Structural Marxism, Ideological State Apparatuses, Interpellation, and the Repressive State Apparatus
Althusser saw the reproduction of labor power as requiring two important elements: the reproduction of the skills required for labor as well as “a reproduction of its submission to the rules of the established order” (Althusser 1971:132). By this he does not exclusively mean the submission of the working class to the ruling class, but also a “reproduction of the ability to manipulate ruling ideology correctly for the agents of exploitation and repression, so that they, too, will provide for the domination of the ruling class ‘in words’” (133). This means that schools and other state institutions not only teach skills for production but do so in a way that ensures subjection to the ruling ideology. In the structural Marxist tradition there is a specific understanding of the State. Effectively, the State is the State apparatus, which Althusser understands in the following way: “The State apparatus, which defines the State as a force of repressive execution and intervention ‘in the interests of the ruling class’ in the class struggle conducted by the bourgeoisie and its allies against the proletariat, is quite certainly the State, and quite certainly defines its basic ‘function” (137). This understanding illuminates the forms of exploitation of, the subtle everyday domination of, and direct physical violence against the masses. All social struggle, according to Althusser, revolves around the possession of the State and State power. His theoretical goal in Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses is to advance the theory of the State by making not only the distinction between State power and State apparatus, but to also point out the reality of ideological State apparatuses (ISAs).
For Althusser, the State apparatus is composed of the government, Army, Courts, Prisons, etc., which he opts to call the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA), all of which function primarily by violence. The Ideological State Apparatuses, on the other hand, is comprised of numerous institutions such as the religion ISA, educational ISA, political ISA, communications ISA, cultural ISA, and more. As we can see there are numerous ISAs while only one RSA, which belongs to the public domain, while many if not most ISAs belong to the private. This distinction between public and private, however, is of little consequence for this structural Marxism because, like the structuralism discussed above, it is the function of the system and structure that is of importance rather than the content within the system. The RSA functions through violence, as mentioned, but ISAs differ in that they function by ideology. Like most structuralism, we see here the common trope of definitions through binaries (e.g. RSA/ISA, repressive/ideological, public/private, etc.[1]) continued in that the RSA functions predominantly by repression and secondarily by ideology, while ISAs function primarily by ideology and secondarily by repression. Thus, “there is no such thing a purely ideological apparatus” (Althusser 1971:145). Importantly, the diverse array of ISAs are united because
“the ideology by which they function is always in fact unified, despite its diversity and its contradictions, beneath the ruling ideology, which is the ideology of the ‘ruling class.’ Given the fact that the ‘ruling class’ in principle holds State power, and therefore has at its disposal the (Repressive) State Apparatus, we can accept the fact that this same ruling class is active in the Ideological State Apparatuses insofar as it is ultimately the ruling ideology which is realized in the Ideological State apparatuses, precisely in its contradictions” (146).
Thus, the RSA and ISAs tend to work in a mutually reinforcing way. The RSA, by force, is able to secure the conditions that allow for the ideological function of the ISAs. The ISAs are able to secure the production of themselves, the State, and importantly the relations of production, from behind the RSA’s repressive shield.
In the past, the Church was the dominant ISA, now it is the education ISA. Althusser suggests that “behind the scenes of its political Ideological State Apparatus, which occupies the front of the state, what the bourgeoisie has installed as its number-one i.e. as its dominant ideological State apparatus, is the educational apparatus, which has…replaced…the Church” (154). However, all ISAs contribute to the same result: capitalist relations of exploitation. But every ISA does so in its own proper way, the way most appropriate for it as an apparatus. For example, the political ISA subjects people to the political State ideology, democratic ideology in the U.S., meanwhile the communications ISA “cram[s] every citizen with the daily doses of nationalism, chauvinism, liberalism, moralism, etc, by means of the press, the radio and television” (154).
For Althusser, ideology has a material existence. That is, the individual behaves in particular ways and participates in particular practices that are those of the ideological apparatus “on which ‘depend’ the ideas which he has in all consciousness freely chosen…” (167). To complicate the situation further, “his 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” (169). In other words, ideologies have real consequences in that they are responsible for the ideas that allow people to participate in certain practices or to take certain actions, and the ideological apparatus from which this ideology springs has an interest in the individual taking certain actions and participating in society in a particular way. The individual believes that he is acting on his own will when really it is the will of the ideological apparatus that is priming him through ideology to act in particular way that are beneficial to the ruling class.
Given that ideologies are structures, they are to be studied synchronically, because what is important is not necessarily their content but the function they perform. However, in this case it is safe to say that the fact that bourgeois ideology is internalized by the proletariat is not an ideal situation. Ideology works through what Althusser calls “interpellation.” To interpellate is essentially to “hail” or to call out to someone such that they know they are the one being called on and not someone else. It is in this way that ideology is able to turn people into subjects. Ideology requires not only subjects but Subject. Althusser makes the connection between Subject and God, but Terry Eagleton has suggested that it should be understood more as a Freudian superego, or the ethical/moral other, but it could also be understood as the Lacanian other (Eagleton 1991:144). It is through interpellation that individuals are “called by ideological discourses, which establish specific kinds of subject positions that must be assumed by anyone who wishes to be an individual in order to ‘respond’ or participate in the activities that are governed by those discourses” (Gunster 2004:187). This is important because through interpellation the individual feels that they are being personally called by an ideology, this helps them willingly accept the ideology and become good subjects.
Althusser points out that most subjects work all by themselves, i.e. by ideology (whose concrete forms are realized in the ISAs). These subjects “recognize the existing state of affairs, that ‘it really is true that it is so and not otherwise,’ and that they must be obedient to God, to their conscience… to the boss, etc.” (Althusser 1971:179). In other words, the individual is interpellated as a free subject so that he freely submits to the requirements (commandments) of the Subject; he freely accepts his subjection, thus he believes he performs the actions of that subjection willingly.
Structuralism is an attempt to understand aspects of culture scientifically, that is, synchronically and antihumanistically. The lack of attention paid to the subject of history by most structuralists has been a cause for criticism, and the refusal to account for human agency has come under fire as well. Additionally, structuralism is a theoretical orientation that necessitates broad inclusion. As we saw earlier, the theories developed by Saussure, Barthes, and Althusser are quite different, but particularly interesting are the ways the latter two theorists approach the question of media power…a topic that will be discussed in Part 4.
The MSR - Media Studies Repository 