Signification, Representation, Ideology: Althusser and the Post-Structuralist Debates

24 Pages·2007·2.75 MB·English

rD~MCC
Critical Studies in Mass Communication
Jy cre­
VOLUME 2 NUMBER 2 JUNE 1985
'iities"
ion of
.0 dis­
ructed
place
n be­
which
Signification, Representation, Ideology:
oower
IpOW­ Althusser and the Post-Structuralist Debates
leory,
ening STUART HALL
quent
com­
little
pres­ 0-This essay attempts to assess with classical Marxist formulations of
iwing Althusser's contribution to the reconcep­ ideology. It argues that these gains
-Iall's tualization ofideology. Rather than offer­ opened up a new perspective within
posi­ ing a detailed exegesis, the essay provides Marxism, enabling a rethinking ofideol­
nated some general reflections on the theoreti­ ogy in a significantly different way.
the cal gains flowing from Althusser's break
I
ALTHUSSER persuaded me, and I spondence between practices, are neither
. remain persuaded, that Marx con­ useful nor are they the ways in which
ceptualizes the ensemble of relations Marx, in the end, conceptualized the
which make up a whole society-Marx's social totality. Of course a social forma­
"totality"-as essentially a complex tion is not complexly structured simply
structure, not a simple one. Hence, the because everything interacts with every­
relationship within that totality between thing else-that is the traditional, socio­
its different levels-say, the economic, logical, multifactoral approach which
the political, and the ideological (as has no determining priorities in it. A
Althusser would have it)-cannot be a social formation is a "structure in domi­
simple or immediate one. Thus, the nance." It has certain distinct tendencies;
notion of simply reading off the different it has a certain configuration; it has a
kinds of social contradiction at different definite structuration. This is why the
levels of social practice in terms of one term "structure" remains important.
governing principle of social and eco­ But, nevertheless, it is a complex struc­
nomic organization (in classical Marxist ture in which it is impossible to reduce
terms, the "mode of production"), or of one level of practice to another in some
reading the different levels of a social easy way. The reaction against both
formation in terms of a one-to-one corre- these tendencies to reductionism in the
classical versions of the marxist theory of
ideology has been in progress for a very
Mr. Hall isProfessor ofSociology at the Open
University, London. long time-in fact, it was Marx and
Critical Studies in Mass Communication Copyright 1985, SeA
2 (1985), 91-114
92
ALTHUSSER AND POST-STRUCTURALIST DEBATES JUNE 1985,
Engels themselves who set this work of non. But when we have said that we have le conj1­
ay to
revisionism in motion, But Althusser only said something about language at a 1
lence (
was the key figure in modern theorizing very general level of abstraction: the level
urse, I
on this question who clearly broke with of "language-in-general." We have only
ate e>
some of the old protocols and provided a begun our investigation. The more
es not
persuasive alternative which remains important theoretical problem is to think
stract
broadly within the terms of the marxist the specificity and difference of different
'jXlag­
problematic. This was a major theoreti­ languages, to examine the many deter­
ually
cal achievement, however much we may minations, in concrete analysis, of partic­
#is prot
now, in turn, wish to criticize and modify ular linguistic or cultural formations and
also the
the terms of Althusser's break-through. I the particular aspects which differentiate
LeI'," his
think Althusser is also correct to argue them from one another. Marx's insight
the latt
that this is the way the social formation is that critical thought moves away from
;.state po
in fact theorized in Marx's "1857 Intro­ abstraction to the concrete-in-thought
-.Fouc:
duction" to the Grundrisse (1953/1973), which is the result of many determina­
Lqfcour:
his most elaborated methodological text. tions, is one of his most profound, most
·H1arxist
Another general advance which neglected epistemological propositions,
of. singl
Althusser offers is that he enabled me to which even Althusser himself somewhat
unified
live in and with difference. Althusser's misinterprets (cf. "Notes on the '1857
ing Cia
break with a monistic conception of Introduction' ", Hall, 1974).
ingtodc
marxism demanded the theorization of I have to add right away, however,
necessa
difference-the recognition that there that Althusser allows me to think "dif­
thing.
