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Eldar Sarajlic has written a several short essays that convey and interpret the essence of my theories. Here, he crystallizes one of my central ideas, observing that while ideologies exist as cultural and linguistic forms within societies, culture and language do not explain the existence of an ideology. Ideologies exist as elements of culture because they function to allow desires and fantasies to become articulated as social reality. The cultural form constitutes a modus operandi.
The complete paper is here.
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Eldar Sarajlic is a social and political philosopher. His PhD is from the Central European University in Budapest. He is Professor in the Critical Thinking department at Borough of Manhattan Community College
His paper, "Bullshit, Truth and Reason" is here.
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The paper argues that ideologies contain and articulate psychological meanings. These meanings are often difficult to grasp at the immediate discursive level. However, Koenigsberg’s method, “analysis of metaphor,” enables us to decipher the latent content of ideological texts. This method consists of identifying recurring images and metaphors within writings and speeches of individuals who have been significant in defining an ideology and bringing it forth onto the public stage.
Identification of recurring metaphors and images contained within the rhetoric of a political leader reveals the fantasy that the ideology seeks to express. An ideology functions as a modus operandi to structure and externalize fantasies shared by a group. Identification of recurring metaphors and images allows one to perceive the nature and shape of fantasies contained in an ideological text.
In this sense, ideology is like manifest content of a dream that many people are having at once. Recurring images and metaphors allow one to ascertain the latent meaning of the ideology. The psychological study of culture focuses—not on the idiosyncrasies of individuals—but on how shared desires, fantasies, anxieties and conflicts give rise to collective representations. This article puts forward a method for revealing the sources and meanings of belief-systems that constitute a given societal group.
Ideologies exist as cultural and linguistic forms within societies. But culture and language do not explain the existence of the ideology. An ideology exists as an element or dimension of culture because it functions to allow desires and fantasies to become articulated as social reality. The cultural form constitutes a modus operandi.
If ideologies articulate fantasies and fantasies derive from the body, it follows that ideologies are not separate from our bodies, rather are bound to our bodies. How may we understand the relationship between body, fantasy and mental operations in the case of ideology? Metaphors in a text, Koenigsberg's paper suggests, convey the presence of the body and allow fantasies about the body to enter social reality.
Building upon Freud’s principle of “psychic determinism,” Koenigsberg suggests that unconscious fantasies continually enter into language and consciousness through the vehicle of metaphor. Recent trends in social theory suggest that discourse shapes the body. This article counters with the claim that our bodies give rise to and structure discourse.
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