Page 209 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 209
summary
reflects a collective historical experience of which the media as agents and
mediators of “truth” themselves play a part.
Speaking of extremism of today and its ideology, we can certainly as-
sume that any kind of discourse of extreme ideology will respond to the
state of affairs in the global society and to its effects in a local environ-
ment. Therefore, it will be addressed to the subjectivity, which is becoming
moulded in the process: not only – sociologically speaking – to all kinds of
threatened layers of a society (such as the unemployed, uneducated, youth,
etc.), but to a larger society envisioned in a scope of separate identity. To
understand this better, we can use terminology introduced by Martin Se-
liger, who may help us to avoid the sophisticated theoretical controversy
concerning the definition of the notion of ideology in general. “/.../to what-
ever degree policies conform to fundamental principles, ‘operative ideolo-
gy’ denotes the argumentation in favour of the policies actually adopted by
a party. It is ‘ideology’ because it devises, explains and justifies action. It is
‘operative’ inasmuch as it is predicated on what is actually done or recom-
mended for immediate action” (Seliger, 1976: p. 175).
In the realm of mass culture, socialism favoured traditional folk art,
although as it was producers and authors who created some productions of
entertainment in music and in cinema that tried to compete with Holly-
wood and Western pop music. In 1960s, the system in most socialist coun-
tries, especially in the central European ones, could not prevent urban
youth from listening to rock music nor from forming some very provoc-
ative rock bands1 as well as matching worldviews. Still, such phenomena –
no matter how visible and aggravating they were – tended to be more or less
sub-cultural exceptions. Hence, Giddens noted: “Paradoxically, state so-
cialism, which saw itself as the prime revolutionary force in history, proved
much more accommodating towards tradition than capitalism has been”
(Giddens. 1996: p. 51). Many efforts of political groups, and characteristi-
cally the Catholic Church, to cancel or limit women’s rights have become a
boring fact of daily life in most former socialist countries. On the phenom-
enal level something very similar to what has taken place in the USA in
1980s occurred. Questions of abortion, along with the neoliberal concepts
of economy, became a constitutive element of a new variance of conserva-
tive ideology. Although the underlying social circumstances are plausibly
1 One of the rare and very instructive books about the role of some radical movements
in rock music is a collection of texts, newspaper articles and other documents, pub-
lished in 1985 in Ljubljana under the title Punk pod Slovenci (Punk under Slovenians
– Mastnak, Malečkar, 1985).
207
reflects a collective historical experience of which the media as agents and
mediators of “truth” themselves play a part.
Speaking of extremism of today and its ideology, we can certainly as-
sume that any kind of discourse of extreme ideology will respond to the
state of affairs in the global society and to its effects in a local environ-
ment. Therefore, it will be addressed to the subjectivity, which is becoming
moulded in the process: not only – sociologically speaking – to all kinds of
threatened layers of a society (such as the unemployed, uneducated, youth,
etc.), but to a larger society envisioned in a scope of separate identity. To
understand this better, we can use terminology introduced by Martin Se-
liger, who may help us to avoid the sophisticated theoretical controversy
concerning the definition of the notion of ideology in general. “/.../to what-
ever degree policies conform to fundamental principles, ‘operative ideolo-
gy’ denotes the argumentation in favour of the policies actually adopted by
a party. It is ‘ideology’ because it devises, explains and justifies action. It is
‘operative’ inasmuch as it is predicated on what is actually done or recom-
mended for immediate action” (Seliger, 1976: p. 175).
In the realm of mass culture, socialism favoured traditional folk art,
although as it was producers and authors who created some productions of
entertainment in music and in cinema that tried to compete with Holly-
wood and Western pop music. In 1960s, the system in most socialist coun-
tries, especially in the central European ones, could not prevent urban
youth from listening to rock music nor from forming some very provoc-
ative rock bands1 as well as matching worldviews. Still, such phenomena –
no matter how visible and aggravating they were – tended to be more or less
sub-cultural exceptions. Hence, Giddens noted: “Paradoxically, state so-
cialism, which saw itself as the prime revolutionary force in history, proved
much more accommodating towards tradition than capitalism has been”
(Giddens. 1996: p. 51). Many efforts of political groups, and characteristi-
cally the Catholic Church, to cancel or limit women’s rights have become a
boring fact of daily life in most former socialist countries. On the phenom-
enal level something very similar to what has taken place in the USA in
1980s occurred. Questions of abortion, along with the neoliberal concepts
of economy, became a constitutive element of a new variance of conserva-
tive ideology. Although the underlying social circumstances are plausibly
1 One of the rare and very instructive books about the role of some radical movements
in rock music is a collection of texts, newspaper articles and other documents, pub-
lished in 1985 in Ljubljana under the title Punk pod Slovenci (Punk under Slovenians
– Mastnak, Malečkar, 1985).
207