are different social contradictions with ference" in a particular way, which is
think 0'
different origins; that the contradictions rather different from the subsequent tra­
isa (
which drive the historical process for­ ditions which -sometimes acknowledge
means
ward do not always appear in the same him as their originator. If you look at
action,
place, and will not always have the same discourse theory,' for example-at post­
is piuri
historical effects. We have to think about structuralism or at Foucault-you will
It hasv
the articulation between different con­ see there, :,not only the shift from practice
cies bl
tradictions; about the different specifici­ to discourse, but also how the emphasis
inscrib
ties and temporal durations through on difference-on the plurality of dis­
hand, t
which they operate, about the different courses, on the perpetual slippage of
sites in
modalities through which they function. meaning, on the endless sliding of the
tion wi
I think Althusser is right to point to a signifier-s-is now pushed beyond the
stubbornly monistic habit in the practice point where it is capable of theorizing
of many very distinguished marxists who the necessary unevenness of a complex
togethe
are willing, for the sake of complexity, to unity, or even the "unity in difference"
structu
play with difference so long as there is of a complex structure, I think that is
discoui
the guarantee of unity further on up the why, whenever Foucault seems to be in
concer
road. But the significant advances over danger of bringing things together, (such
transrr
this delayed teleology are already to be as the many epistemic shifts he charts,
er-so
found in the "1857 Introduction" to the which all fortuitously coincide with the to do
1
Grundrisse. There, Marx says, for shift from ancien regime to modern in
being
example, of course all languages have France), he has to hasten to assure us
which
some elements in common. Otherwise we that nothing ever fits with anything else. State,
wouldn't be able to identify them as The emphasis always falls on the contin­ socier,
belonging to the same social phenome­ uous slippage away from any conceiva­
93
HALL
ble conjuncture. I think there is no other The State is the instance of the perfor­
ave
way to understand Foucault's eloquent mance of a condensation which allows
It a silence on the subject of the State. Of thatsite of intersection between different
vel
course, he will say, he knows that the practices to be transformed into a sys­
nly
State exists; what French intellectual tematic practice of regulation, of rule
Jre
does not? Yet, he can only posit it as an and norm, of normalization, within soci­
mk
abstract, empty space-the State as ety. The State condenses very different
ent
Gulag--the absent/present other of an social practices and transforms them into
er­
equally abstract notion of Resistance. the operation of rule and domination
.ic­
His protocol says: "not only the State but over particular classes and other social
nd
also the dispersed microphysics of pow­ groups. The way to reach such a concep­
ate
er," his practice consistently privileges tualization is not to substitute difference
#
the latter and ignores the existence of for its mirror opposite, unity, but to
im
state power. . rethink both in terms of a new concept­
#
Foucault (1972/1980) is quite correct, articulation." This is exactly the step
la-
of course, to say that there are many Foucault refuses.
ost
marxists who conceive the State as a.kind Hence we have to characterize
of single object; that is, as simply the Althusser's advance, not in terms of his
unified will of the committee of the Rul­ insistence on "difference" alone-the
ing Class, wherever it is currently m.t:;et­ rallying cry of Derridean deconstruc­
ing today. From this conception flows~the tion-but instead in terms of the neces­
necessary "yoking together" of every­ sity of thinking unity and difference;
thing. I agree that one can no longer difference in complex unity, without this
think of the State in that way. The State becoming a hostage to the privileging of
is a contradictory formation which difference as such. If Derrida (1977) is
means that it has different modes of correct in arguing that there is always a
action, is active in many different sites: it perpetual slippage of the signifier, a
is pluricentered and multi-dimensional. continuous "deference," it is also correct
It has very distinct and dominant tenden­ to argue that without some arbitrary
cies but it does not have a singly "fixing" or what I am calling "articula­
inscribed class character. On the other tion," there would be no signification or
hand, the State remains one of the crucial meaning at all. What is ideology but,
sites in a modern capitalist social forma­ precisely, this work of fixing meaning
tion where political practices of different through establishing, by selection and
kinds are condensed. The function of the combination, a chain of equivalences?
