ABSTRACT
Critical theory as critique and negative psychoanalysis resists social amnesia and the conformist ideologies; it is loyal both to an objective notion of truth and to a past which the present still suffers. Crucial in the context is that in Marxism ideology is in no way restricted to what in Anglo-American tradition is considered abstract thought; rather it refers to a form of consciousness: false consciousness, a consciousness that has been falsified by social and material conditions. The subsequent theory of ideology was directed solely against theoretical and philosophical concepts—concepts which could possibly defy common sense and empirical reality. The intensification of the drive for surplus value and profit accelerates the rate at which past goods are liquidated to make way for new goods; planned obsolescence is everywhere, from consumer goods to thinking to sexuality. The nature of the production of social amnesia can barely be suggested; such an explanation would have to draw upon the Marxist concept of reification.
