Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses

"Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation)" (original French title: "Idéologie et appareils idéologiques d’État"),[1] is an essay by the French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser. First published in 1970, it advances Althusser's theory of ideology. Where Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels posited a thinly-sketched theory of ideology as false consciousness, Althusser draws upon the works of later theorists such as Antonio Gramsci, Siegmund Freud and Jacques Lacan to proffer a more elaborate redefinition of the theory. While much of Althusser's work has fallen out of favour in the decades since it was written, his theory of ideology remains influential.

Reproduction of the Relations of Production

Althusser begins the essay by reiterating the Marxist theory that in order to exist, a social formation is required to essentially, continuously and perpetually reproduce the productive forces (labour-power), the conditions of production and the relations of production. The reproduction of production relations is ensured by the wage system which pays a minimum amount to the workers so that they appear to work day after day, thereby limiting their vertical mobility.[2]:1483–1484 The reproduction of the conditions of production and the reproduction of the relations of production happens through the State Apparatuses which are insidious machinations controlled by the capitalist ruling ideology in the context of a class struggle to repress, exploit, extort and subjugate the ruled class.[2]:1488–1490

The Marxist spatial metaphor of the edifice describes a social formation constituted by the foundational infrastructure, i.e. the economic base, on which stands the superstructure consisting of two floors: the Law-the State (politico-legal) and Ideology. A detailed description of both structures is provided below:

The infrastructure consists of the forces, the means, and the relations of production. The following examples reflect the concept of the infrastructure in further detail:

  1. The forces included the workers. Also, it consists of the technical knowledge to perform the work, such as training and knowledge.
  2. The means are the materials of production. This includes the raw materials, tools, and machines.
  3. The relations of production reflect the interactions between workers as well as between the workers and owners

The superstructure arises from the infrastructure and consists of culture and ideology. The following examples reflect the concept of the superstructure in further detail:

  1. The culture includes the laws, politics, art, etc.
  2. Ideology include the world views, values, and beliefs

Marx's theory is that the superstructure comes from the infrastructure and reconditions ways of life and living so that the infrastructure continues to be produced.

Althusser extends this topographical paradigm by stating that the Infrastructural economic base is endowed with an “index of effectivity” which enables it to ultimately determine the functioning of the superstructure. He scrutinizes this structural metaphor by discussing the superstructure in detail. A close study of the superstructure is necessitated due to its relative autonomy over the base and its reciprocal action on the base.[2]:1486

Repressive State Apparatus (RSA)

Althusser regards the State as a repressive apparatus which is used by the ruling class as a tool to suppress and dominate the working class. According to Althusser, the basic function of the Repressive State Apparatus (Heads of State, government, police, courts, army etc.) is to intervene and act in favour of the ruling class by repressing the ruled class by violent and coercive means. The Repressive state apparatus (RSA) is controlled by the ruling class, because more often than not, the ruling class possesses State power.[2]:1491–1492

Althusser takes the Marxist theory of the State forward by distinguishing the repressive State Apparatus from the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA). The ISAs consist of an array of institutions and multiple realities that propagate a wide range of ideologies such as Religious ISA, Educational ISA, Family ISA, Legal ISA, Political ISA, Communications ISA, Cultural ISA etc. He accentuates the differences between the RSA and the ISAs as follows:

1. The RSA functions as a unified entity (an organized whole) as opposed to the ISA which is diverse and plural. However, what unites the disparate ISAs is the fact that they are ultimately controlled by the ruling ideology.
2. All state apparatuses, whether repressive or ideological, have a “double functioning”. They function both by violence and ideology. An apparatus cannot be purely repressive or purely ideological. The distinction between an RSA and ISA is the predominance in which they function by repression/violence and ideology. The RSA functions predominantly by means of repression and violence and secondarily by ideology whereas the ISA functions predominantly by ideology and secondarily by repression and violence. The ISAs function in a concealed and a symbolic manner.[2]:1488–1491

At times when individuals and groups pose a threat to the dominant order, the state invokes the Repressive State Apparatus. The most benign measures taken by the RSA are the systems of law and courts, where putatively public contractual language is invoked in order to govern individual and collective behaviour. As threats to the dominant order mount, the state turns to increasingly physical and severe measures in response: incarceration, police force, and ultimately military intervention.

Ideological State Apparatus (ISA)

Unlike the Repressive State Apparatuses, Ideological State Apparatuses belong to the private domain - to churches, schools, families, and so on. Instead of repressing, and inflicting order, through repression, Ideological State Apparatuses reinforce the rule of the dominant class primarily through ideology. This means that instead of fear of prosecution or violence, people submit out of fear of social ridicule.

Althusser posits that it is not possible for a class to hold State power unless and until it exercises its hegemony (domination) over and in the ISA at the same time. However, during a class struggle, the domain of the ISAs enables the ruled class to counter the ruling class by using the inherent contradictions of ISAs.[2]:1491 He declares that the School has supplanted the Church as being the crucial ISA which augments the reproduction of the relations of production (i.e., the capitalist relations of exploitation) by training the students to become productive forces (labour-power) working for and under the Capitalist agents of exploitation. The Educational ISAs, which assume a dominant role in a Capitalist economy, conceal and mask the ruling class ideology behind its liberating qualities so that its hidden agendas become inconspicuous to the parents of the students.[2]:1493–1496

Althusser believes that the ISA may be the stake, as well as the site of the class struggle.The class, or class alliance, in the ISA cannot lay down the law as easily as it can in the RSA. One reason is because the former ruling classes are able to retain strong positions there for a long time. Another reason is because the resistance of the exploited classes is able to find means and occasions to express itself there, either by the utilization of their contradictions, or by conquering combat positions in them in struggle.

