I Dialogues
Enunciating Louis Althusser’s Theses on Ideology
I.
Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence. (Lenin 109)
Whereas the old Marxist view showed how ideologies are false by pointing to the real world hidden by ideology, Althusser says, by contrast, ideology does not reflect the real world but represents the imaginary relationships of individuals to the real world. The thing ideology [mis] represents is itself already at one remove from the real.
Borrowing Jacques Lacan’s Imaginary, Althusser says we are always within ideology because of our reliance on language to establish our reality. This means—that different ideologies are but different representations of our social and imaginary ‘reality,’ not a representation of the real itself.
II.
Ideology has a material existence. (Lenin 112)
It is so because an ideology always exists in an apparatus, and its practice, or practices. Ideology always manifests itself through actions which are inserted into practices—e.g. rituals, conventional behavior, and so on.
Citing Blaise Pascal’s formule for belief—“Kneel down, move your lips in prayer and you will believe, (Lenin 114)”
Althusser contends it is our performance of our relation to others and to social institutions that constantly instantiates us as subjects. (Refer to critic Judith Butler’s preoccupation with performance/ performativity is inspired and/or informed by this thought on ideology.)
What thus seems to take place outside ideology (in the street, to be precise) in reality takes place in ideology. Those who are in ideology believe themselves by definition outside ideology (Lenin 118)
III.
All ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects. (Lenin 115)
Ideology’s purpose is in constituting concrete individuals as subjects (Lenin 116). So pervasive is ideology in its constitution of subjects that it forms our very reality and thus appears to us as true and obvious.
The rituals of ideological recognition guarantee for us that we are indeed concrete, individual, distinguishable and naturally irreplaceable subjects. (Lenin 117)
Through interpellation, individuals are turned into subjects (which are always ideological):
Police Officer: Hey, you there!
Assuming that the scene takes place in the street, the hailed individual will turn round. By this mere 180° physical conversion, he becomes a subject. (Lenin 118)
The very fact that we do not recognize this interaction as ideological speaks to the power of ideology.
IV
Individuals are always-already subjects. (Ideology has no history.)
Although his example of interpellation suggests temporality—I am interpellated and thus I become a subject, I enter ideology—Althusser says that the becoming-subject happens even before we are born. Not a paradox at all, even before the child is born—it is certain in advance that it will bear its father’s name, and will therefore have an identity and be irreplaceable.
Before its birth, the child is therefore always-already a subject, appointed as a subject in and by the specific familial ideological configuration in which it is ‘expected’ once it has been conceived. (Lenin 119)
Most subjects accept their ideological self-constitution as reality or nature and thus rarely come into conflict with the repressive state apparatus, designed to punish anyone who rejects the dominant ideology.
It can be said therefore that hegemony is thus reliant less on such repressive state apparatuses (RSAs) as the police than it is on those ideological state apparatuses (ISAs) by which ideology is inculcated in all subjects.
Althusser says it best, thus:
“the individual is interpellated as a (free) subject in order that he shall submit freely to the commandments of the subjects, i.e. in order that he shall make the gestures and actions of his subjection ‘all by himself.’” (Lenin 123)
Understanding Louis Althusser’s “Ideological StateApparatuses”
By adding the concept of ideological state apparatuses, Althusser complicates the Marxist notion of the relation between base and superstructure.
For Marx, various levels in society are the infrastructure or economic base and the superstructure or political and legal institutions (law, government, and the police) and ideology (religious, moral, political, etc.) In Marxist thought, superstructure is relatively autonomous from base—it relies on economic base but can sometimes persist for a long period despite major changes in the base.
Exploring the ways in which ideology is more pervasive, and more material than previously acknowledged, Althusser distinguishes between Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) and the Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs).
ISAs include the religious (schools), family, legal, political (systems, parties), trade union, communications (press), and the cultural (arts, sports, literature). Less centralized and more heterogeneous, ISAs access the private, not the public realm. They work predominantly by ideology, including punishment or repression.
Schools and churches use suitable methods of punishment, expulsion, selection, etc. to discipline not only their shepherds but also their flocks. (Lenin 98)
State apparatuses (SAs), or Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs) are agencies that function by violence, imposing punishment and privation in order to enforce power. Working predominantly by violence and secondarily by ideology, SAs include the government and administration, army and the police, courts and prisons, etc.
Though they are quite disparate, ISAs are virtually unified subscribing to a common ideology in the service of the ruling class. Indeed the ruling class must maintain a degree of control over ISAs to ensure stability of the SAs.
No class can hold state power over a long period without at the same time exercising its hegemony over and in the ISAs.
It is much harder for the ruling class to maintain control over the multiple, heterogeneous, and relatively autonomous ISA (alternative perspectives can be voiced in each ISA)—which is why there is continual struggle for hegemony/domination in this realm.
In what may seem to me as the repute of schools being [re] defined, Althusser says, “what the bourgeoisie has installed as its dominant ISA is the educational apparatus, which has replaced in its functions the Church.”
