Louis Althusser Devaki2

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Term Paper Thesis

2009

Louis Pierre

Althusser1918-1990

s u b m i t t e d b y : 2 0 0 8 S W 0 1 8

The ideas of the ruling classare in every epoch the rulingideas, i.e. the class which isthe ruling material force of

society, is at the same timeits ruling intellectual force

(Marx and Engels, 1974,

p.64)

On

Ideological

State

Apparatus


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Abstract

The term paper is an in depth engagement with a thinker and a concept

articulated by him. The term paper is thus an intense theoretical

understanding, analysis and critique of the concept chosen. As a

consequence it helps the student to be thorough in terms of the theory

related to the concept, the linkages, its application and its implications.

The thinker I have selected for the term paper is Louis Althusser, a French

philosopher and a structural Marxist. Althusser, considered to be an

influential philosopher to emerge in the revival of Marxist Theory in the

1960s, attempted to reconcile Marxism with structuralism. The focus ofacademic engagement is a concept forwarded by him, namely,

Ideological State Apparatus. The term paper delves deep into this

concept while at the same time unravelling new terms and concepts

related to it like, Repressive State Apparatus, Interpellation and an

Althusserian perception of Ideology, the State, relations of production and

the structure of society.

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Content

Acknowledgement

About Althusser

Structuralism

Althusser and structuralism

Inter-linkages (a mini conceptual map)

Reproduction of conditions of production

Reproduction of labour power

Social Formation- Infra structure and super structure

The State Ideological Apparatus

Reproduction of relations of production

Ideology

Interpellation

Critique

Conclusion

References

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Conceptual Map (attached)

Acknowledgement

I am thankful to Nagesh sir for being my guide for the term paper and

making available literature for this assignment of mine. Manjula mam has

also been helpful and her articles have led to understand the linkages

between media and Althusser and the influence of his thoughts on the

analysis of media.

The whole course of DSTW in itself has helped me widen my horizons and

helped me gain new perspectives. I would not have been introduced to

Althusser and another thought within the Marxist School, if it were not for

DTSW. I would also like to thank Bodhi sir and Alex sir for the same and

also for their guidance and encouragement.

I am also thankful to my classmates for the discussions, debates which

added to my knowledge and awareness. The journey called DSTW would

have been incomplete without my batch mates and am grateful for all the

experiences I shared with them.

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About Althusser

Louis Althusser was born on 16th October, 1918 in Birmandries, near

Algiers, Algeria, the son of Charles Althusser and Lucien Berger. His father

was a bank manager, whom Althusser saw as an authoritative, distant

figure. Althusser was a Catholic. The monastic life fascinated him in his

youth, and he remained a believer till about 1947.

Althusser was educated at Algiers, Marseilles, and Lyons. In 1939 he was

admitted to the Ecole Normale Suprieure (ENS), but the war interrupted

his studies, and he was called up to serve in the army in September.

Althusser did not see action in the early days of World War II. In 1940

Germans occupied northern and eastern France and Althusser had to

spend five years in a German concentration camp, mostly in Schleswig.

Later he said that he found life easy because he enjoyed the comradeship

of men and behind barbed wires. He admitted that he felt well protected.

After the war Althusser resumed his studies at the ENS, where, with his

sense of coming from a 'different world', he felt being a complete

stranger. Another impact of having spent 5 years in the camp was that he

got pushed to the left and joined the Communist Party in 1948, remainingits life-long member.

During this period Althusser met Helene Rytman, who became his

companion and later his wife. Althusser suffered from depression

regularly and was given shock treatment and therapy. This pattern

remained basically unchanged till 1990 of depression, therapy and shock

treatment, and periods of active writing and working. Althusser

completed a master's thesis in 1948 on the German philosopher G.W.

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Hegel. In the same year he was appointed caiman at the ENS. He was

responsible for preparing students for the aggregation or final

examination. He taught philosophy and played a central role in

influencing French intellectuals for a generation.