Two theses on ideology

Althusser advances two theses on ideology: "Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence";[3]:153 and "Ideology has a material existence".[3]:155 The first thesis tenders the familiar Marxist contention that ideologies have the function of masking the exploitative arrangements on which class societies are based.

The second thesis posits that ideology does not exist in the form of "ideas" or conscious "representations" in the "minds" of individuals. Rather, ideology consists of the actions and behaviours of bodies governed by their disposition within material apparatuses. Central to the view of individuals as responsible subjects is the notion of an explanatory link between belief and action, that

every 'subject' endowed with a 'consciousness' and believing in the 'ideas' that his 'consciousness' inspires in him and freely accepts, must act according to his ideas", must therefore inscribe his own ideas as a free subject in the actions of his material practice.

[3]:157

For Althusser, this is yet another effect of social practice:

I shall therefore say that, where only a single subject (such and such individual) is concerned, the existence of the ideas of his belief is material in that his ideas are his material actions inserted into his material practices governed by material rituals which are themselves defined by the material ideological apparatus from which we derive the ideas of that subject...Ideas have disappeared as such (insofar as they are endowed with an ideal or spiritual existence), to the precise extent that it has emerged that their existence is inscribed in the actions of practices governed by rituals defined in the last instance by an ideological apparatus. It therefore appears that the subject acts insofar as he is acted by the following system (set out in the order of its real determination): ideology existing in a material ideological apparatus, describing material practices governed by a material ritual, which practices exist in the material actions of a subject acting in all consciousness according to his belief.

[3]:158–159

Interpellation

According to Althusser, the obviousness that people (you and I) are subjects is an effect of ideology. Althusser believes that there are two functions of interpellation. One function of ideology is “recognition” and the other function, its inverse, is “misrecognition”. Below are a few concrete illustrations that Althusser provides to further explain the two functions:

  1. When a friend of yours knocks on your door, you ask “Who’s there?” The answer, since it is obvious, is “ it’s me”. Once you recognize that “it is him or her”, you open to the door. After opening the door, you see that it truly is he or she that is there.
  2. Another illustration reflects Althusser’s idea of reconnaissance. When recognizing a familiar face on the street in France, for example, you show him that you have recognized him and that he has recognized you by saying “Hello, my friend”. You also shake his hand when speaking. The hand-shake represents a material ritual practice of ideological recognition in every-day life of France. Other locations across the world may have different rituals.

Althusser uses the term "interpellation" to describe the process by which ideology constitutes individual persons as subjects. The ideological social and political institutions - the family, the media, religious organisations, the education system and the discourses they propagate - 'hail' the individual in social interactions, giving him his identity. Althusser compares ideology to a policeman shouting "hey you" to a person walking in the street. The person responds to the call and in doing so is transformed into a subject - a self-conscious, responsible agent whose actions can be explained by his or her thoughts. Althusser thus goes against the classical definition of the subject as cause and substance, emphasising instead how the situation always precedes the (individual or collective) subject. Concrete individual persons are the carriers of ideology - they are "always-already interpellated" as subjects. Individual subjects are presented principally as produced by social forces, rather than acting as powerful independent agents with self-produced identities. Althusser's argument here strongly draws from Jacques Lacan's concept of the mirror stage[3]:162 — we acquire our identities by seeing ourselves somehow mirrored in ideologies.

As a further example, Althusser depicts Christian religious ideology, embodied in the Voice of God, instructing a person on what his place in the world is and what he must do to be reconciled with Christ.[3]:166 Althusser draws the point that in order for that person to identify himself as a Christian, he must first already be a subject; that is, by responding to God's call and following His rules, he affirms himself as a free agent, the author of the acts for which he assumes responsibility.[3]:169 We cannot recognize ourselves outside of ideology, and in fact, our very actions reach out to this overarching structure.[3]:168

Reception

Perry Anderson, in his essay "Considerations on Western Marxism", writes that

"despite the huge popularity gained by the concept in many circles, ISA as a concept was never theorised by Althusser himself in any serious manner. It was merely conceived as a conjunctural and temporary tool to challenge the contemporary liberalism within the French Communist Party. A further elaboration of the concept in the hands of Nicos Poulantzas was easily demolished by Ralph Miliband in the exchanges over the pages of New Left Review. For, if all the institutions of civil society are conceptualised as part of the state, then a mere electoral victory of a left wing student organisation in a University can also be said to be a victory over a part of the state!"

Generally speaking, Althusser's views on ideology remain highly respected. In its capsule biography of Althusser, the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism states "Althusser's major concepts— "ideological state apparatuses," "interpellation,""imaginary relations," and "overdetermination" — permeate the discourse of contemporary literary and cultural theory, and his theory of ideology has influenced virtually all subsequent serious work on the topic." [4]

Further reading

References

  1. ↑ Althusser, Louis (1970). "Idéologie et appareils idéologiques d’État (Notes pour une recherche)". La Pensée (151).
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Leitch, Vincent B. (2001). The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton and Company. pp. 1483–1496.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Althusser, Louis (1971). "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses". Lenin and Philosophy and other Essays. pp. 121–176. ISBN 0-902308-89-0. Translated from the French by Ben Brewster.
  4. ↑ Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 2nd Ed. (2nd ed.). W.W. Norton and Co. p. 1333.
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