State is, in part, precisely to bring That is why, despite all of its fault, I
together or articulate into a complexly want to bring forward to you, not the
structured instance, a range of political proto-Lacanian, neo-Foucauldian, pre­
discourses and social practices which are Derridean, Althusserean text-"Ideo­
Concerned at different sites with the logical State Apparatuses" (Althusser,
transmission and transformation of pow­ 1970/1971), but rather, the less theoreti­
er-some of those practices having little cally elaborated but in my view more
to do with the political domain as such, generative, more original, perhaps be­
being concerned with other domains cause more tentative text, For Marx
which are nevertheless articulated to the (Althusser, 1965/1969): and especially
State, for example, familial life, civil the essay "On Contradiction and Over­
society, gender and economic relations. determination" (pp. 87-128), which
94
ALTHUSSER AND POST-STRUCTURALIST DEBATES
begins precisely to think about complex ical, legal, and ideological practices.e: nscious
kinds of determinacy without reduction­ they suppose-will conform to and ruggle.
J
ism to a simple unity. (I have consis­ therefore be brought into a necessary n the OF
tently preferred For Marx to the more correspondence with what is-mistaken,. ruggle n
finished, more structuralist Reading ly-called "the economic." Now, as is by results, an
Capital [Althusser & Balibar, 1968/ now de rigueur in advanced post-struc­ which doe
1970]: a preference founded not only on turalist theorizing, in the retreat from "its origins
my suspicion of the whole Spinozean, "necessary correspondence" there has fan effecti
structuralist-causality machinery which been the usual unstoppable philosophi­ social fort
grinds through the latter text but also on cal slide all the way over to the opposite '1917, doe
my prejudice against the modish intellec­ side; that is to say, the elision into what that the
tual assumption that the "latest" is nec­ sounds almost the same but is in sub­ . product 0
essarily "the best.") I am not concerned stance radically different-the declara­ iat, unitec
here with the absolute theoretical rigor tion that there is "necessarily no corre­ ideology (
of For Marx: at the risk of theoretical spondence." Paul Hirst, one of the most decisive c\
eclecticism, I am inclined to prefer being sophisticated of the post-marxist theo­ lation to!
"right but not rigorous" to being "rigor­ rists, lent his considerable weight and soldiers a
ous but wrong." By enabling us to think authority to that damaging slippage. tute the s
about different levels and different kinds "Necessarily no correspondence" ex­ was guar
of determination, For Marx gave us presses exactly the notion essential to and posit
what Reading Capital did not: the ability discourse theory-that nothing really ture and
to theorize about real historical events, or connects with anything else. Even when tionary c
particular texts (The German Ideology, the analysis of particular discursive for­ Neverthe
Marx & Engels, 1970), or particular mations constantly reveals the overlay or Lenin suo
ideological formations (humanism) as the sliding of one set of discourses over result of
determined by more than one structure another, eyerything seems to hang on the situation:
(i.e., to think the process of overdeterrni­ polemical reiteration of the principle absolutel:
nation). I think "contradiction" and that there is, of necessity, no correspon­ absolute!'
"overdeterrnination" are very rich theo­ dence. strivings
retical concepts-one of Althusser's hap­ I do not accept that simple inversion. I 'harrnoni
pier "loans" from Freud and Marx; it is think what we have discovered is that Althusse
not the case, in my view, that their there is no necessary correspondence, For Mar
richness has been exhausted by the ways which is different; and this formulation a contra
in which they were applied by Althusser represents a third position. This means the stron
himself. that there is no law which guarantees principle
The articulation of difference and that the ideology of a class is already and of circui
unity involves a different way of trying to unequivocally given in or corresponds to whatever
conceptualize the key marxist concept of the position which that class holds in the 'fuse' int
determination. Some of the classical for­ economic relations of capitalist produc­ 1965/19
mulations of base/superstructure which tion. The claim of "no guarantee"­ ically-in
have dominated marxist theories of ide­ which breaks with teleology-also im­ surely be
ology, represent ways of thinking about plies that there is no necessary non­ articulat
determination which are essentially correspondence. That is, there is no forces a
based on the idea of a necessary corre­ guarantee that, under all circumstances, ideology
spondence between one level of a social ideology and class can never be articu­ tice to
formation and another. With or without lated together in any way or produce a gressive
immediate identity, sooner or later, polit­ social force capable for a time of self­ to be co
9S
CsMC HALL
ces~ conscious "unity in action," in a class cisely because it is not guaranteed by
and struggle. A theoretical position founded how those forces are constituted in the
:ssary on the open endedness of practice and first place.