Althusser was a relatively unknown political philosopher until 1965. In

fact, he had the reputation of being a recluse. Pour Marx(For Marx)

and Lire de Capital (Reading Capital), a collection of papers written

for a seminar on Das Kapital at the ENS in 1965, changed the situation.

These books represented intellectually hard-line Marxism, but not

dogmatism. By reading Marx "to the letter" Althusser challenged

contemporary softer interpretations of Marx's work.

Marxism was not for Althusser an ideology or world-view but a

revolutionary science, ultimately the science of society. "I should add

that, just as the foundation of mathematics by Thales 'induced' the birth

of the Platonic philosophy, just as the foundation of physics by Galileo

'induced' the birth of Cartesian philosophy, etc., so the foundation of the

science of history by Marx has 'induced' the birth of a new, theoreticallyand practically revolutionary philosophy, Marxist philosophy or dialectical

materialism." 1

In the Party his relations with the secretary general, Georges Marchais,

and other members of the leadership, were never easy. Due to his

leanings toward Maoism, he was nearly dispelled in 1966 in a dispute

over China's Cultural Revolution. Althusser mentions in his book of

memoir, L'Avenir diure Longtemps (The Future Lasts Forever) that Mao

had granted him an interview, but he dropped it, fearing the political

reaction against him. In April 1978 he launched an attack on the

Communist Party in Le Monde wherein he published a denunciation of the

leadership in What Must Change in the Party. After the rise of the

student movement in 1968, Althusser's influence in France faded. During

1

Louis Althusser 1970 in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays

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the turbulent events in May 1968, Althusser was in a sanatorium,

recuperating from depression. Althusser himself once counted that he

suffered at least fifteen depressions from 1947 to 1980. To the

disappointment of the students movement, he supported the officialparty line and did not consider the situation revolutionary. Later his view

changed, and he held that there was a real atmosphere of fraternity on

the streets and Party had lost touch with the student masses in revolt.

On November 6, 1980 Althusser killed his wife. In L'Avenir diure

Longtemps (The Future Lasts Forever) which was published posthumously

in 1992, he explained this disaster. Having being deemed unfit for trial

was admitted in a mental hospital. Althusser stayed in hospital until 1983.

Althusser died of a heart attack on October 22, 1990 and his last few

years were spent in intellectual as well as personal isolation.

Structuralism

The term paper is located in the context of structuralism because

Althusser is said to be a structural Marxist who sought to reconcile

structuralism and Marxism. The irony of the situation is that Althusser

never accepted himself to be a structuralist.

The terms 'structure' and 'social structure' were widely used in sociology

and have been since Herbert Spencer introduced the term 'structure' intothe field in the 19th century. The dark post-war mood that lent

existentialism its appeal faded when economic recovery set in, and in the

boom-period of the 1960s it was replaced by a new vogue called

structuralism. Structuralism became an intellectual fashion in the 1960s

in France. Ernest Gellner, a well known French Philosopher, sociologist,

and a social anthropologist wrote, in 1970: 'a spectre is haunting the

intellectual scene - structuralism or better "le structuralisme".2

Roman2 Alison Assiter (1984)

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Jacobson's linguistic structuralism, Roland Barthess structuralist literary

criticism and Lvi-Strausss anthropological structuralism enjoyed

widespread interest. Louis Althusser and his student Michel Foucault were

also regarded as representatives of this trend.

The structuralists stressed the persistence of deep structures that

underlie all human cultures, leaving little room for either historical

change or human initiative. Structural perspective takes the position that

the institutions of the state must function in such a way as to ensure

perpetuation of capitalism. Thus the state reproduces the logic of the

capitalist structure through its economic, legal, cultural, educational and

political institutions. So the institutions of the state function in long term

interests of capitalism itself rather than in short term interests of a

particular capitalist class or members of it as said by traditional Marxist.

Structuralists argue that the state and its institutions have a certain

degree of independence from the ruling or capitalist class. Structuralism

seeks its structures not on the surface, at the level of the observed, but

below or behind empirical reality. What the observer sees is not the

structure, but simply the evidence of the product of structure.

