Gramsci made a special writing titled 『The Concept of Ideology』. But his ideology concept is emphasizing organic ideology as a synthesis of existing ideology theories and a sort of thought weapon with material force, rather than conceptualization....
Gramsci made a special writing titled 『The Concept of Ideology』. But his ideology concept is emphasizing organic ideology as a synthesis of existing ideology theories and a sort of thought weapon with material force, rather than conceptualization. Possibly, The German Ideology is most significant ideology writing made by Marx and Engels. Here, it reveals negative meanings of ideology well. Gramsci never read this writing, but knew well about negative meanings of ideology, and often used the ideology as negative meaning. On the other hand, Gramsci also uses the ideology as positive(or neutral) meaning. He faced Marx`s Preface to The Critique of Political Economy(1859) and Theses on Feuerbach, which contain some paragraphs that hardly seem to point out only the negative meanings of ideology. However, Gramsci uses ideology as positive meaning, possibly because he was more influenced by Engels and Lenin rather than Marx. Although differences between Marx and Engels are still a subtle issue, it is notable that some of their writings contain positive perspectives on ideology, such as The Holy Family (Marx & Engels), Anti~Duhring(Engels) and Ludwig Feuerbach and End of Classical German Philosophy(Engels). Their perspectives are in common with each other in a sense that superstructure is not automatic reflection of base, but may have reactions to the base. This point had possible influences on Gramsci`s concept of positive ideology. Before successful socialist revolution, in 1894 and 1902, Lenin already attached positive implications to the ideology. In addition to successful socialist revolution, Lenin`s standpoint on ideology came to be more convincing. And Gramsci came to use the ideology as a positive meanings mainly under Lenin`s influence. The concept of Marxist ideology involves a transition from negative implications to positive ones, which also entails the standpoints of Engels and Lenin. As for organic ideology, Gramsci explains that ideology comes to have material force. He accepted the ideology as a sort of influential ideal weapon and put stress on the importance of ideologic struggles, because he would aim to cope with consent acquiring strategy of ruling class and also found that acquiring any counter ideology for subject class is so crucial to acquiring hegemony. Ideology aim for hegemony is the material force of ideology and organic ideology. Gramsci reconstructs the perspectives of Marx, Engels and Lenin selectively in order to acquire this organic ideology. And failure to see Gramsci`s ideology concept in viewpoint of historical bloc, as S. Hall or E. Laclau, might lead to extending only positive aspects of ideology. And ultimately it might be used for structuralism or post-structuralism.