Lesson: Louis Althusser: “Ideology and Ideological State ...

Louis Althusser: “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”

Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Delhi

Lesson: Louis Althusser: “Ideology and Ideological State

Apparatuses”

Lesson Developer: Kashish Dua

College/ Department: Vivekananda College, University of Delhi



Why Althusser?

Marxist critical theory and the functioning of capitalist society can never be fully understood

without studying the ideas of Louis Althusser (1918-1990). His contribution to the ever

evolving theory of Marxism not only created a wave during his time but also influenced and

inspired thinkers and theorists after him.

Luke Ferreter, the author of Louis Althusser Routledge Critical Thinkers, argues that it was

Althusser’s writings on ideology that helped us understand the complexities of the

exploitative system of capitalism and the culture and literature that are produced in it. He

asserts that Althusser’s ideas will continue to remain significant till the time humans are

living in a society where some classes are benefiting from the exploitation of other classes.

According to him, it is only through an understanding of such a system that a change can be

brought about in the society.

Life of Louis Althusser

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Louis Pierre Althusser was born on 16th October 1918 in French Algeria. An excellent

student, Althusser spent most of his childhood in Marseille, France, with his mother and

sister after his father’s death. He was a devout Catholic and had also founded a Christian

movement for students. He was selected for admission to École Normale Supérieure in

Paris. However, his education came to a halt for sometime when he was imprisoned in

German war camp during World War II. The time spent here gave him a chance to indulge

in reading which took him closer to Communism.

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But the experience and the treatment in the war prison also led to his lifelong fits of mental

instability. The mental issues that began with the imprisonment in Germany continued and

became worse over the years. His bi-polar disorder made him go through depression and

frenzied phases. By 1976 he had spent fifteen of the thirty years of his life in psychiatric

care. Since the year 1963 he went through psychoanalytical sessions. The worst of his

mental bouts led him to murder his wife, Hélène Rytmann in November 1980. He was freed

of all criminal charges as he was considered mentally unfit to take responsibility for his

actions. Althusser died in October 1990 after spending the rest of his years at psychiatric

hospitals.

Later, Althusser completed his masters in 1947 with a thesis on G.W.F Hegel and a year

later he was appointed as the tutor in philosophy at École Normale Supérieure. It was in

October 1948 that Althusser joined the Communist Party. The Catholic Church and the

Communist Party were mutually hostile but Althusser maintained his affiliation with both as

long as he could.

Althusser’s Position in the History of Marxist Critical Theory

Since the advent of the Marxist thought, the history of Marxist critical theory has seen the

development of new and different theoretical trends ranging from the Soviet Socialist

Realism that emphasized the propagation of realism in literature to the Frankfurt School,

with members like Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) and Max Horkheimer (1895 – 1973),

who rejected realism all together. It is in such a heterogeneous field of thought that

Althusser can be placed with other thinkers of the 1960s who came under the influence of

structuralism and dealt with its influence on Marxist criticism.

Structuralism: It is a movement which began in the 1950s with Claude Levi-Strauss’s work

whose analysis was based on Ferdinand de Saussure’s linguistic model and analyzed

phenomenon like kinship, mythology etc. Structuralism concerns itself with the general

ways by which structures are governed. It revolves around the proposition that units of any

system have meaning only in their relations to each other. Analytical in nature, it isolates

deep structures that are not visible at the surface. However, structuralism gave way to

deconstruction and poststructuralism in the late 1960s with its influence remaining in fields

like stylistics, analysis of culture etc.

Although Althusser was never really comfortable with the label of a structuralist, his works

are often read under the label of Structuralist Marxism. His major concern remained to



explain the need to reject Hegelian revival within Marxist philosophy and to understand

Marx’s main contribution emerging from his shift from the Hegelian view. Althusser’s

writings critique the idea of “totality” as given by Hegel which indicated that the essence of

the whole is articulated in all its parts. In its place he argued for social formations as

structures that lacked overall unity and a central governing principle.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

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y_Schlesinger_1831.jpg

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German

philosopher, associated with the late Enlightenment. Hegel is known for creating a

possibility of overcoming binaries and dualisms like that of mind and nature, subject and

object, etc. through his notion of absolute idealism according to which a human being is an

all-inclusive entity.