lken­ struggle must have as one of its possible That leaves the model much more
:is by results, an articulation in terms of effects indeterminate, open-ended and contin­
.truc., which does not necessarily correspond to gent than the classical position. It sug­
from its origins. To put that more concretely: gests that you cannot "read off" the
: has an effective intervention by particular ideology of a class (or even sectors of a
ophi­ social forces in, say, events in Russia in class) from its original position in the
oosite 1917, does not require us to say either structure of socio-economic relations.
what that the Russian revolution was the But it refuses to say that it is impossible
sub- product of the whole Russian proletar­ to bring classes or fractions of classes, or
'1ara­ iat, united behind a single revolutionary indeed other kinds of social movements,
orre­ ideology (it clearly was not); nor that the through a developing practice of strug­
most decisive character of the alliance (articu­ gle, into articulation with those forms of
theo- lation together) of workers, peasants, politics and ideology which allow them
and soldiers and intellectuals who did consti­ to become historically effective as col­
page. tute the social basis of that intervention lective social agents. The principal theo­
ex­ was guaranteed by their ascribed place retical reversal accomplished by "no
al to and position in the Russian social struc­ necessary correspondence" is that deter­
eally ture and the necessary forms of revolu­ minacy is transferred from the genetic
vhen tionary consciousness attached to them. origins of class or other social forces in a
: for­ Nevertheless 1917 did happen-e-and, as structure to the effects or results of a
ayor Lenin surprisingly observed, When "as a practice. So I would want to stand with
over result of an extremely unique historical those parts of Althusser that I read as
n the situation, absolutely dissimilar currents, retaining the double articulation be­
ciple absolutely heterogeneous class interests, tween "structure" and "practice," rather
pon­ absolutely contrary political and social than the full structuralist causality of
strivings ... merged ... in a strikingly Reading Capital or of the opening sec­
'harmonious' manner." This points, as tions of Poulantzas' Political Power and
Althusser's comment on this passage in Social Classes (1968/1975). By "double
tnce,
For Marx reminds us, to the fact that, if articulation" I mean that the structure­
ition
a contradiction is to become "active in the given conditions of existence, the
eans
the strongest sense, to become a ruptural structure of determinations in any situa­
itees
principle, there must be an accumulation tion-can also be understood, from
and
of circumstances and currents so that another point of view, as simply the
:isto
whatever their origin and sense .. they result of previous practices. VVe may say
1 the 'fuse' into a ruptural unity" (Althusser, that a structure is what previously struc­
due­
1965/1969, p. 99). The aim of a theoret­ tured practices have produced as a result.
ically-informed political practice must These then constitute the "given condi­
surely be to bring about or construct the tions," the necessary starting point, for
articulation between social or economic new generations of practice. In neither
forces and those forms of politics and case should "practice" be treated as
Ices,
ideology which might lead them in prac­ transparently intentional: we make his­
tice to intervene in history in a pro­ tory, but on the basis of anterior con­
gressive way-an articulation which has ditions which are not of our making.