Schaff lists the following four characteristics which form, he suggests, an

intellectual trend: first, structuralists approach the subject matter of their

research as a specific whole which dominates all its elements. They are

critical of atomism, where things are studied as discrete parts of an

aggregate, and where wholes are no more than the sum of their parts.

The whole, according t o the structuralist, forms a system whoseelements are interconnected and where the structure of the whole

determines the position of each element. Second, structuralists believe

that every system has a structure: the task of science is to find out what

that structure is.

Althusser and Structuralism

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Althusser too, like the structuralists, propounds to look at complex

totalities and not just the elements which compose them. These

elements the relations of production, forces of production etc, he says

are linked in specific ways. Indeed the nature of each part of the whole isdetermined by its role in the totality. Thus economic practice according

to Althusser does not exist on its own but as a part of a larger structure.

The larger structure includes apart from economic practice, ideological

and political practice. He prefers to look at the whole rather than a sum of

its elements.

ISA is in a way conceived from this structuralist school of thought which

says that the state and its institutions have a certain degree of autonomy

from the ruling capitalist class.

Inter-linkages

To understand concept of ISA, one needs to know certain other terms

which are related and linked in the following way: (This map also reflects

the way the term paper is explained)

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Reproduction of conditions of production

Marx in Das Kapital (Vol 2) proved that no production is possible whichdoes not allow for the reproduction of the material conditions of

production: the reproduction of the means of production. Thus the

ultimate condition of production is the reproduction of conditions of

production. Every social formation arises from a dominant mode of

production. So, in order to exist, every social formation must reproduce

the conditions of its production at the same time as it produces and in

order to be able to produce, it must therefore reproduce:

1. The productive forces

2. The existing relations of production

It must reproduce firstly the means of production. This includes the

labour power and the material forces i.e. raw material, fixed capital

(buildings, machines etc.). A kind of endless chain ensues where for

example a Mr. X produces wool, for him to reproduce his raw material he

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REPRODUCTION OF

CONDITIONS OF

PRODUCTION

REPRODUCTION OF LABOUR

POWER AND RELATIONS OF

PRODUCTION

IDEOLO

All ideology hails or interpellates concrete

individuals as concrete subjects"

Super structure


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will be dependent on Mr. Y who produces woollen yarn who will in turn

depend upon Mr. Z for machinery and so on.

Reproduction of labour power

Apart from the material forces, reproduction of labour power is equally

important, if not more. It is ensured by giving labour power the material

means with which to reproduce itself: by wages (- the means to pay for

housing, food and clothing, to raise and educate children) this is not

enough to ensure for labour powers reproduction. Available labour power

must be competent i.e. suitable to be set to work in the complex system

of the process of production. The labour power has to be diversely skilledand hence must be reproduced. Here diversely skilled means the socio-

technical division of labour i.e. the different jobs and posts. This is

achieved outside production: by the capitalist education system and by

other instances and institutions.

The reproduction of labour power reveals (as will be elaborated later in

the paper) that it entails reproduction of not only skills but also

reproduction of its subjection to the ruling ideology or the practice of

that ideology. It is in the forms and under forms of ideological subjection

that provision is made for the reproduction of the skills of labour power.

The other crucial aspect is the reproduction of the relations of production-

which will be tackled later.

Social formation

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The bourgeoisie can only secure the stability and the continuity of exploitation(that it imposes in production) on condition that it wages a permanent class

struggle against the working class. This class struggle is fought by

perpetuating and reproducing the material ideological and political conditions

of exploitation. It is carried out within production (cuts in the wages, intended

for the reproduction of labour power, repression, sanctions, redundancies,

anti-union struggle etc.). At the same time it is conducted outside production.

It is here that the role of the state of the RSAs and the ISAs (the political

system, school, churches, channels of information) intervenes in order to

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This model is an attempt to reveal how society is structured. This is how

even Marx conceptualised the society to be. The base or the infrastructure refers to the economic forces of production while the super

structure consists of the legal, political, cultural, ethical institutions.

