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The Subject in The Theory.

Louis Althusser’s Theory of Ideology
Althusser’s Approach
Marx’s Theory – still an essential basis for the
interpretation of the social relation. Scientific and
Objective. Descriptive in some way.
His attempt to readjust some aspects – shift from the
topographical/ geographical structure of the social system
to an Ideological one, esp in the superstructure.
The infrastructure remains the economic base
Introduction of Ideological State Apparatuses- in the
superstructure, the state then constitutes of Repressive
State Apparatus and the ISAs.
ISA – religious, educational, family, legal, political, trade
union, communication, cultural.
Althusser on Ideology:
“ideology is the system of the ideas and representations
which dominate the mind of a man or a social group”- Marx
However A’s attempt is to come up with a theory of
Ideology in general rather than theory of particular
ideologies
Here the role of “the subject” come into play. Althusser
states his assumed features of Ideology:
Ideology has no history “since its history is outside it,
where the only existing history is the history of concrete
individuals”
Althusser’s Ideology
Ideology is a ‘Representation’ of the Imaginary Relationship
of Individuals to their real conditions of Existence. -
Ideology is material, “an ideology always exists in an
apparatus and its practice”
Ideology interpellates Individuals as Subjects
Individuals live in Ideology- Individuals are always-already
subjects.
Illustrates his theory by an example- the Christian Religious
Ideology- God as an Ideology!
Interrelation of Ideology and Subject in The Theory
“there is no ideology except by the subject and for subjects.”
The category of the subject is constitutive of all ideology.
Defines the concrete individuals as subjects.
Ideology seems natural and obvious but not ideological.
“name a thing”, “have a meaning”
Individuals take the recognition/ misrecognition as natural,
thus becomes irreplaceable subjects.
The thesis- “ideology ‘acts’ or ‘functions’ in such a way that it
‘recruits’ subjects among the individuals (it recruits them all),
or ‘transforms’ the individuals into subjects (it transforms
them all) by that very precise operation which I have called
interpellation or hailing, and which can be imagined along the
lines of the most commonplace everyday police (or other)
hailing: ‘Hey, you there!’[”
The Christian Religious Ideology
 Takes the Lacanian psychoanalytic framework as a model for the
analysis
 Comes up with the mirror-structure of ideology:
 The interpellation of ‘individuals’ as subjects;
 Their subjection to the Subject;
 The mutual recognition of subjects and Subject, the subjects’
recognition of each other, and finally the subject’s recognition of
himself.
 The absolute guarantee that everything really is so, and that on
condition that the subjects recognize what they are and behave
accordingly, everything will be alright: Amen – ‘So be it’.
 Thus 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.
Conclusion
There is no subjects except by and for their subjection.
That’s why they work all by themselves.
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