Ripensare la critica dell’ideologia. Alcuni percorsi nella teoria critica contemporanea

Abstract

In the debates within contemporary critical theory, there have been a number of reflections in recent years aimed at reframing the critique of ideology as a specific form of social criticism. These lines of research move from a twofold observation. On the one hand, they start from the assumption that today more than ever there are social relations and forms of domination that continue to operate through ideological mechanisms. Secondly, however, it is noted that the classical versions of the Marxist-driven critique of ideology were plagued by problems and difficulties that today call for a thorough revision. After a reference to the way Habermas had already reformulated the model of the critique of ideology within the framework of the linguistic turn, two theoretical proposals in particular are considered in the article. First, the article analyzes Robin Celikates‘ proposal that outlines a social theory approach that aims to enhance the critical capacities of social actors. The critique of ideology is outlined as a refinement and radicalization of similar critical capacities of social actors, and as an analysis of the structural blocks that prevent a full exercise of their potential for self-reflexivity and autonomy. The second proposal reconstructed in the article is that of Rahel Jaeggi, who reinterprets the critique of ideology as a form of immanent negativist critique. This is a form of social criticism that works immanently on the self-contradictions of norms and social practices, deriving the criteria for overcoming their crises, through the method of determinate negation. In this second case, too, it is affirmed how the critique of ideology is part of existing social self-understanding and yet also at the same time an emancipatory and transformative factor aiming at the self-denial of situations characterized by blocks of self-reflexivity.