Althusser concentrated more on the super structure or infrastructure. He

said that even the super structure consists of two levels:

1. Politico-legal i.e. State, Law etc.

2. Ideology i.e. religious, ethical, legal, political etc.

The most important conditions of existence of a social formation need not

necessarily be economic. The political and ideological levels do not

always reveal the presence of eco lurking behind them. The relation

between the base and super-structure is not one of expression where

the super structures are reflexes or phenomena emanating from the

economic structure or essence. Rather the superstructures could be seen

as the necessary conditions of existence of the eco base.

Marx stated that economy is determinant in the last instance. Thus

he meant that the functioning of the institutions in the super structure is

ruled by the economics of the base. Contradictorily Althusser stated that

the lonely hour of the last instance never comes (1965). He

maintained that the super structure is relatively autonomous and

functions by its own ideology and own specific rules and laws. Louis

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Ideology i.e. religious,

ethical, legal,

Politico-legal i.e.State, Law etc.


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Althusser is against the mechanistic interpretation of the base-

superstructures metaphor, and proposes a quite distinct concept of the

social formation. He thus rejects Marxs economic determinism by

arguing that the super structure had a degree of relative independencefrom the base.

To substantiate this point he gives the example of the Russian Revolution

of Feb 1917. a large part of the State Apparatus survived after the seizure

of the State power by the alliance of the proletariat and the small

peasantry

On the reproduction of relations of production:

The relations of production are those which make and maintain a

capitalist as one belonging to the bourgeoisie and the worker as

belonging to the proletariat. These relations of hierarchy and oppression

are secured by the legal-political and ideological superstructure. It is

exercised by the State power in the State Apparatuses- by Repressive

State Apparatus and Ideological State Apparatus. The RSA secures by

force (physical and otherwise) the political conditions of the reproduction

of relations of reproduction and also conditions for the practice of ISA.

Behind the shield of the RSA the ISA contributes to the relations of

production. The political apparatus does this by subjecting individuals to

the political State ideology; the communications apparatus by blasting

every citizen with daily doses of nationalism, chauvinism, liberalism,

moralism etc. by the means of press, radio, television; the same goes for

cultural apparatus, the religious apparatus and also the family.

In the Middle Ages, the Church (the religious ISA) alongside the Family

were the ISAs which carried out educational and cultural functions.

Publishing and Communications as also Theatre were integral parts of the

Church. In the pre-capitalist historical period, there was one dominant

Ideological State Apparatus, the Church, which carried out not only

religious functions but also educational, communications, culturalfunctions. French Revolution transferred State power from the feudal

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aristocracy to the merchant-capitalist bourgeoisie and attacked the

number one Ideological State Apparatus: the Church.

The ISA which has now been installed in the dominant position is the

educational ideological apparatus. Behind the scenes of political ISA,

which is more apparent, is the educational ISA. Like all other ISAs, its

primary function is to reproduce the relations of production in favour of

the dominant class.

Ideological State Apparatus

Marx: Though Marx recognized the complexity of the State, he did not

systemize it in a theoretical form, thus restricting their terrain to that of

political practice. In Marxs writings (Communist Manifesto and the

Eighteenth Brumaire), the State is explicitly conceived as a repressive

apparatus. The state is an aide of the bourgeoisie class to help dominate

the proletariat while in the process of extorting surplus value. In concrete

terms it is the police, army, courts and prisons. To validate this point

Althusser gives certain examples from political democracy which point

out to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie through the repressive state

apparatus: the massacre of June 1848 and of the Paris Commune; of

Bloody Sunday, May 1905 and censorship on a play by Gatti on Franco,

to name a few.

This theory however lacks in the sense that it does little to advance the

theory of the State. It blocks its development, which in necessary.