Karl Marx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx#/media/File:Karl_Marx_001.jpg

Karl Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883): A revolutionary socialist, economist and

philosopher, Marx was born in an affluent middle class family in Prussia. Marx is known for

his works on the relation of labour and capitalism. In general, he proposed that the human

society functions because of class struggle where the rich and the powerful continue to

enjoy their privileged position at the cost of the labour done by the working classes.

Throughout his life he tried to motivate the proletariat into revolutionary action against

capitalism to bring about a classless society.

Friedrich Engels

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Engels#/media/File:Engels.jpg

Friedrich Engels (28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895): Engels was a philosopher,

businessman and a journalist. He together with Marx laid the foundation for the theory of

Marxism. Some of the major works by him include The Condition of the Working Class in

England (1845) and The Communist Manifesto (1848).

The studies and criticism available on the works of Karl Marx commonly divide his works

into the early and the later ones that are characterized by humanism and materialist

conception of history, respectively. The humanism associated with young Marx can be

explained as the belief in the fact that men and women can and should themselves define

their lives. As per humanism, the individual lives should be run according to reason of the

humans. Some critics are of the opinion that young Marx saw capitalism as a system that

created obstructions in the determination of the course of lives by people themselves. In

opposition, communism is thought to be a means to achieve such autonomy.



Althusser and Marxism

It was the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts written by Marx in 1844 and finally

published in 1932 that caught the attention of many philosophers like Jean Paul Sartre,

Jean-Yves Calvez, etc. for its use of humanist language to express the critique of capitalism.

These philosophers started claiming that the kind of humanism present in the early works of

Marx was the foundation of his entire corpus. This highly augmented attention given to the

humanist interpretation of all the works of Marx was something which Althusser targeted.

Jean-Paul Sartre (21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright,

novelist, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the key figures in the

philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology, and one of the leading figures in 20th

century French philosophy and Marxism. His work has also influenced sociology, critical

theory, postcolonial theory, and literary studies, and continues to influence these

disciplines.

Jean-Yves Calvez (3 February 1927 – 11 January 2010) was a French Jesuit, theologian,

philosopher, economist, expert in Marxism and professor of social philosophy.

Source: www.wikipedia.com

Althusser saw the notion of materialist conception of history as more relevant. According to

Marx’s materialist conception of history, the society can be categorized into a “base”

consisting of all political and legal institutions and a “superstructure” made up of ideology.

Thereby, Althusser’s cultural criticism shows allegiance to the materialist conception of

history as it studies a particular work in the society by keeping in mind the very forces that

have produced it.

Althusser and the Idea of the “Epistemological Break”

Louis Althusser became a name known to scholars worldwide, when he argued that Karl

Marx’s views were not consistent in all his writings. He debated that Marx underwent a very

radical change of thought. Althusser’s ideas as expressed in For Marx (1965) discuss how

Marx in the Theses on Feuerbach (1845) and The German Ideology (1845) entirely

discredited the whole notion of humanism that prevailed in all his previous writings. In place

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of this, his works subtly propose notions of social formation, relations of production,

ideologies, etc. as the new basis for formulating a theory on history and politics.

Althusser in his works sees the materialist conception of history as a kind of science from

which emerge other systems of knowledge about the history of societies. He calls the

transformation in Marx’s thoughts the epistemological break because epistemology

represents the theory of knowledge and break symbolizes the gap that came in the

dominant thoughts in the works of Marx. The schism between humanism and the

philosophies associated with it and the materialist conception of history ushered an entirely

new form of knowledge and thus could justifiably be termed as epistemological break. In For

Marx, Althusser attributed the term “epistemological break” to Gaston Bachelard (1884-

1962), a prominent French philosopher.

Althusser’s Works: An Overview

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n).jpg

Many scholars including Ferretter often see Althusser’s writings divided into five phases. His

early works produced between 1946-1951are based on the shift from his Catholic belief to

Communism and from Hegelianism to Marxism. The significant works of this period of his

career are collected in The Spectre of Hegel (1953). The second phase of his writings

commonly seen as the most productive time of his life gave birth to influential works like

For Marx (1965) and Reading Capital (1965). These writings articulated the principles of the

science of history given by Marx.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Capital#/media/File:Reading_Capital_(French_edition).jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Capital#/media/File:Reading_Capital_(French_edition).jpg



Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays

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The third stage (1967-1975) had Althusser recant his early views and focus on theory. It

was during this stage that he called philosophy “the class struggle in theory”. “Philosophy

and the Spontaneous Philosophy of the Scientists” (1967), Lenin and Philosophy (1971) and

Essays in Self-Criticism (1976) were the major texts written by him during this time.

