non- (or less-) obfuscatory means to address class relations
I agree that consciousness is never directly interfacing with reality, but what I meant by false consciousness wasn't just obfuscatory means to address class relations, but the fact that they are actually obscured to people who are experiencing them. That's a phenomenon that has always been interesting to Marxists for political reasons, and those political reasons are why I even bothered to make the post.
>The proposed "un-thingified beyond" was never available to us.
Below a certain point, I agree that "thingification" is inescapable, but the "thingification" of the categories of the capitalist of mode of production is temporary, because it is dependent on a transitory mode of production. Because the theory of reification has restricted scope of "thingification", the aim isn't to do away with "thingification" altogether, only to explain how a certain set of thingified social relations affects consciousness and the subsequent political implications.
>Already in "primitive communism" ideology operates and obfuscates the social's access to nature
I agree that ideology is not an element only of class societies, I was distracted by the point I was attempting to make, which remains the same, that ideology obfuscates and directs thought away from a more honest approximation of the real world.
>This is like a pre-modern understanding of the dichotomy of the individual and the social, neither of which could exist without the other.
I completely agree, but I really don't see how this disagrees with what I wrote, given that a dichotomy between individual and the social exists, although each depend upon the other for existence. I made this dichotomy clear because I was attempting to get the point across that, in capitalist production, different classes exist and that these different classes have conflicting interests, which are objective.
>You think this is a revolutionary insight of yours
That great insight was really poorly communicated then, because I thought the opposite. I made the post because I felt pretty lost about false consciousness after I realized that Lukacs' reification isn't at all sufficient to explain it.
>Marx himself already covered ALL of this
>Marx's """sketch""" comes from the 19th century
He acknowledged it, sure, but his acknowledgement isn't a theory. It's a sketch and it only makes us aware of the problem, it doesn't help us come up with a solution. That's what I was complaining about.

I'll ask a few questions of you. Do you think that economic classes based on objective property relations and relations of production exist? If they exist, can people identify with them? Does the limited scope of "thingification" described in Lukacs reification actually occur? If it does occur, is it possible and desirable to expose and oppose this reification? If so, how can it be done today, given that reification is too limited?

Anonymous 2021-07-21 (Wed) 19:30:08 No.392587

Where’s your source that it’s false consciousness? Did you pull that out of your ass with out substantiating it?

Anonymous 2021-07-21 (Wed) 19:53:00 No.392623

>>392587
>Where’s your source that it’s false consciousness?
The concept is introduced because from the perspective of capitalist production, the different classes should have conflicting interests, but in reality these interests are obscured by something else, it's part of the reason why we didn't immediately have communism after capitalism established itself. I agree that calling it "false" consciousness is contentious because it implies that the "true" consciousness is from the perspective of the capitalist mode of production, which would reduce people to economic agents. Whatever you call it, this phenomenon still exists and it poses a political problem for Marxists who might like to spur along class consciousness and the social revolution.

Anonymous 2021-07-21 (Wed) 20:07:51 No.392641

File: 1626898071117.pdf ( 909.02 KB , 199x300 , (Post-Contemporary Interve….pdf )

>>392586
>Do you think that economic classes based on objective property relations and relations of production exist?
D'uh.

>If they exist, can people identify with them?
"Identification" is NEVER a conscious act. It "happens" from the outside, like how black people come to realize in the USA how "they are black."

>Does the limited scope of "thingification" described in Lukacs reification actually occur?
It does, but the problem is that his reification theory moves beyond of what is given and describes shit that has been going on since we became conscious, him not realizing this.

>If it does occur, is it possible and desirable to expose and oppose this reification?
If you want to oppose capitalist "reification" you should propose a non-capitalist "reification," and that is EXACTLY what Zizek does when he proposes that we should have a "bureaucratic socialism."

>how can it be done today
It can't. I already told you: it is hard coded into our very being (via language, etc.).

>>392623
>I agree that calling it "false" consciousness is contentious because it implies that the "true" consciousness is from the perspective of the capitalist mode of production, which would reduce people to economic agents.
The problem with the notion of "true consciousness" isn't that it "reduces people to economic agents" (as you say,) but that it is literally impossible. However, this doesn't mean that we should abandon the notions of "class consciousness," or "scientific socialism," and so on.

.pdf very much related

Unique IPs: 5