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At this point it is necessary to point out that STATE POWER AND STATE

APPARATUS are two different things. The objective of the class struggle

concerns State power, and in consequence the use of the State apparatus

by the classes holding State power as a function of their class objective

The proletariat must seize State power in order to destroy the existing

bourgeoisie State apparatus and, in a the first phase replace it with a

quite different, proletarian State apparatus, that in later phases sets in

motion a radical process, that of destruction of the State (the end of the

State power, the end of every State apparatus).

State apparatus may survive without being affected or modified: it maysurvive political events which affect the possession of State power.

Example: even after a social revolution like that of 1917, a large part of

the State Apparatus survived after the seizure of the State power by the

alliance of the proletariat and the small peasantry.


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Gramsci: The only person to venture into this territory was Antonio

Gramsci, who included certain civil society institutions like the Church,

the Schools etc. as being part of the RSA. He too however, did not

systematize it.

Althusser: To advance the theory of the State, he gives the new

concept: the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs). Althusser defines

ISAs as a certain number of realities which present themselves to the

immediate observer in the form of distinct and specialises institutions. He

proposes an empirical list of these institutions.

1. The religious ISA (the system of different churches)

2. The educational ISA (the system of different public and private

schools)

3. The family ISA

4. The legal ISA (also belongs to the RSA)

5. The political ISA

6. The trade union ISA

7. The communications ISA (press, radio and tv etc.)

8. The cultural ISA (literature, arts, sports etc.)

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It is necessary to distinguish between ISA and RSA for clarity and to

understand the basic premise and functioning of each State apparatus.

RSA ISA

One RSA Plurality of ISAs

The unified RSA belongs to the

public domain

Most of the ISAs are part of the

private domain

RSA functions by violence

ISAs function by ideology

RSA functions massively &

predominantly by repression

(including physical), while

functioning secondarily by

ideology

ISAs function massively &

predominantly by ideology, but

they also function secondarily

by repression.

Police, army, law, prisons etc. Church, schools, family, media

etc.

RSA constitutes an organisedwhole who is different parts are

centralized beneath a

commanding unity of politics of

class struggle and the class in

power.

ISA are multiple, distinct andrelatively autonomous, whose

unity is secured by the ruling

ideology, the ideology of the

ruling class.

The ideology of the ruling class unifies the ISAs. Given the fact that the

ruling class in principle holds State power, and therefore has at its

disposal the RSA, we can accept the fact that this same ruling class is

active in the ISAs insofar as it is ultimately the ruling ideology which is

realized in the ISAs. No class can hold State power over a long period

without at the same time exercising its hegemony over and in the State

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Ideological Apparatuses. Thus ISAs may be not only the stake, but also

their site of class struggle.

School- one ISA which is so silent! (Educational ISA)

The school takes in children of all age groups starting from infancy to

adulthood- the years when the child is most vulnerable and thus can be

moulded. What are we taught in school part from learning to read, write,

add- techniques and know how?? Children are taught:

Rules of good behaviour i.e. the attitude that should be observed by

every agent in the division of labour, according to the job he is

destined for.

Rules of morality, civic and professional conscience

Respect for the socio-technical division of labour

Respect for rules of the order established by class domination.

All these rules are wrapped in the ruling ideology which perpetuates the

domination of the class in power and consequent subjugation of the one

oppressed.

Thus school ISA ensures reproduction of- not just skills but also

submission to the rules of the established order / ruling ideology and also

submission to the practice of that ideology.

At the age 0f 16, a huge mass of children are ejected into production:

these are the workers or small peasants. Another portion of scholastically

adapted youth carries on and fills the posts of small and middle

executives, petty bourgeois of all kinds. A last portion reaches the

summit, either to fall into intellectual semi-employment, or to become the

agents of exploitation capitalist, managers, the agents of repression-

soldiers, policemen, politicians, administrators. At every level they get

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out, they are provided with an ideology, which suits the role it has to

fulfil. The role of the exploited, the agent of exploitation, the agent of

repression, of the professional ideologist. Of all, it is only the school ISA

which has the obligatory audience of the totality of the children in thecapitalist social formation, eight hours a day for d or six days out of a

week.