to be constructed through practice pre­ Practice is how a structure is actively
96
ALTHUSSER AND POST-STRUCTURALIST DEBATES JUNE 1985
reproduced. Nevertheless, we need both their appointed political places, as -arne tim
terms if we are to avoid the trap of Poulantzas so vividly described it, with neverthe
treating history as nothing but the out­ their number plates on their backs. By Althusser
come of an internally self-propelling developing practices which articulate' ctical a
structuralist machine. The structuralist differences into a collective will, or by cidental
dichotomy between "structure" and generating discourses which condense a ral. Hen
"practice"-like the related one between range of different connotations, the dis­ ply a
"synchrony" and "diachrony"-serves a persed conditions of practice of different eakness
useful analytic purpose but should not be social groups can be effectively drawn which es
fetishized into a rigid, mutally exclusive together in ways which make those social which we
distinction. forces not simply a class "in itself," After "C
Let us try to think a little further the positioned by some other relations over , nation,"
question, not of the necessity, but of the which it has no control, but also capable 'rhation a:
possibility of the articulations between of intervening as a historical force, a class . never ag:
social groups, political practices and "for itself," capable of establishing new . constitut
ideological formations which could cre­ collective projects. revolutio
ate, as a result, those historical breaks or These now appear to me to be the
shifts which we no longer find already generative advances which Althusser's
inscribed and guaranteed in the very work set in motion. I regard this reversal
structures and laws of the capitalist of basic concepts as of much greater Let m
mode of production. This must not be value than many of the other features of tion of i
read as arguing that there are no tenden­ his work which, at the time of their ideology
cies which arise from our positioning appearance.iso riveted Althusserian dis­ critique
within the structures of social relations. cipleship: Tor example, the question of "cal man
We must not allow ourselves to slip from whether the implicit traces of structur­ That is
an acknowledgment of the relative alist thought in Marx could be systemat­ reductio
autonomy of practice (in terms of its ically t~aIlsformed into a full blown that the
effects), to fetishizing Practice-the slip structuralism by means of the skillful ideologi
which made many post-structuralists application to it of a structuralist combi­ always
Maoists for a brief moment before they natory of the Levi-Straussean' variety­ social n
became subscribers to the "New Philoso­ the problematic of Reading Capital; or here is
phy" of the fashionable French Right. the clearly idealist attempt to isolate a insight
Structures exhibit tendencies-lines of so-called autonomous "theoretical prac­ The Ge
force, openings and closures which con­ tice;" or the disastrous conflation of his­ 1970)­
strain, shape, channel and in that sense, toricism with "the historical" which marxist
"determine." But they cannot determine licensed a deluge of anti-historical theo­ ruling i
in the harder sense of fix absolutely, reticist speculation by his epigoni; or class pc
guarantee. People are not irrevocably even the ill-fated enterprise of substitut­ whole'
and indelibly inscribed with the ideas ing Spinoza for the ghost of Hegel in the located
that they ought to think; the politics that Marxist machine. The principal flaw in difficul
they ought to have are not, as it were, E. P. Thompson's (1978) anti-AIthus­ undersi
already imprinted in their sociological serean diatribe, The Poverty of Theory, actuall:
genes. The question is not the unfolding is not the cataloging of these and other real hi:
of some inevitable law but rather the fundamental errors of direction in differei
linkages which, although they can be Althusser's project-which Thompson one ide
made, need not necessarily be. There is was by no means the first to do-but there,
no guarantee that classes will appear in rather the inability to recognize, at the the mz
97
CSMC HALL
as same time, what real advances were, appropriate "ideas" through which the
zith nevertheless, being generated by interests of the dominant class are to be
By Althusser's work. This yielded an undia­ secured. Nor why, to a significant degree
late lectical assessment of Althusser, and in many different historical social forma­
by incidentally, of theoretical work in gen­ tions, the dominated classes have used
re a eral. Hence the necessity, here, of stating "ruling ideas" to interpret and define
dis­ simply again what, despite his many their interests. To simply describe all of
'ent weaknesses, Althusser accomplished that as the dominant ideology, which
rwn which establishes a threshold behind unproblematically reproduces itself and
cial which we cannot allow ourselves to fall. which has gone on marching ahead ever
:If," After "Contradiction and Overdetermi­ since the free market first appeared, is an
rver nation," the debate about the social for­ unwarrantable forcing of the notion of
tble mation and determinacy in marxism will an empirical identity between class and
lass never again be the same. That in itself ideology which concrete historical analy­
lew constitutes "an immense theoretical sis denies.
revolution."