Book cover of the first French edition of For Marx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:For_Marx_(French_edition).jpg

The writings of 1976-1978 reflected Althusser’s dissatisfaction with theory and practice of

the Communist Party. In his works he called for a re-interpretation of Marx. “On the 22nd

Congress of the French Communist Party” (1977), “The Crisis of Marxism” (1977), “What

Must Change in the Party” (1978) and “Marxism Today” (1978) were some of the important

essays of this time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lenin_and_Philosophy_(French_edition).JPG

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:For_Marx_(French_edition).jpg



The fifth and last phase of Althusser’s professional life gave the world Aleatory Materialism

which as opposed to historical materialism is a philosophy that also takes into consideration

the idea of chance in the way history functions. Althusser asserted that instead of being a

necessary process, history can also be the consequence of chance encounters.

Overall, Althusser’s oeuvre brought about a revolution in the way literary studies was

carried out. The critical practices that prevailed in Britain and America before Althusser’s

intervention had always excluded the politics from the literary. It is often believed that the

way theory functions in the fields of literary theory and critical theory is derived from the

thoughts of Althusser. His theory about the society provided a new perspective in which

literature could be analyzed. His work offered possibilities of making literary criticism both

radical in terms of its politics and scientific in nature. Althusser’s writings and their study is

crucial in order to completely understand the contemporary models of criticism and theory

that demonstrate political commitment. Cultural materialism, new historicism, queer theory,

feminism, postcolonial theory, etc. are all in a way indebted to the principles propounded by

Althusser.

Before engaging with Althusser’s idea of Ideological State Apparatuses and ideology it is

important to briefly discuss Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx’s contribution to philosophy.

Their philosophy of materialist conception of history suggested that a society is made up of

the relations of production and the forces of the material lives of the people living in it. They

argued that it is out of such an economic “base” that a “superstructure” is formed. The

superstructure here includes literary and cultural productions, political and legal institutions

etc. Marx and Engels opined that human history has always been that of the struggle

between different classes and ideology is a discourse that reflects and validates the selfish

interests of the ruling classes.

Ideological State Apparatuses

Published in the year 1970, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” proved to be one

of the most influential and discussed works of Althusser. Composed by the compilation of

extracts from a larger work on the reproduction of production relations, the essay discussed

how societies reproduce the relations of production which are the very criteria for their

functioning. Althusser here deals with the reason behind the continued exploitation of one



class by another, years after years. According to him, the answer to this lies in the concept

of Ideological State Apparatuses.

Marxist theory and all its accounts have always seen the State as the State apparatus which

represses and exploits the lower classes by reinforcing the dominance of already powerful

classes through the government, the police, the courts, the civil service, the army and the

prisons. Althusser finds this explanation of the functioning of the state as rather simplistic.

For him, the State apparatus is more complex and comprises of distinct but overlapping

institutions- the Repressive State Apparatus and the Ideological State Apparatus.

Here, the term, the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) is used by Althusser for all the

institutions Marxist theory has already recognized. He prefers to use the term “repressive”

to denote the nature of its functioning which is violent in its essence. However, the new

concept of Ideological State Apparatuses or ISAs consists of the religious ISA, the

educational ISA, the family ISA, the legal ISA, the political ISA, the trade union ISA, the

communications ISA (T.V, press, radio) and the cultural ISA (arts, sports, literature, etc.).

The primary difference between these two categories of State apparatuses is the basis of

the Repressive State Apparatus in violence and that of Ideological State Apparatus in

ideology. Althusser writes, “The (Repressive) State Apparatus functions massively and

predominantly by repression (including physical repression), while functioning secondarily

by ideology. (There is no such thing as a purely repressive apparatus.) … For their part, the

Ideological State Apparatuses function massively and predominantly by ideology, but they

also function secondarily by repression, even if only ultimately, but only ultimately, this is

very attenuated and concealed, even symbolic. (There is no such thing as a purely

ideological apparatus)” (Althusser 173).