To reinforce this point Althusser locates the Soviet revolution and Lenin in

the framework of ISA and its importance in being instrumental to retain

and wield power. Lenins primary interest lay in revolutionizing the

education system in Soviet Russia to make it possible for the Soviet

proletariat, who had seized State power, to secure the future of thedictatorship of the proletariat and the transition into socialism. The

educational system becomes a part of consensus creation to generate

support for the politics of capital and also nurtures new ideas that would

expand the rule of capital. The educational system is vocation based

leaving no room for critical thinking. This is done so that students become

a part of the labour force as soon as possible. Education rather than

encouraging creativity, critical thought and dialogue, it has become a

method of control, a tool of disciplining and a scheme of consensus

building that would facilitate the reproduction of the capitalist system.

Thus ISA may not be only the stake but also the site of class struggle.

Media

The most influential accounts of the workings of ideology and related

concepts like those most useful for analysing the media, come from what

may be broadly describes as teh Marxist perspective. At its most basic

level, ideological analysis attempts to understand how dominant social

groups are able to reproduce their social and economic power. It does so

by focusing on both the material and intellectual manifestations of these

reproductive processes.

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Certain ideas and beliefs are legitimized and made real through their

media representations. For ex: many media texts revolve around

individuals, either as the focus of news reports or as the central

characters in fictional stories. According to Althusser, the centrality ofindividualism assists in the reproduction of existing social formations. It

prevents people from seeing or thinking of themselves as members of a

collective group, such as a social class, which if acknowledged may cause

them to resist their given role and seek to challenge the capitalist

values that oppress them. Thus the emphasis that media put on

individual actions can be constructed as ideological. This masks the

power relations at work at a given historical moment and to individualiseis to ignore the relations of class, caste, gender and race, which are

detrimental in any given society in terms of affecting the opportunities an

individual can actually exploit. It holds individual accountable and not

the larger structure.

Interpellation: advertisements really work to sell the dominant

ideology, as much as they sell consumer goods. The call upon the

consumers to see it as being representative of their desires and interests,

which are closely connected to the values of consumer capitalism. The

consuming individual is only really given a choice within the interests of

those who rule.

Ideology

Graeme Turner: Ideology as a kind of veil over the eyes of the

working class, the filter that screened out or disguised their

real relations to the world around them (1990, p.25)

The whole explanation of ISA revolves around the concept of ideology. It

is thus necessary to understand Althussers perception of ideology and

his elucidation of the same.

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The term was first invented by Cabanis, Destutt de Tracy and their

friends, who assigned to it as an object the (genetic) theory of ideas.

Marx took it up fifty years later and said that ideology is the system of

the ideas and representations which dominate the mind of a man orsocial group. Ideology is a complex term which has multiple and

contradictory meanings of which the most influential explanations come

from the Marxist perspective

Ideology plays a key part in peoples everyday perceptions of the world.

For traditional Marxists ideology was a reflection- a false consciousness

i.e. a false understanding of the way the world functioned by pointing to

the real world hidden by ideology. For Althusser, rather than being a

false consciousness, ideology in fact structured peoples lived

experience. Ideology is a necessary feature for any society, including the

classless communism of the future. It serves as a factor of social

cohesion. It plays an important position of adapting human beings to the

roles required of them as bearers of the prevailing relations of production.

Every individuals conception of themselves as coherent autonomous

persons- is the means through which they are subsumed under

ideological social relations. It is in the forms and under the forms of

ideological subjection that provision is made for the reproduction of the

skills of labour power.(Althusser1965). The role of ISAs is to attempt to

force the working class to submit to the relations and conditions of

exploitation through ideology. Thus the need to recognise the effective

presence of a new reality: i.e. ideology.

Ideology is the fabric and medium of all societies. In Marxism, according

to Althusser, they suffer from a basic reductionism where the super

structure is reduced to phenomena of the base, or they (super structure)

are the result of a simple, essential contradiction the economic.

