Normativity as Ideology. From Foucault to Marx and Engels

Abstract

The article argues that Michel Foucault’s frequently stated opposition between his “genealogy of norms” and the Marxist “critique of ideology” is, in many ways, unfounded. By analyzing some of his texts, I claim that Foucault’s objections to the critique of ideology conceal his creative use of Karl Marx’s and Friedrich Engels’ insights. To support this claim, I first identify some “Marxist echoes” in Foucault’s work. I then demonstrate that these echoes lead to original reformulations of the critique of ideology, which are not reducible to Louis Althusser’s theory of the “ideological apparatuses”. Thus, the article highlights that Foucault’s “genealogy of norms” is surprisingly connected to Marx’s and Engels’ hypotheses presented in the manuscripts known as The German Ideology.