The second target of Althusser's criti­
the
cism is the notion of "false conscious­
er's
ness" which, he argues, assumes that
IDEOLOGY
rsal there is one true ascribed ideology per
Her Let me turn now to the specific ques­ class, and then explains its failure to
s of tion of ideology. Althusser's critique of manifest itself in terms of a screen which
reir ideology follows many of the lines of his falls between subjects and the real rela­
dis­ critique of general positions in the classi­ tions in which subjects are placed, pre­
1 of cal marxist problematic sketched above. venting them from recognizing the ideas
.ur­ That is to say, he is opposed to class which they ought to have. That notion of
rat­ reductionism in ideology-the notion "false consciousness," Althusser says
iwn that there is some guarantee that the quite rightly, is founded on an empiricist
lful ideological position of a social class will relationship to knowledge. It assumes
ibi­ always correspond to its position in the that social relations give their own,
y- social relations of production. Althusser unambiguous knowledge to perceiving,
,. or here is criticizing a very important thinking subjects; that there is a trans­
.e a insight which people have taken from parent relationship between the situa­
-ac­ The German Ideology (Marx & Engels, tions in which subjects are placed and
his­ 1970)-the founding text of the classical how subjects come to recognize and know
rich marxist theory of ideology: namely, that about them. Consequently, true knowl­
teo- ruling ideas always correspond to ruling edge must be subject to a sort of masking,
or class positions; that the ruling class as a the source of which is very difficult to
:ut­ whole has a mind of its own which is identify, but which prevents people from
the located in a particular ideology. The "recognizing the real." In this con­
{In difficulty is that this does not enable us to ception, it is always other people, never
us­ understand why all the ruling classes we ourselves, who are in false consciousness,
iry, actually know have actually advanced in who are bewitched by the dominant ide­
her real historical situations by a variety of ology, who are the dupes of history.
in different ideologies or by now playing Althusser's third critique develops out
son one ideology and then another. Nor why of his notions about theory. He insists
Jut there are internal struggles, within all that knowledge has to be produced as the
the the major political formations, over the consequence of a particular practice.
98
ALTHUSSER AND POST-STRUCTURALIST DEBATES JUNE 1985 CSMC
Knowledge, whether ideological or duction themselves but outside of them. indeed <
scientific, is the production of a practice. Of course, he does not mean biologically This is (
It is not the reflection of the real in or technically reproduced only, he means he dives
discourse, in language. Social relations socially and culturally as well. It is pro­ out witl
have to be "represented in speech and duced in the domain of the superstruc­ wide m:
language" to acquire meaning. Meaning tures: in institutions like the family and gives it
is produced as a result of ideological or church. It requires cultural institutions is speci
theoretical work. It is not simply a result such as the media, trade unions, political continu:
of an empiricist epistemology. .parties, etc., which are not directly alist cas
As a result, Althusser wants to think linked with production as such but I Ther
j
the specificity of ideological practices, to which have the crucial function of "culti­
Ideolog:
think their difference from other social vating" labor of a certain moral and
stantial
practices. He also wants to think "the cultural kind-that which the modern
there is
complex unity" which articulates the capitalist mode of production requires.
classes,
level of ideological practice to other Schools, universities, training boards and
perfectl
instances of a social formation. And so, research centers reproduce the technical
interest
using the critique of the traditional con­ competence of the labor required by
capitali
ceptions of ideology which he found in advanced systems of capitalist produc­
point,
front of him, he set to work to offer some tion. But Althusser reminds us that a
open to
alternatives. Let me look briefly at what technically competent but politically
against
these alternatives are, for Althusser. insubordinate labor force is no labor
tionalis
force at all for capital. Therefore, the
functioi
more important task is cultivating that
the dor
"IDEOLOGICAL STATE
kind of labor which is able and willing,
gy), to I
APPARATUSES"
morally and politically, to be subordi­
perforn
The one with which everybody is nated to the discipline, the logic, the
II counter
familiar is presented in the "Ideological culture and compulsions of the economic
always
State Apparatuses" essay. Some of his mode of production of capitalist develop­
discuss:
propositions in that essay have had a ment, at whatever stage it has arrived;
concept
I

very strong influence or resonance in the that is, labor which can be subjected to in Cap
subsequent debate. First of all Althusser the dominant system ad infinitum. Con­
you asl
tries to think the relationship between sequently, what ideology does, through
I ideolog
ideology and other social practices in the various ideological apparatuses, is to
domina
terms of the concept of reproduction. reproduce the social relations of produc­
reprodi
What is the function of ideology? It is to tion in this larger sense. That is tance,
f

reproduce the social relations of produc­ Althusser's first formulation. there a
tion. The social relations of production Reproduction in that sense is, of there a
are necessary to the material existence of course, a classic term to be found in gy, wh
any social formation or any mode of Marx. Althusser doesn't have to go any the sc
production. But the elements or the further than Capital (Marx, 1970) to accoun
agents of a mode of production, espe­ discover it; although it should be said or its
cially with respect to the critical factor of that he gives it a very restrictive defini­ reprod
their labor, has itself to be continually tion. He refers only to the reproduction adjuste
produced and reproduced. Althusser of labor power, whereas reproduction in eounte:
contra.