Ideology is thus relegated to the surface of appearances and thus

ideology is excluded from the material existence and always mentioned

last among the super structures. Althusser ventured to reconceptualise

and transform the way the relations between the base and the super

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structure are defined. He wished to do away with the over

determination of the base (or the economic). The ISAs represent the form

in which the ideology of the ruling class must be necessarily realised. In

fact the ideology of the ruling class becomes the ruling ideology onlythrough the installation and the development of the specific ISAs in which

it is realised.

Ideology is thus a representation of the imaginary relationship of

individuals to their real conditions of existence. Ideologies are imaginary

and do not correspond to reality, though they do make an allusion to it.

They need to be interpreted to discover the reality behind their

imaginary representation of that world (ideology=illusion/allusion)

Ideology has material existence.

There is no practice except by and in an ideology;

There is no ideology except by the subject and for subjects.

An ideology always exists in an apparatus, and its practice, or practices.

This existence is material. The imaginary relation of ideology is

itself endowed with a material existence. And that ideology

influences human action which takes place in the material world. Where

only a single subject is concerned, the existence of the ideas of his belief

is material in that his ideas are his material actions inserted into material

practices governed by material rituals which are themselves defined by

the material ideological apparatus from which derive the ideas of that

subject. Ideology always manifests itself through actions, which are

"inserted into practices", for example, rituals, conventional behaviour,

and so on. .

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IDEOLO

All ideology hails or interpellates concrete

individuals as concrete subjects"

(INTERPELLATION)


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Interpellation

"All ideology has the function (which defines it) of 'constructing'

concrete individuals as subjects. Subjects to what? The answer:

to the material practices of the ideology. This (the creation of

subjects) is done by the acts of "hailing" or "interpellation".

These are acts of attracting attention (hailing), forcing the

individuals to generate meaning (interpretation) and making

them participate in the practice.

Ideology acts and functions in such a way that it recruits subjects among

the individuals, or transforms the individuals into subjects by that veryprecise operation which Althusser has called interpellation or hailing,

and which can be imagined along the lines of the most commonplace

everyday police hailing: Hey, you there! (is concerned with hailing of

suspects). When a person responds to such a hailing, whether or not it

was addressed to him, by the very act of responding he becomes a

subject. Experience shows that the practical telecommunication of hailing

is such that they hardly ever miss their man: verbal call or whistle, theone hailed always recognises that it is really him who is being hailed. The

existence of ideology and the hailing or interpellation of individuals as

subjects is one and the same thing. Thus what we think takes place

outside of ideology in fact takes place in ideology.

As ideology is eternal, it has always-already interpellated individuals

as subjects i.e. to say that individuals are always-already subjects. An

individual is always-already a subject, even before he is born. 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 ideology

As a result of interpellation the individual sees him/herself as a sovereign,

autonomous individual. On doing so, the individual recognises him/herselfas the subject of ideology, but at the same time, in Althussers terms, the

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individual also misrecognises him/herself According to Mark Jancovich

These positions are not normal and inherent to individuals, but

individuals misrecognise or mistake these positions as being natural and

inherent in themselves(1995, p128). As a result of misrecognition,individuals become the active agents of ideology, giving power and

sustenance to the very ideologies that work to exploit them.

Advertisement: The ideology of consumption (which is, undeniably, the

most material of all practices) uses advertising to transform individuals to

subjects (to consumers). It uses advertising to interpellate them. The

advertisements attract attention, force people to introduce meaning to

them and, as a result, to consume. The reader or viewer of the ad is

transformed into the subject of (and subject to) the material practice of

the ideology (consumption, in this case).

Critique

Louis Althusser wanted to expand Marxist theory in order to understand

how societies reproduce their social formations. In doing so he was

addressing what he saw as the limitations in traditional Marxist thinking.

His model of the base super structure where base was the determinant

factor has been widely criticized. He challenged the view that everything

in society could be reduced purely to the economic, arguing for an

approach that took the modern state and social institutions into account.

