Ideology is the aesthetic act itself, not something that invests it

Evidence

We may suggest that from this perspective, ideology is not something which informs or invests sym­ bolic production; rather the aesthetic act is itself ideological, and the production of aesthetic or narrative form is to be seen as an ideological act in its own right, with the function of inventing imaginary or formal “solutions” to unresolvable social contradictions. — Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 1775

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Paradigm-shifting redefinition of ideology as immanent in formal production rather than an external content layer — the load-bearing move of Jameson’s whole method.
• XREF: Connects to Althusser’s ideology-as-material-practice and to the reader’s ongoing project on literary-critical method.
• SEED: Angle: how fictional narrative techniques constitute ideology rather than carrying it — testing the hypothesis against a contemporary novel.