Hegelian idealism is a psychological distortion, not a class ideology
Evidence
If therefore this is what is meant by that idealism which it is the task of historical materialism to refute, then we will have to find another name for idealism of the Hegelian and Germanic variety, whose ideological distortions are of another type altogether. For it is clear that for Marxism Anglo-American empiricism is a class ideology, while the idealism of the Hegelian variety presents distortions of a more psychological kind. The illusions of Hegelian idealism are not so much the result of social and political mystification as they are of that permanent danger of unconscious egocentrism that hangs over the human mind at all times. This optical illusion of our own centrality is an inevitable and recurrent fact of our conscious life, a structural delusion which is projected by the contradiction between thought as a universalizing process and the nature of the mind as an individual existent. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 722
Categorization
- XREF: This distinction between class ideology and the ‘permanent danger of unconscious egocentrism’ connects to Lukács’s reification thesis and Adorno’s critique of identity-thinking — the reframing of idealism as an inevitable optical illusion rather than merely false consciousness. — connects to: Marx’s inversion of Hegel is oppositional, not a simple turn from idealism to materialism
- DEFINE: Jameson redefines the target of historical materialism: Anglo-American empiricism is a class ideology, but Hegelian idealism is a universal psychological temptation rooted in conscious life itself.