Althusser - Ideological State Apparatuses

In his essay “Ideological State Apparatuses” Marxist philosopher, Althusser, examines the idea of authoritive control, in relation to class dominance and ideologies. He investigated the ways in which authoritive institutes have attached capitalist concepts and manipulative ideologies over society. The institutes he looked into include groups which conduct authority such as schools, churches and more commonly the media. He explains that “in order to exist, every social formation must produce the conditions of its production at the same time as it produces, and in order to be able to produce” (Althusser, 1971: 129).

He later confirms that therefore it must reproduce the proactive forces and the existing relations of production. To simplify this statement, in order to survive is this colonised world we must become part of a ruling institute. Whilst part of this institute we must exercise and reproduce certain ideologies created by the state in order to sustain control. To put it simply if you are not part, you are not in, and can only exist by following the rules governed by these states. Grant (2005) admits that with regards to idealism, instead of focusing on the importance of human freedom, it prioritised the “ideals of the ruling class” (p.14). Therefore, even though this ideological state acted against human freedom, society was forced to believe these declarations to be true as they had no other choice but to trust them. This reference demonstrates the significant amount of power which the state holds. Marx defined the state as a “machine of repression, which enables the ruling classes to ensure their domination over the working class” (Marx cited in Althusser, 1971: 137). Althusser (1971) explains that this “state” can be divided into two groups, one, as we have already discussed the Ideological State Apparatus and the other the Repressive State Apparatus (Althusser, 1971: 142-4).

The Repressive State Apparatus concerns governing bodies such as the government, army, police, courts and prisons (Althusser, 1971: 142-3). He declares that the RSA “belongs entirely to the public domain” (Althusser, 1971: 144), which functions by violence; predominantly through repression and secondly by ideology (Althusser, 1971: 145). He suggests that it “consists essentially in securing by force the political conditions of the reproduction of relations of production which are in the last resorts of exploitation” (Althusser, 1971: 149-150).

In his essay he later concludes that “ideology is conceived as a pure dream, as nothingness, as its reality is external to it” (Althusser, 1971: 159). Therefore it is an imaginary construct, a dream. German ideology explains that these ideas are forced onto the unconscious mind; therefore we are manipulated into a certain way of thinking in which the state governs and controls. A Freudian understanding of this would suggest that as information is stored in the unconscious mind it is hard for individuals to wake into a realisation of what is really going on in society.

Marx argues that ideology should represent a positive reality. However due to the constructs of control, is this ideology actually positive at all? This is one of the questions that is tackled in Puig’s novel Kiss of the Spider Woman as Valentin struggles to define what a positive reality is constructed by and which ideology, if any, is positive at all.


Reference

Althusser, L. (1971) “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” In: Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Grant, H. (2005) Postmodernism Politics. In: Sim, S. (eds) The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism. 2^nd edition. Oxon: Routledge.