Althusser means that the Repressive State Apparatus maintains the economic dominance of

the ruling class through activities that involve coercion, violence and force. When people are

subjected to institutions like the police, the army and the court they are compelled to

certain actions by the use of direct force. Conversely, the Ideological State Apparatus

operates through a discourse on ideology where the family, the school, the religion, etc.

naturalize the process of subjugation to certain rules, ways of life and thought processes

developed and sustained by the dominating classes to ensure their position in the society.

While the institutions involved in the Ideological State Apparatus appear to be very different

from each other, they are unified by the aim of operating through and reasserting the

ideology of the powerful class.

What came to be seen as a revolutionary thought in this theory proposed by Althusser was

the way in which he saw Ideological State Apparatus as the site that not only transmits the



ruling ideology but also articulates the ideology of the exploited classes. In the essay, he

further describes how religion and theological discourse in the pre-capitalist time operated

as the dominant Ideological State Apparatus through the church. As the bourgeoisie

acquired economic power the dominant Ideological State Apparatus shifted from the church

to education. The ideological functions that were being performed by the church are now

performed by educational institutions.

Althusser believed that family and religion together operated as means of circulating

dominant ideology in the pre-capitalist era whereas later, family, along with educational

system, started training children and adults in the dominant discourses, techniques and

traditions. It was Althusser who recognized that Educational State Apparatus teaches and

trains people of all age group according to the role they need to perform in the society so as

to maintain the status quo.

The Material Existence of Ideology

Time and again in his essay, Althusser tries to explain that ideology is not just a

phenomenon that exists and functions in the minds of human beings. Rather, ideology has a

material existence and even though ideas precede actions, ideology is always present in

apparatus and the practices associated with it. Althusser traces the reason behind certain

beliefs of people in the presence of some or the other Ideological State Apparatuses. These

beliefs are in turn governed by the institutions that form the material apparatuses. Thus, it

can be said that for Althusser, ideas are the consequence of the situations of the individual

subjects in a society within specific Ideological State Apparatuses.

Interpellation

The theory and discussion carried out by Althusser in “Ideology and Ideological State

Apparatus” point out that the origin of ideas and beliefs are not the individuals. They just

appear to be the sources of what in fact comes from Ideological State Apparatuses. In

addition, Althusser also developed the idea of the change of an individual into a subject on

the functioning of ideology. This change occurs when ideology interpellates individuals.



The French word interpeller is commonly translated as hail or interpellate. The two

meanings of interpellar, which Ferretter discusses, are “to call out” and “to interrogate”. If

now one tries to understand interpellation, it is significant to note that ideology and all the

ideological concepts are based on the primary category of a subject. While the term

“subject” came with the rise of the bourgeoisie, Althusser contends that the idea of the

subject already existed in other systems.

Generally human beings are considered to be independent individuals with their own original

thoughts, feelings and actions. Althusser, on the other hand, looks at the society as a

complicated system of relations between different practices that interact with each other.

Instead of opining that individuals define and determine their actions and practices,

Althusser writes that it is the practices and actions that constitute the individuals. The idea

of a free and self-defining individual for Althusser is an ideological concept.

Althusser further explains the politics and the working of ideology that unveils the manner

in which humans are fooled to believe in their own exclusive identity. He emphasizes that all

humans are made to live in a false reality through the interpellation of ideology. However

much people may want to believe that they have total control over their existence and the

way their identity functions, the reality as per Althusser lies in the insertion of humans in a

complex set of social and economic practices even before they are born. Humans are then in

a way called into being as the subjects of ideology. The most simplified examples of this can

be noted in first, how in patriarchal societies it is pre-decided that even an unborn baby will

get the father’s name. Second, in case of religious institutions like the church, people are

made to believe in God and His creations, the practices that lead one to God, etc. which

become the parameters according to which followers of Christianity start defining their lives.

Althusser’s views point to how the interpellation of subjects by ideology functions by placing

an absolute or supreme subject as the model and it is on its basis that other subjects act

and understand themselves. In the Christian Ideological State Apparatus it is God who acts

as an exclusive and unique subject, based on whom the Christians try to shape their lives.