argues that, increasingly in capitalist Marx is a much wider concept, including
Struggl
social formations, labor is not repro­ the reproduction of the social relations of
¢()ncep
duced inside the social relations of pro­ possession and of exploitation, and
99
CsMC HALL
, them: indeed of the mode of production itself. The second influential proposition in
gically This is quite typical of Althusser-when the "Ideological State Apparatuses"
means he dives into the marxist bag and comes essay is the insistence that ideology is a
IS pro­ out with a term or concept which has practice. That is, it appears in practices
rstruc­ wide marxist resonances, he quite often located within the rituals of specific
lyand gives it a particular limiting twist which "apparatuses or social institutions and
utions is specifically his own. In this way, he organizations. Althusser makes the dis­
}litical continually "firms up" Marx's structur­ tinction here between repressive state
irectly alist cast of thought. apparatuses, like the police and the
h but There is a problem with this position. army, and ideological state apparatuses,
'culti­ Ideology in this essay seems to be, sub­ like churches, trade unions, and media
1 and stantially, that of the dominant class. If which are not directly organized by the
iodern there is an ideology of the dominated State. The emphasis on "practices and
[uires. classes, it seems to be one which is rituals" is wholly welcome, especially if
is and perfectly adapted to the functions and not interpreted too narrowly or polemi­
finical interests of the dominant class within the cally. Ideologies are the frameworks of
-d by capitalist mode of production. At this thinking and calculation about the
oduc­ point, Althusserean structuralism is world-the "ideas" which people use to
hat a open to the charge, which has been made figure out how the social world works,
ically against it, of a creeping marxist func­ what their place is in it and what they
labor tionalism. Ideology seems to perform the ought to do. But the problem for a mate­
~, the function required of it (i.e., to reproduce rialist or nonidealist theory is how to
~ that the dominance of the dominant ideolo­ deal with ideas, which are mental events,
lling, gy), to perform it effectively, and togo on and therefore, as Marx says, can only
iordi- performing it, without encountering any occur "in thought, in the head" (where
, the counter-tendencies (a second concept else ?), in a nonidealist, nonvulgar mate­
iomic always to be found in Marx wherever he rialist manner. Althusser's emphasis is
elop­ discusses reproduction and precisely the helpful, here-helping us out of the phil­
-ived; concept which distinguishes the analysis osophical dilemma, as well as having the
ed to in Capital from functionalism). When addi tional virtue, in my view, of being
Con­ you ask about the contradictory field of right. He places the emphasis on where
ough ideology, about how the ideology of the ideas appear, where mental events regis­
is to dominated classes gets produced and ter or are realized, as social phenomena.
due- reproduced, about the ideologies of resis­ That is principally, of course, in lan­
t is tance, of exclusion, of deviation, etc., guage (understood in the sense of sig­
there are no answers in this essay. Nor is nifying practices involving the use of
, of there an account of why it is that ideolo­ signs; in the semiotic domain, the domain
d in gy, which is so effectively stitched into of meaning and representation). Equally
any the social formation in Althusser's important, in the rituals and practices of
I) to account, would ever produce its opposite social action or behavior, in which ide­
said Or its contradiction. But a notion of ologies imprint or inscribe themselves.
