Lankan polity ‘twixst devil and deep blue

 sea’ "Over-determination" on the see-saw

Louis Althusser (1918-1990)
"Ideology has little to do with consciousness;it is profoundly unconscious."

Kumar David-July 26, 2014

Observe that I refer to Lankan polity not only the regime though it is obviously the centre forward player and principal actor. My objective today is to separate the critical conflicts in Lankan polity in this period into two separate categories, they are linked but not the same. My objective is to organise thinking about Lanka’s state and society into as simple terms as possible though you may be a little surprised when I begin with a decidedly odd sounding concept. Commonsense people find ‘over-determination’ a strange term, but it has come into wide use in political discourse, especially but not only on the left and is useful in an essay like this one.

Lankan Polity ‘Twixst Devil and Deep Blue by Maria Anderson