Louis Althusser _Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses

Content
*Althusser's life
*State; state Power, State Apparatus
*State Apparatus;
Repressive State Apparatus (RSA)
Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA)
*The differences between RSA and ISAs
* Educational SA as the dominant ISA
*Althusser's Ideology
*Two thesis of Ideology
*The Main Thesis of Ideology

1. Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses made by Arzum Klf Louis Althusser

2. Who is ALTHUSSER ? Louis Pierre Althusser   16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990 a French  Marxist philosopher studied at the École N ormale S upérieure  in Paris Professor of Philosophy in the same school a longtime member—although sometimes a strong critic—of the French Communist Party had periods of intense mental illness . In 1980, he killed his wife, the sociologist Hélène Rytmann He was not prisoned , instead he stayed in a psychiatric hospital for three years

3. STATE

4. What is the R epressive S tate A pparatus (RSA) ? An institution that consists ; the Government the Administration the Army the Police the Courts the Prisons, etc.

5. What are the I deological S tate A pparatuses (ISA ) ? the religious ISA (the system of the different Churches), the educational ISA (the system of the different public and private 'Schools'), the family ISA , the legal ISA, the political ISA (the political system, including the different Parties), the trade-union ISA, the communications ISA (press, radio and television, etc.), the cultural ISA (Literature, the Arts, sports, etc.).

6. What is the difference between RSA and ISA ?

7. What is the difference between RSA and ISA ? E very State Apparatus, whether Repressive or Ideological, 'functions' both by violence and by ideology. RSA functions predominantly by repression (including physical repression), while functioning secondarily by ideology. ISAs function massively and predominantly by ideology, but they also function secondarily by repression, even if ultimately, but only ultimately, this is very attenuated and concealed, even symbolic. There is no purely repressive or ideological apparatus.

8. Why is the educational apparatus in fact the dominant ideological State apparatus in capitalist social formations, and how does it function? The school takes children from every class at infant-school age, and then for years, the years in which the child is most 'vulnerable', squeezed between the family S A and the educational S A The virtues of the ideology can be taught in the Family, in the Church, in the Army, in Good Books and even in the football stadium . But no other ISA is obligatory and free and eight hours a day for five or six days out of seven. In fact, the Church has been replaced today in its role as the dominant ISA by the School . Althusser asks pardon of some teachers who teach against the ideology and names them as heroes .

9. What is ALTHUSSER’S IDEOLOGY? Ideology has no history It is in an absolutely positive sense . In The German Ideology , i deology is conceived as a pure illusion, as nothingness. It is thought as an imaginary construction whose status is exactly like the theoretical status of the dream among writers before Freud. For the writers before Freud, the dream was p urely imaginary, empty , and a disordered combination of the reality of the day . But Freud's proposition is that the unconscious is eternal, i.e. that it has no history. So ideology is eternal, exactly like the unconscious

10. ALTHUSSER’S THEORY OF IDEOLOGY TWO THESIS OF IDEOLOGY Thesis I. Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence. I t is not their real conditions of existence, their real world, that 'men' 'represent to themselves' in ideology, but above all it is their relation to those conditions of existence which is represented to them there. What is represented in ideology is therefore not the system of the real relations which govern the existence of individuals, but the imaginary relation of those individuals to the real reIations in which they live.

11. ALTHUSSER’S THEORY OF IDEOLOGY TWO THESIS OF IDEOLOGY Thesis II. Ideology has a material existence . A n ideology always exists in an apparatus, and its practice, or practices. This existence is material . I f he believes in God, he goes to Church to attend Mass, kneels, prays, confesses, does penance and naturally repents and so on . H is 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 . T he term ideas diappeared . T he terms subject, consciousness, belief, actions survived . Some new terms appeared : practices , rituals, ideological apparatus .

12. ALTHUSSER’S MAIN THESIS Ideology Interpellates Individuals as Subjects «T here is no ideology except by the subject and for subjects .» «T he category of the subject is constitutive of all ideology , insofar as all ideology has the function (which defines it ) of 'constituting ' concrete individuals as subjects .»