The place of naïve metaphysical illusions—which establish the world as a meaningful and familiar dwelling, wherein everything that exists occupies its specific, logical position—is, in the postmodern era, entirely supplanted by ideology. This ideology manifests itself through a range of granular and increasingly complex social practices. As Althusser meticulously emphasized, ideology is not merely a set of epistemological delusions; it is a material practice that actualizes the world of ideas in such a way that the very world itself appears as a self-evident, meaningful given. Ideology thus possesses both epistemological and ontological dimensions.

The supposed distinction between these two registers is an illusion—one that in fact constitutes the very condition of possibility for religiosity itself. As long as we accept it, we believe—even if we lack a clearly defined confessional reason for doing so. This goes even further: in order to exist at all within our own self-evidence, we must first pass through the internalization of ideology. The self is the result of social practices; it depends on the site where identity is formed as the intersection between language and the mechanics of social reproduction.

Cogito ergo sum is the sediment of the ideological production of the world. Critical distance from the ideological conditioning of self-sameness becomes possible only as retrospective introspection. In other words, freedom is, at best, the proclamation of an awareness of the determinations of one’s own conditioning.

Original text:

Svet kot ideološka forma: O iluziji smiselnosti

Mesto naivnih metafizičnih iluzij, ki svet vzpostavljajo kot smiselno oziroma domače prebivališče, znotraj katerega ima vse, kar obstaja, svoje specifično logično mesto, v postmodernističnem času v celoti nadomesti ideologija, ki se manifestira v polju raznolikih granularnih in kompleksnejših družbenih praks.

Kot je z mikroskopsko natančnostjo izpostavil Althusser ideologija ni le skupek epistemoloških prividov, temveč materialna praksa, ki svet idej udejani na način, da taisti svet vzpostavi kot samoumevno smiselno danost. Ideologija ima torej epistemološko-ontološke razsežnosti. Stvarna razlika teh dveh registrov je utvara, ki v resnici vzpostavlja pogoj možnosti religioznosti same.

Dokler pristajamo nanjo, verujemo, četudi zato nimamo natančno določnega konfesionalnega razloga. Vse skupaj gre še korak dlje, da sploh lahko obstajamo v svojem lastnem samo-umevanju, moramo preiti ideološko ponotranjenost.

Sebstvo je rezultat družbenih praks. Odvisno je od mesta, kjer se identiteta vzpostavi kot presečišče jezika in mehanike družbenih praks. Cogito ergo sum je naplavina ideološke proizvodnje sveta. Kritična distanca do ideološke pogojenosti sebe-enakosti je možna šele kot retrospektivna introspekcija. Z drugimi besedami, svoboda je kvečjemu oznanilo poznavanja določil lastne pogojenosti.