Class consciousness functions as an artificial rallying device rather than a natural given.

Evidence

For class-consciousness does not engage the ground level of consciousness—consciousness in general. “Class” is not, after all, an inalienable description of a human reality. Class-consciousness on the descriptive level is itself a strategic and artificial rallying awareness which, on the transformative level, seeks to destroy the mechanics which come to construct the outlines of the very class of which a collective consciousness has been situationally developed. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 1763 (#expands, via linked claim)

Thus, a theory of articulation is both a way of understanding how ideological elements come, under certain conditions, to cohere together within a discourse, a way of asking how they do or do not become articulated, at specific conjunctures, to certain political subjects. Let me put that the other way: the theory of articulation asks how an ideology discovers its subject rather than how the subject thinks the necessary and inevitable thoughts which belong to it; it enables us to think how an ideology empowers people, enabling them to begin to make some sense or intelligibility of their historical situation, without reducing those forms of intelligibility to their socioeconomic or class location or social position. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 736 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

It also suggests how an ideology may serve to break the hold of traditional ideas and give “new” ideas a compelling force for that class in which they take root. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 339 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Class consciousness is a self-destroying strategic artifice, not an inalienable identity. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 1763; Ideologies can shatter traditional ideas and empower new ones in a receptive class — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 339; Ideologies discover their subjects rather than subjects belonging inevitably to fixed ideologies. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 736 (+1 more)

Related

• Class consciousness is a self-destroying strategic artifice, not an inalienable identity. (similarity 0.87)
• Ideologies can shatter traditional ideas and empower new ones in a receptive class (similarity 0.82)
• Class structure persists while class consciousness has been politically disavowed (similarity 0.82)
• Ideologies discover their subjects rather than subjects belonging inevitably to fixed ideologies. (similarity 0.81)
• Class consciousness arises from being looked at by oppressors, not from material hardship. (similarity 0.81)
• Strategic essentialism collapses when applied to consciousness-in-general rather than class. (similarity 0.80)
• Class consciousness shapes the gestalt of thought, not its details (similarity 0.79)
• Ideological change happens through class struggle, not through ideas alone (similarity 0.79)
• Class is a contingent articulation of demands, not an ultimate core. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Class consciousness is a self-destroying strategic artifice, not an inalienable identity. #expands (0.95) — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 1763
• Ideologies discover their subjects rather than subjects belonging inevitably to fixed ideologies. #corroborates (0.80) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 736
• Ideologies can shatter traditional ideas and empower new ones in a receptive class #corroborates (0.75) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 339