We typically think of "the state" as a structure that is created to protect the interests of the ruling class, by using (ultimately) "special bodies of armed men, prisons, etc." This is definitely the role that the state plays, I'll assume that part isn't controversial.
This also seems to be a good description of how the state is created - eg. feudalism is overthrown, the feudal state is abolished, and the victorious capitalist class establishes a new and different state to suit their needs. Establishing this new state is a historical process (involving trial and error, perhaps reusing parts of the old state, etc.) but the general pattern holds: the new ruling class creates a new state.
But what about more complex cases? Is it possible to have "bodies of armed men" arise first, and later establish themselves as a ruling class? Surely there must be examples of this, eg. a conquering warband ends up with territory that it now needs to administer, tax, prevent rebellion, etc. Or perhaps failed/partial revolutions where the old state is overthrown, but a new one is not established, so the remnants of the military establish themselves as the new state, and therefore as the new ruling class.
What I'm getting at is that perhaps the state and the ruling class create each other through a dialectical and historically contingent process. Maybe the bourgeois class designing and building a new state for itself, from scratch, is the exception historically (and/or an oversimplification in that case as well.) This would have big implications for how we think about post-revolutionary states.
I'm sure that there must be some existing writing about this - can anyone point me in the right direction here?
That's interesting, although it's kind of a lot to puzzle through at once.
I do think I was under-appreciating the role that ideology plays here, but I think Adorno's argument (if I'm understanding it correctly) is taking it too far by essentially giving it primacy, it seems anti-materialist. I also don't understand how (again, if I'm getting this right) ideological hegemony precedes revolutions, and shapes the immediately-post-revolutionary institutions and class organization, and also retroactively justifies the whole thing. It seems like only 2 of those 3 would be needed? Unless, again, ideology is just the main factor driving everything, which I'm skeptical on.
I am interested in learning more about how ideology works, how it's formed, perpetuated, changed, etc., I think in the past I've generally underestimated this. I was recently reading some secondary sources on Gramsci, since I thought diving into the prison notebooks was too intimidating. Any other recs? Especially as a relative starting point for an ignorant stemlord?
Yeah sorry it’s a lot of heady stuff to get into at once haha.
In giving ideology (what Adorno terms identity-thinking) primacy, he’s trying to articulate that the ‘event’ can’t proceed without some epistemological and ontological basis (epistemologically: I believe it is the case that change is needed / ontologically: the tensions of the world demands change, etc). This isn’t, for Adorno, anti materialist because he believes that, to even think in such a way requires some material grounding. A concept cannot precede its object; Ideology can’t proceed without some material condition informing at at some point. Re your second point, ideology proceeds an event because it is the causation for it. And It premedites how it is viewed after because the epistemological frame that informed the event shapes how it is even understood posthumously and the narratives we use to define it. And then this premeditation also informs how we act after the event.
This view assumes, as you are sceptical of , (rightly) that ideology shapes everything.
It is a view that is very compelling when you look into it, and ones I personally hold. Good reading on the ontology of ideology and how it functions is: Althusser (essential!), Foucault, Agamemnon, Debord, the entirety of the Frankfurt School, delueze, (early) zizek (before he became a pop philosopher), badiou and stiegler. These thinkers all describe or differently, but all tried to articulate how ideology frames our actions and then enframes us as subjects.
A good starting point would be the ‘culture industry’ chapter from Adorno and Hoekheimers Dialectic of Enlightenment and Mark Fishers Capitalist Realism. The former is the most essential text on describing how ideology functions in capitalist society, and how capitalist ideology and fascism are fruit from the same tree. The latter is a wonderful exposition of the history of theory on ideology. It covers nearly all these thinkers and tries to describe them in simple language whilst also defining the malaise of the contemporary techno capitalist subject and how it is premediated by ideology. Now I’ve mentioned it, I’d deffo recommend Fisher as a starting point. But additionally, you HAVE to read althussers ‘ideology and ideological state apparatuses’
Lmk if you would like further recs for the others I mentioned. I hope this was somewhat helpful in clarifying! Sorry I’m very drunk in writing this, hope I was clear lol