Can ideology be oppressive and cultish?

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

When i see pictures of old "communist" countries and Nazi Germany, i find the use of flags and symbols to be slightly cultish.

The color Red, the use of the hammer and sickle, the swastika, the Star and masses of people waving their flags showing support for the ideology.

In Europe today, even at election time, party colors and symbols and even national flags do not play that much of a role. People select who they vote for without all the flags and banners.

However, among the left especially us socialist/communists and on the far right, like Nazi's, nationalists etc, both have used flags and colors an awful lot. So much so the soviet and Chinese armies were called the "red" army.

If you are communist supported in the US, they call you a "pinko".

The red flag, with the hammer and sickle was waved as heartily by the soviets as the Union jack and American flag are by reactionary people of their respective countries.

The use of symbolism to represent a particular ideology does not seem progressive to me.

So, why is this? Is it mobilizing? Is color essential to us as communists. I notice lots of red orientated names on this board.

If the use of color is used, isn't it irrational?
Are symbols that are used really not just the same as national flags?

I think that this is something that leads people to believe communists want everyone to think the same, which is scary admittedly!!

I think that the use of colors and symbols are just tools revolutionaries have mistakenly used, and by using them they have reinvented nationalism and patriotism.

Hopefully, future proletarian revolutions will be color and symbol free. It wont be the Reds coming, it will be the people!

[Zingu]

Brown is the new Red.

(I'll post something more serious tommorow morning, it got me thinking, but I'm way to tired to type it through)

[Vanguard1917]

I suppose it depends on what the symbol represents.

If a red flag represents a dynamic socialist society or movement then i don't think that that is cultish or oppressive in any way. But if it represents nothing progressive then that flag becomes a symbol of reaction; if the flag represents nothing at all (e.g. in the absense of a real life socialist movement) then it does become more and more a symbol of 'cults'.

For example, if i was alive in 1789 i would have proudly marched under the French tricolour flag - because that flag represented one of the greatest revolutionary movements that history has ever witnessed. In 2006 that rag should be burned, because, for me, it now represents nothing progressive at all.

Similarly with the hammer and sickle. Many socialists stopped using the flag that once represented a great proletarian revolution because it came to be increasingly idetified with a society that oppressed and exploited working class people (i.e. the Stalinist Soviet Union).

[Comrade Ryan]

Very well said.

[redstar2000]

I think actually you're talking about two subjects here.

In Marx's time, the word "ideology" had a narrow meaning...a set of principles considered "finished" and no longer capable of being changed or developed.

The modern usage of the word is more expansive; it still contains the idea of a set of principles but now emphasizes coherence and doesn't "rule out" the idea of further development.

The use of symbolism is a different topic...and one that seems to have a lot to do with human psychology.

Consider, for example, how we find some colors "exciting" and other colors "drab" and "boring".

Or how the feeling of being "part" of a large crowd differs from being part of a much smaller gathering.

How watching a game on the dummyvision "feels different" than watching it from the stands of a packed stadium.

Humans, for better or worse, seem to enjoy what they perceive as "spectacular" events...both observing them and taking part in them.

That political groups have "taken advantage" of these human characteristics is hardly any surprise at all.

In fact, when you stop and think about it, we're "surrounded" by symbolism constantly...most of it used to sell commodities.

You are what you buy! :lol:

Even on this board, we use emoticons...little "symbols" of things we don't want to take the trouble to write out in words.

To be sure, symbols can easily be exaggerated to "cult-like" levels. Religions are full of that sort of thing...since symbols are all they have. They don't have anything real to show people.

Nazism certainly contained within itself many quasi-religious characteristics...and thus emphasized symbolism and ritual a good deal more than other political movements. But Nazism was not at all shy about borrowing from other social phenomena that they thought useful...ancient Rome, the Catholic Church, the communists, Imperial German traditions, and coordinated "pep rallies" at American college football games. (!)

German communists of the 1920s and early 1930s were not as eclectic, but some odd things do turn up. When communists demonstrated, they always included a marching band...and several of the instruments in the band were usually shawms.