Althusser also highlights that the subjects also act as real subjects in terms of obedience

and subjection to the higher model placed in front of them.

The negative aspects of the interpellation of ideology come into picture when humans

become subjects in both the ways mentioned above. Ideology then not only supports false

beliefs in one’s individuality but also strips one off of all kinds of freedoms by making

obedience and subjugation part of one’s existence. It is in this manner that Ideological State

Apparatus without the use of violence make people subject to the supreme subject and

hence, unresisting in nature.



The politics of interpellation can be found in how the entire system makes people work and

act as subjects all by themselves. They easily become a part of a particular Ideological State

Apparatus, live according to its practices and never question them because they cannot see

the sham in the idea of themselves as free agents. As Althusser writes, “The individual is

interpellated as a (free) subject in order that he shall submit freely to the commandments

of the Subject, i.e. in order that he shall (freely) accept his subjection, i.e. in order that he

shall make the gestures and actions of his subjection ‘all by himself’. There are no subjects

except by and for their subjection. That is why they ‘work all by themselves’” (Althusser

204).

Luke Ferretter observes that “Althusser points out that although a society’s ideology

consists primarily of the ideology of its dominant classes, nevertheless the dominated

classes also produce ideologies, which express their protest against this domination. It is in

this sense that Althusser speaks of proletarian ideology or petit-bourgeois ideology as well

as of bourgeois ideology” (Ferretter 80).

The essay “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus” ends with a possibility to resist and

fight the working of the dominant ideology by urging people to realize and recognize that

society is made up of antagonistic classes characterized by Subject-subject relationship and

this recognition can help people critique the working of the dominant ideology.

This can only be interpreted when attention is paid to Althusser’s comment on how

Ideological State Apparatuses and ideologies are not plain platforms where the dominant

ideology circulates in the simplest of terms. Althusser also sees them as platforms where a

constant class struggle is always taking place: first, between the former ruling class and the

current ruling class and then, between the current ruling class and the class being ruled. It

is precisely this kind of complex interplay of power struggle between these classes which

Althusser finds affirmative. In his view if people realize these ongoing clashes between

different classes then it is possible to resist the working of Ideological State Apparatuses.

Althusser’s Influence

The way Althusser’s works explained the logic of Marxism was new and revolutionary. His

writings and ideas changed the way British and American literary studies were being carried

out. It was the avant-garde critics who saw his theory as both highly political and scientific.

Althusser’s influence also extended to the critics on the Left during the 1970s and the

1980s. The post-Marxist critical studies of even the present day show some or the other

kinds of association with the ideas Althusser had propounded.



Glossary

1. Avant-garde: A French term, it literally means advance guard and thus stands for

people and/or works that are experimental, new and innovative.

2. Cultural Materialism: This was a theory which found its origins in the works of the

literary critic and cultural and political theorist, Raymond Williams (1921-1988). Cultural

materialist criticism analyses the way in which hegemonic forces appropriate and utilize

texts of historical and canonical significance. It also draws attention to the processes that

religious institutions, educational institutions and political authorities use to circulate

ideology.

3. Ideology: A set of opinions, beliefs and ideas of a particular group of people.

4. Interpellation: In Marxist theory, interpellation is the process by which ideology,

embodied in major social and political institutions, constitutes the nature of individual

subjects' identities through the process of institutions and discourses of 'hailing' them in

social interactions. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpellation_(philosophy)

Bibliography

Althusser, Louis. Essays on Ideology. London: Verso, 1984. Print.

Eagleton, T. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell, 1983. Print.

Ferretter, Luke. Louis Althusser Routledge Critical Thinkers. :London and New York: Taylor

and Francis Group, 2006. Print.

Marx Karl and Friedrich Engels. The German Ideology: Part One. Ed. C. J. Arthur. 1970; rpt.

London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1982. Print.

Resch Paul, Robert. Althusser and the Renewal of Marxist Social Theory. Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1992. Print.

Selden, Raman, Peter Widdowson and Peter Brooker. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary

Literary Theory. U.K.: Pearson Education Limited, 2005. Print.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpellation_(philosophy)



Web Links

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/index.htm

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/althusser/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz3YNMPMNzU

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/index.htm

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/althusser/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz3YNMPMNzU

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