Thus to put it in a nutshell his rationalization of ISA and RSA has been a

value addition which challenges the traditional determinist Marxist link

between the economic base and the super structure.

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Althussers demarcation of RSAs and ISAs into two different water0tight

compartments can also be questioned. It seems an over simplification of

the complex nature of the Sate today in the 21st century.

A strong critique of Althusser by Marxist themselves is of the way he

suggest that the subordinate social groups were the passive receivers of

the dominant, capitalist ideology.The concept of hegemony offered

another explanation of how the dominance of certain class values came

about. Gramsci suggested that this dominance occurred not simply

through the imposition of the will of the dominant class through ideology,

but by its presentation of itself as the group best able to fulfil the

interests and aspirations of other classes, and by implication, a whole

society.In this way dominant classes can be said to rule through consent

rather than coercion. According to Gramsci, consent is not simply given

without question; rather, it must be continually renegotiated and re-

established, since however much the interests of the ruling class are

presented as accommodating those of the subordinate classes, their

interests are in opposition. Thus one can bring out two criticisms from

the clarification above: firstly, Althusser assumes passivity of the

proletariat class while narrating the influence of ISAs and ideology and

secondly, he has reconceptualised what Gramsci said in different

language while perhaps adding on little to what Gramsci had to say.

Conclusion

Thus though Althusser can be credited with challenging the traditional

economic determinism of the conventional base super structure model

where economics was the determining factor, he has done little to add

on to what Gramsci said about Hegemony . In fact Gramsci even

conceptualised a way out of the capitalist cycle by talking about counter

hegemony and organic intellectuals. Althusser doesnt seem to have

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come forward with any such new ideas. In his defence though, it can be

said that his conceptualisation of ideology and ISAs are as stated in his

essay, notes towards an investigation. Thus he has not attempted to

concretize it into a theory but is open to innovations.

Apart from this Althusser has brought in many new dimensions to the

stream of Marxist thought, which were beyond the scope of this paper.

These are crucial and important to further ones understanding of Marxism

in the 21st Century.

In applying the focus of this paper to DTSW, while specifically addressing

the caste system, one can say that if we place the Brahmins as thecapitalist class and the Dalits as the proletariat, we can say that right now

the focus is more on employment than on empowerment. Thus the

struggle is in the base while we need to locate it in (apart from the

economic sphere) in the social, cultural, religious, political sphere- thus

the Ideological Institutions. So to say in Althusserian terms we need to

place the struggle in the ISAs and not just the base structure. The latter is

necessary for true empowerment and emancipation of the oppressed.

References:

Althusser, Louis:

1971.

Lenin and Philosophy and other

Essays. Translated by Ben Brewster.

London and New York: MonthlyReview Press.

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Althusser, Louis;

Balibar, Etienne:

1970.

Reading Capital. Translated by Ben

Brewster.

Gordy, Michael:

1983.

Reading Althusser. History and

Theory, Vol.22 No.1, Wesleyan

University.

Sprinkler, Michael,

1995.

The Legacies of Althusser. Yale

French Studies, Vol.88, Yale

University Press.

Assiter, Alison:

1984.

Althusser and Structuralism. British

Journal of Sociology Vol.35, No.2,

Blackwell Publication.Smith, Steven:

1989.

Ideology and Interpret: The case of

Althusser. Poetics Today Vol. 10,

No.3, Duke University Press.

Craig, Edward:

1998.

Routledge Encyclopaedia of

Philosophy Vol 1, pg 192. London

and New York: Routledge

Althusser, Louis

1971.

On Ideology. London and New York:

Verso (Radical Thinkers)

Peters, Roy.

McLennan, Gregor.

Molina, Victor.

Althussers Theory of ideology

Rooney, Ellen.

1995.

Better Read than dead: Althusser

and the fetish of ideology. Yale

French studies, No. 88, p.183-200.

Yale University Press.

E-resources:

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