What's that??? It's a very late medieval kind of woodwind instrument that produced extremely impressive tones. Why were 20th century German communists still playing it? Presumably to honor the great peasant rebellion of 1520-21...as well as for the psychological effects on those who both took part in and watched the demonstrations.

Imagine someone going to see a left demonstration for the first time. What is more likely to impress them? A forest of signs and banners with all sorts of slogans? Or a "sea" of red flags?

And the signs and banners? Large and dramatic, painted in bold reds and blacks? Or small and cramped in dreary grays?

Think, for that matter, of what "left" propaganda looks like?

Imaginative or boring?

One of the strengths of the French Situationists is that their material looked fresh...it didn't have the "look and feel" of the old Left.

Mostly because they borrowed freely from the genre of bourgeois advertising, using its conventions to "sell revolution". :lol:

It's worthwhile to really think about this stuff.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Dyst]

Well, believe it or not, it is a good way to impress people and even win their opinion.

Sure, you might say, people are not going to become nazi by looking at a swastika, for example, but some people may think it looks "cool" or something like that.

It is how many corporations advertise their products, so it does profit.

If it is "cultist" or so, I think it can be. But it can also just be an icon to represent something.

[321zero]

Redstars point about brand-fetishism is a good one. Nike, Reebok etc all want us to define ourselves by wearing their 'brand' (If they could they'd use a hot poker to apply the 'swish').

This stuff is so ubiquitous it seems natrual.

This is an interesting quote which shows that the capitalists will do anything to sell us their shit, even to the point of appropriating revolutionary symbols. I hope that this is an anomaly, perhaps possible only in the post-USSR triumphalist phase. Also relevant is the attempts by the EU parliament to ban communist symbolism, in the same way Germany, Austria etc have made the swastika illegal.



John Berger recently wrote about a French advert for an internet broker called Selftrade. Under an image of a solid gold hammer and sickle studded with diamonds, the caption reads: "And if the stock market profited everybody?" The strategy is obvious: today, the stock market fulfils the egalitarian communist agenda - everybody can participate in it. Berger proposes a comparison: "Imagine a communications campaign today using an image of a swastika cast in solid gold and embedded with diamonds! It would, of course, not work. Why? The swastika addressed potential victors, not the defeated. It invoked domination not justice." In contrast, the hammer and sickle invokes the hope that "history would eventually be on the side of those struggling for fraternal justice". At the very moment this hope is proclaimed dead according to the hegemonic ideology of the "end of ideologies", a paradigmatic post-industrial enterprise (is there anything more post-industrial than dealing in stocks on the internet?) mobilises it once more. The hope continues to haunt us.

http://www.lacan.com/zizek-seize.htm

[rouchambeau]

Ideology is always oppressive and cultish. It removes the individual's abillity to reason for itself and fills the void with a bunch of ideas that one is to embrace wholeheartedly.

People need to drop ideology and think for themselves.

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

Firstly, yeah ideology and symbolism probably are two different topics, my bad. :D

I understand the good points of symbols and color in attracting people to an ideological perspective or struggle.

However, the red flags and hammer and sickle much like national flags and too as pointed out brand names have all been invented by ruling classes.

It seems to me that the point of using symboling is not used by the proletariat, but rather people who want garnish support, sell a product or keep people patriotic.

Despite the fact it may be useful to have a color or symbol which people can identify with, it also means that people could be far more easily coerced by simply waving a red flag in their face.

"It is how many corporations advertise their products, so it does profit." - Keiza

"Religions are full of that sort of thing...since symbols are all they have." - Redstar2000

So if business and religion use symbolism to represent a particular perspective then surly thats exactly what we don't want to do!

Communists or more over, the working class movement cannot compete with the financial power of business. They will and are winning the "battle" of symbols.

Religion too is beating us on this front. Where red flags showing hope for liberation, might seem appealing to some, religion uses symbols to show salvation of our mortal "souls".

The only thing we gain by using symbols is to either be manipulated by another bourgeois party, or look like bourgeois business/religion.

Wouldn't it better for real proletarian movements to not get hangup on symbols or color, then theres nothing to bite them in ass later on?

ps. I hope Vanguard1917's post is right, but im wary.