Reflection Paper on Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation)
Louis Althusser, a French philosopher, was a staunch believer of the Marxist theory and had various ideologies. An ideology or a philosophy communicates a thought that reliable and effective groups produce ideas that speak reality to their most significant advantage and consequently urge others to agree to social relationships that are likewise organized to their advantage. He had the interpellation or the hailing ideology, which I found to be challenging to understand when I read it at first. In the interpellation ideology, Althusser depicts how thoughts get into our heads and affect our lives, to such an extent that cultural beliefs have such a hang on us, that we accept they are our own.
Interpellation ideology communicates the possibility that thought is not just yours alone, (for example, “I like coffee, I always have”) instead of an idea that has been brought for you to acknowledge. For Althusser, interpellation works differently, such as calling out a person on the road. This means the theory “address” people and gives them a particular character which they are asked to recognize. Regardless, one isn’t constrained to acknowledge that duty by force, rather willingly. Since those roles are given to us wherever we look or even doled out to us by culture, they are exhibited so that we are asked to recognize them. This works best when it is an intangible, yet a consensual technique. It is suitable when we acknowledge these characteristics are our own and mirror the most positive, rational way to deal with life.
Ideologies, subsequently, take an essential job in making our characters and later providing a particular spot in the community. To state that a person is fully interpellated means that the person has been made to understand and accept a specific duty, or that the individual in question has acknowledged qualities enthusiastically. For example, when an individual is hailed across the street, he/she will turn to look, and by doing so, they become a subject (Althusser, 2006, p.86). Why? It is because that person acknowledges and accepts that the hail was directed to him.
I found the theory of apparatuses of power to be interesting – that is, both the ISAs and the RSAs. To put individuals in their rightful position in the community, Althusser contended that absorption occurs in two different ways, through repressive methods, and ideological methods. Repressive occurs through power and force, while ideological through thoughts. Althusser claimed that there are distinctive apparatuses of the State (or administering authority) that guarantee interpellation.
ISAs operate by bringing out consent among people. ISA’s work through thoughts and portrayals that we experience in our lives, preparing us and molding in us specific perspectives and practices that we considered to be normal, such as the family, schools, churches, among others (Althusser, 2006, p.80). Contrary to ISAs, RSAs are mainly used by the elite class to rule and often involve violence and include the Judiciary, army, and the police. Similar to the RSAs is the Hegemony ideology, which is how the dominant class in the society imposes their will to the people through regulating the means of production, which is at the base of Althusser’s model. The ideological model was fascinating and quite easy to understand.