What Do Evolutionary Psychology and Marx on Ideology Have in Common?

I am in the middle of revision for the final exam for my Politics, Philosophy and History degree and am revising the following topics: Foucault on the discursive construction of the subject, Evolutionary Psychology and why it is utter nonsense (ok I made the last bit up), Marx on Ideology incoporating Lenin, Lukacs, Gramsci and Althusser and the Postmodernist and Historical Relativist view of history.

Believe it or not, I feel like I have most of the topics down and am confident at getting a 2:1 on the exam which is set for the 1st of June. Interestingly though, the topics seem to correlate to each other in intriguing ways. For example, the adaptationst view put forward by E.O. Wilson, which basically supports evolutionary psychology, argues that our phenotypes (behaviours, traits and physical characteristics) are naturally selected for optimality due to the underlying genotypes (genes which are naturally and optimally selected). He believes that natural selection has a primacy in its effect over behaviour. As a social scientist, sociologist and philosopher, I can't accept such an argument. It seems blatantly ridiculous that genes are the primary factor in determining social behaviour. The way he argues it appears scientific, but in fact it isn't at all. He uses the example of the Aztecs and their cannibalism arguing that they were cannibals because of lack of protein and that therefore their practice of cannibalism was naturally selected. This completely disregards the social context of the practice, the history, the culture and everything else which makes up such a practice. It's a "just so" story, as Smith and Wilkins point out in their piece on adaptationism, and can be one of any variety of explanations. This is very far from scientific.

E.O. Wilson

What struck me the most however is that it was the Marxist critiques that were most vocal in opposing this view and for good reason. If one believed EP and Wilson's view then the only conceivable way to change human behaviour is genetic engineering! Further it is often used to prop up current negative human behaviour as things which are optimally selected or cannot be changed, none of which is provable nor based on the history of very real human inspired change that humanity has created.

Now why should I be struck by the Marxist critiques as such? Well precisely because in my other topic, Marx and Engels make a strikingly similar argument with regards to ideology. In essence both Wilson's and Marx's views are determinist. Marx and Engels argue that ideology is essentially false because it is something which exists as a result of the underlying conflict between classes and is therefore a mirage. They believe there is a base and a superstructure - the class conflict is the base and the superstructure is society, institutions and so forth. Ideology is part of this superstructure and is created by the class conflict and therefore obscures the real conflict in society. For example, religion - a part of ideology - may tell someone to accept their fate in life, therefore hiding the true reasons for inequality at the base level. Or liberal ideology, may claim that all men are created equal when in fact this also obscures the reality that class inequality is at the very base, the very heart of the society.

Althusser

I am much more sympathetic to Marx's view on ideology than Wilson's view on evolutionary psychology, however they are both wrong. Marx cannot put any scientific claim to this anymore than Wilson can. But whereas Wilson's determinism might lead to "just so" stories that prop up the status quo, Marx's view might lead to conclusions which help eradicate the status quo, which perhaps explains my sympathy. Beginning with Lenin, who wanted to rescue ideology as purely negative and allow for a difference between "socialist" and "capitalist" ideology, with the former being a type of positive ideology, we get a long line of Marxist thinkers who rejected or expanded upon Marx's original claims. Lukacs believed that ruling ideology was not imaginary but a real force which attacked the well being of the working class. Gramsci saw ideology as a force by which a ruling class could reinforce its position through a process known as hegemony, with the consent of the governed. Finally Althusser went the furthest in the rejection of ideology as a negative concept which was imaginary and solely dependent upon the class conflict at the base. Althusser saw a deep structure at work where ideology might be a reflection of "imaginary relationships" that people have with their reality, but not imaginary in and of itself. He saw the "ideological state apparatuses" as having an autonomy and dominance all of their own and saw ideology as perpetuating and reinforcing this.

In the same way that the rejection of Wilson's adapationism doesn't give us the answer to what precisely impacts and determines human behaviour, so too does the rejection of Marx's purely negative view of ideology not give us a complete answer. For all that Althusser posits, while he may be correct in some aspects of his view of ideology, he ends up losing the negative force of Marx's argument. Ideology's autonomy leaves it no closer to being overcome but also his conclusions on ideology mean that the state apparatus necessarily reproduces ideology in its image and creates subjects in this ideological image. This may be correct, but where does that leave ideology in a socialist state? The Soviet Union? Either way the attempts at science by both Marx and Wilson fall far short of the intended mark.

In other news, I just finished a book by Marc Auge which attempted to put forward the notion of non-places and supermodernity. I am not sure I was entirely convinced, but his exposition of the weird and wonderful ways we spend our lives in postmodernity (not sure I believe the supermodernity thesis) was enlightening nonetheless. He speaks of the ethnology and anthropology of place for most of the book, which was interesting, but the best bits were where he began to use concrete examples about non-places that we inhabit. These are basically places without a history, without any kind of attachment to culture; motorways, airport lounges, airplane cabins - where we all become individual blurs, living the same thing, the same moments; as passengers, travellers, spectators and so on. Individual, but losing individuality.

I wish he had spent more on this and less on his exposition of place v space, but nonetheless it is a recommended book. In the end, there is not much optimism either - something beyond distopia, a sort of staring into the abyss of the overwhelming increase of spaces such as this (in his view one of the defining features of supermodernity). In the end, I prefer a call to action, even if it is based on ideals of the common. Which reminds me, when is that new Hardt and Negri book coming out? Oh yes, the 15th of October! Just in time for my MRes in Social and Political Theory!