The Lacanian Subject in Marx's Theory of Ideology

It is clear to me from reading Stephen Brookefield's 'The Power of Critical Theory for Adult Learning and Teaching' (2005) that modern Marxist theory is in especial need of a robust and pertinent model of subjective ontology if it is to satisfactorily explicate the relationship it insists exists between the repressive social structures produced by the deterritorializing encroachments of late capitalism and the subsequent generation of a false consciousness that blindly colludes in its own disempowerment.

The greatest difficulty in incorporating traditional behavioural and developmental psychology into the radical transformative political agenda of critical theory, as is been done at present, is that the models of the self produced by these disciplines [to invoke just one criticism] are largely synthesised from an apolitical quantitative collation of data. This means that an uncritiqued and ahistoric static model of society with its own in-built, self-evident norms is implicitly present from the onset and it is this construction that becomes the reflecting surface from which their "pathological" deviations are then erroneously charted.

Brookefield, of course, is painfully aware of this yawning abyss and it can be seen most clearly in the almost yearning manner in which he identifies four contemporary forms of criticality whose scholars have for the most part insisted on tracing out divergent paths: the neo-Marxist critical theory of the Frankfurt School, 'analytic philosophy', 'psychoanalysis and psychotherapy' and 'pragmatic constructivism'. In the case of the latter, the exception is of course Habermas whose theory of communicative action is, according to Shalin (1992: 244) an attempt to invigorate critical theory by merging the Continental and Anglo-Saxon traditions and bringing the pragmatist perspective to bear on the project of 'emancipation through reason'.

Brookefield defends Habermas's widely criticised bridge-building between neo-Marxism and pragmatism but he cautions; in adult education, however, it is easy to focus on the pragmatist element of Habermas's thought, particularly the much invoked concept of the ideal speech situation, and interpret these 'in ways that ignore the Marxist underpinnings, and hence the political power, of his critique' (Brookefield, 2001:8) Moreover, the fact that this exercise, in making explicit the complementarity that naturally exists between the ideals of socialism and democracy, needs to occur at all, is testament to the power of the ideologues on both sides of the Cold War. (The deconstructionist school could usefully deploy themselves in shattering the 'metaphysics of presence' that has privileged the signifier 'democracy' in this particular binary hierarchy).

With respect to the realm of the psychosocial and the ability of its varied theoretical persuasions to adapt themselves to critical theory Michele Barrett tells us; 'psychoanalysis [and she is mainly referring to Lacan] is the place one might reasonably start to correct the lamentable lack of attention paid to subjectivity within Marxism's theory of ideology' (Barrett, 1991:118-119).

For Rosalind Coward and John Ellis Lacan's subject is therefore this new subject of dialectical materialism.the emphasis on language; 'provides a route for an elaboration of the subject demanded by dialectical materialism' (Coward and Ellis, 1977:93). Likewise, Mark Bracher concludes that Lacanian theory can provide 'the sort of account of subjectivity that cultural criticism needs' (Bracher, 1993: 12). And finally, Feher-Gurewich states Lacan's psychoanalytic approach is founded on premises that are in sharp contrast to the ones which have 'led to the failure of an alliance between psychoanalysis and social theory' (Feher-Gurewich, 1996:154).