I.
Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence. (Lenin 109)
Whereas the old Marxist view showed how ideologies are false by pointing to the real world hidden by ideology, Althusser says, by contrast, ideology does not reflect the real world but represents the imaginary relationships of individuals to the real world. The thing ideology [mis] represents is itself already at one remove from the real.
Borrowing Jacques Lacan’s Imaginary, Althusser says we are always within ideology because of our reliance on language to establish our reality. This means—that different ideologies are but different representations of our social and imaginary ‘reality,’ not a representation of the real itself.
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Ideology has a material existence. (Lenin 112)
It is so because an ideology always exists in an apparatus, and its practice, or practices. Ideology always manifests itself through actions which are inserted into practices—e.g. rituals, conventional behavior, and so on.
Citing Blaise Pascal’s formule for belief—“Kneel down, move your lips in prayer and you will believe, (Lenin 114)”
Althusser contends it is our performance of our relation to others and to social institutions that constantly instantiates us as subjects. (Refer to critic Judith Butler’s preoccupation with performance/ performativity is inspired and/or informed by this thought on ideology.)
What thus seems to take place outside ideology (in the street, to be precise) in reality takes place in ideology. Those who are in ideology believe themselves by definition outside ideology (Lenin 118)
III.
All ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects. (Lenin 115)
Ideology’s purpose is in constituting concrete individuals as subjects (Lenin 116). So pervasive is ideology in its constitution of subjects that it forms our very reality and thus appears to us as true and obvious.
The rituals of ideological recognition guarantee for us that we are indeed concrete, individual, distinguishable and naturally irreplaceable subjects. (Lenin 117)
Through interpellation, individuals are turned into subjects (which are always ideological):
Police Officer: Hey, you there!
Assuming that the scene takes place in the street, the hailed individual will turn round. By this mere 180° physical conversion, he becomes a subject. (Lenin 118)
The very fact that we do not recognize this interaction as ideological speaks to the power of ideology.
IV
Individuals are always-already subjects. (Ideology has no history.)
Although his example of interpellation suggests temporality—I am interpellated and thus I become a subject, I enter ideology—Althusser says that the becoming-subject happens even before we are born. Not a paradox at all, even before the child is born—it is certain in advance that it will bear its father’s name, and will therefore have an identity and be irreplaceable.
Before its birth, the child is therefore always-already a subject, appointed as a subject in and by the specific familial ideological configuration in which it is ‘expected’ once it has been conceived. (Lenin 119)
Most subjects accept their ideological self-constitution as reality or nature and thus rarely come into conflict with the repressive state apparatus, designed to punish anyone who rejects the dominant ideology.
It can be said therefore that hegemony is thus reliant less on such repressive state apparatuses (RSAs) as the police than it is on those ideological state apparatuses (ISAs) by which ideology is inculcated in all subjects.
Althusser says it best, thus:
“the individual is interpellated as a (free) subject in order that he shall submit freely to the commandments of the subjects, i.e. in order that he shall make the gestures and actions of his subjection ‘all by himself.’” (Lenin 123)
Understanding Louis Althusser’s “Ideological StateApparatuses”
By adding the concept of ideological state apparatuses, Althusser complicates the Marxist notion of the relation between base and superstructure.
For Marx, various levels in society are the infrastructure or economic base and the superstructure or political and legal institutions (law, government, and the police) and ideology (religious, moral, political, etc.) In Marxist thought, superstructure is relatively autonomous from base—it relies on economic base but can sometimes persist for a long period despite major changes in the base.
Exploring the ways in which ideology is more pervasive, and more material than previously acknowledged, Althusser distinguishes between Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) and the Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs).
ISAs include the religious (schools), family, legal, political (systems, parties), trade union, communications (press), and the cultural (arts, sports, literature). Less centralized and more heterogeneous, ISAs access the private, not the public realm. They work predominantly by ideology, including punishment or repression.
Schools and churches use suitable methods of punishment, expulsion, selection, etc. to discipline not only their shepherds but also their flocks. (Lenin 98)
State apparatuses (SAs), or Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs) are agencies that function by violence, imposing punishment and privation in order to enforce power. Working predominantly by violence and secondarily by ideology, SAs include the government and administration, army and the police, courts and prisons, etc.
Though they are quite disparate, ISAs are virtually unified subscribing to a common ideology in the service of the ruling class. Indeed the ruling class must maintain a degree of control over ISAs to ensure stability of the SAs.
No class can hold state power over a long period without at the same time exercising its hegemony over and in the ISAs.
It is much harder for the ruling class to maintain control over the multiple, heterogeneous, and relatively autonomous ISA (alternative perspectives can be voiced in each ISA)—which is why there is continual struggle for hegemony/domination in this realm.
In what may seem to me as the repute of schools being [re] defined, Althusser says, “what the bourgeoisie has installed as its dominant ISA is the educational apparatus, which has replaced in its functions the Church.”
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