fini­ reproduction which is only functionally Language and behavior are the media, so
.tion adjusted to capital and which has no to speak, of the material registration of
nm countervailing tendencies, encounters no ideology, the modality of its functioning.
iing contradictions, is not the site of class These rituals and practices always occur
IS of struggle, and is utterly foreign to Marx's in social sites, linked with social appara­
and conception of reproduction. tuses. That is why we have to analyze or
100
ALTHUSSER AND POST-STRUCTURALIST DEBATES JUNE 1985
CSMC
deconstruct language and behavior in main with Althusser's nomenclature.
order to decipher the patterns of ideolog­ The "Ideological State Apparatuses" bers of
ical thinking which are inscribed in essay, again, unproblematically assumes "freedo
tend to
them. an identity between the many "autono­
withou1
This important advance in our think­ mous" parts of civil society and the State.
account
ing about ideology has sometimes been In contrast, this articulation is at the
fundam
obscured by theorists who claim that center of Gramsci's (1971) problem of
gories?
ideologies are not "ideas" at all but hegemony. Gramsci has difficulties in
again a
practices, and it is this which guarantees formulating the state/civil society boun­
toire w
that the theory of ideology is materialist. dary precisely because where it falls is
journal
I do not agree with this emphasis. I think neither a simple nor uncontradictory
raking
it suffers from a "misplaced concrete­ matter. A critical question in developed
inscribe
ness." The materialism of marxism can­ liberal democracies is precisely how ide­
not con
not rest on the claim that it abolishes the ology is reproduced in the so-called pri­
which,
mental character-let alone the real vate institutions of civil society-the
This
effects-of mental events (i.e., thought), theatre of consent-apparently outside
liberal
for that is, precisely, the error of what of the direct sphere of play of the State
explain
Marx called a one-sided or mechanical itself. If everything is, more or less,
people
materialism (in the Theses on Feuer­ under the supervision of the State, it is
society;
bach, Marx, 1963). It must rest on the quite easy to see why the only ideology
is no
material forms in which thought appears that gets reproduced is the dominant one.
operate
and on the fact that it has real, material But the far more pertinent, but difficult,
State."
effects. That is, at any rate, the manner question is how a society allows the
that we
in which I have learned from Althusser's relative freedom of civil institutions to
out the
much-quoted assertion that the existence operate in the ideological field, day after
lers an
of ideology is material "because it is day, without direction or compulsion by
own.Ir
inscribed in practices." Some damage the State; and why the consequence of
no mar
has been done by Althusser's over­ that "free play" of civil society, through
of indix
dramatic and too-condensed formula­ a very complex reproductive process,
control
tion, at the close of this part of his nevertheless consistently reconstitutes
be expl
argument, that-as he quaintly puts its: ideology as a "structure in dominance."
nations
"Disappear: the term ideas." Althusser That is a much tougher problem to
to begn
has accomplished much but he has not to explain, and the notion of "ideological
lyzing
my way of thinking actually abolished state apparatuses" precisely forecloses
of the
the existence of ideas and thought, how­ the issue. Again, it is a closure of a
probler
ever convenient and reassuring that broadly "functionalist" type which pre­
appara
would be. What he has shown is that supposes a necessary functional corre­
closes.
ideas have a material existence. As he spondence between the requirements of
betwee
says himself, "the 'ideas' of a human the mode of production and the functions
same g
subject exists in his [or her] actions" and of ideology.
1975) ,
actions are "inserted into practices gov­ After all, in democratic societies, it is
i.e., th
erned by the rituals in which those prac­ not an ill usion of freedom to say that we
within
tices are inscribed within the material cannot adequately explain the structured
mencl:
existence of an ideological apparatus," biases of the media in terms of their
weight
which is different (Althusser, 1970/ being instructed by the State precisely
imrnen
1971, p. 158). what to print or allow on television. But
ern soc
Nevertheless, serious problems re­ precisely how is it that such large num-
fortific