Decoding the
Workings of Ideology-Interpellation-Iteration Triadic Assemblage in Generating
Consensus in the Althusserian System of Thought
Amili Basak,
PG Visiting Faculty,
Department of English,
Women’s College, Agartala,
Tripura, India.
Abstract: Louis
Althusser, the French Structural Marxist in ‘Ideology and Ideological State
Apparatuses’ (1970) interprets ‘ideology’ as a set of ruling ideas legitimized
by the ruling class that are passed on into the common consciousness as a
‘common-sensical’ view of things and accepted by the members of all other
classes as an autonomous body of ideas, independent of any selfish material
basis. It naturally trickles down from the Power centre to Power periphery in a
Top-down model and bears connotations of being obvious, natural and normal. In
this process the interests of the dominant class are secured and under the veil
of autonomy the real material intentions or logic of the ruling class is
conveniently eclipsed or hidden. This research attempts to comprehend
Neo-Marxist notions like ideology and interpellation in simplistic terms so as
to make them relatable. The omnipresent impact of ideology as a determiner to
direct one’s thoughts and actions is unveiled and the mechanism by which it
dissolves into the everyday humdrum is made visible. Althusser understood
ideology as a culmination of three standpoints; a foray into that comprehension
is undertaken in this study. The inescapability of an individual in the face of
interpellation is discussed and Althusser’s classification of State Apparatuses
into Ideological State Apparatus and Repressive State Apparatus is also
mentioned. The function of interpellation in making individuals confirm to
ideology and repeatthe loop in order to include more members to the consenting
group is understood as a system that works underneath the Power centre
deceptions.
Keywords: Structural Marxist, ideology, Power centre, Top-down
model, Ideological State Apparatus, Repressive State Apparatus, interpellation
Introduction
Why is it so
that coffee from Starbucks is a matter of pride while coffee from an ordinary
coffee house is basic? Why can’t we normalise children rectifying the errors of
their parents and it’s only supposed to be unidirectional coming from the
parents’ end? Why do we look up to an elite lifestyle and demean a middle-class
living? Why do we rate our nationalism as patriotic while rebuke that of
others? Why is it so important to state politically correct statements in
official contexts? The answer to interrogations like this is ideology, subtly
diffused into every nook and corner of social ecosystems. Plurisignation of
ideologies widen up newer frontiers of thought always manufactured by some and
embraced by many.
What seems to
take place outside ideology (to be precise, in the street), in reality takes
place in ideology. What really takes place in ideology seems therefore to take
place outside it. That is why those who are in ideology believe themselves by
definition outside ideology: one of the effects of ideology is the practical
denegation of the ideological character of ideology by ideology: ideology never
says, ‘I am ideological’ (Althusser 175).
For instance,
the much accepted belief – ‘The King is the representative of God on Earth’ is
a magnificent lie constructed as a result of the nexus existing between the
Church and monarchy. Once propagated among the masses, this percolates down as
truth. When particular opinions or a system of beliefs are injected into human
consciousness and we unquestioningly acknowledge their credibility as ‘truth’
it becomes ideology. It operates in a subtle way making everybody feel that all
of us are freely choosing what is actually imposed on us, without any choice.
This is a smart way of manufacturing consensus through immobile forms of social
control such as – the media, the educational system, religious institutions,
art and literature – all of which are manifestations of the superstructure.
Ideology, then,
is for Marx an imaginary assemblage (bricolage), a pure dream, empty and vain,
constituted by the ‘day’s residues’ from the only full and positive reality,
that of the concrete history of concrete material individuals materially
producing their existence (Althusser).
In this context,
Louis Athusser’s notion of interpellation comes handy. In its specialized
sense, interpellation refers to a special kind of hailing; a calling out or
address that has an indication of familiarity which instantly strikes a chord
between the addresser and the addressee.
All ideology
hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects… by that very
precise operation which I have called interpellation or hailing (Althusser).
The ruling class
in capitalist societies manufacture consensus by addressing individuals in
society by a special kind of calling that transforms them into consensus-driven
subjects who begin to believe that they exercise the freedom of choice; in the
words of Althusser everybody is actually “always-already” subjects.
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, i.e. in order that he shall make the gestures and actions of
his subjection ‘all by himself’(Althusser).
The Alo fruit juice
commercial for example, with its tagline “yeh healthy hain, isme aloe verahain”
(Working Translation- This is healthy, it contains aloe vera) interpellates by
promising good health to its consumers thereby doping them into believing in
the credibility of the product.
We therefore
suggest that ideology ‘acts’ or ‘functions’ in such a way that it ‘recruits’
subjects amongst individuals (it recruits them all), or ‘transforms’
individuals into subjects (it transforms them all) by this very precise
operation that we call interpellation, which can be represented in the same way
as the most banal everyday policing (or other) operation: ‘hey, you
there!’(Althusser).
Method and
Methodology
The qualitative
research design for this research employs methods like textual analysis of
Louis Althusser’s ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses’ and observations
related to the everyday presence of this mechanism in praxis .Neo-Marxism is
the theoretical paradigm applied as methodology.
Discussion
For Louis
Althusser ‘ideology’ is a “representation of the imaginary relationship of
individuals to their real conditions of existence” (162). It is a collection of
representations in the form of myths, ideas, concepts and images according to
the suitability of ideology-makers who inevitably are the members of the ruling
class. Ideology is a sort of “false consciousness” because when the dominant
class passes on its own body of ideas as ‘true’ ideas or common sense ideas, it
is accepted by the other classes also, as an independent autonomous body of
ideas, devoid of any selfish material basis.
In truth,
ideology has very little to do with ‘consciousness’, even supposing this term
to have an unambiguous meaning. It is profoundly unconscious, even when it
presents itself in a reflected form (Althusser).
Each and every
member of society then begins to believe in the autonomy of those ideas. This
common-sense view of things very conveniently passes into the domain of the
masses as ‘culture’ and this notion of ‘culture’ successfully achieves
fictional distance or an autonomous identity for itself. This autonomy takes
culture away from the crudity of economic determinism and the
base/superstructure model or frame postulated by conventional Marxists.
Ramifications of
the term ‘ideology” holds three strands in the Althusserian corpus:
1.
Ideology
is the “representation of the imaginary relationship of man” in an any given
social formation “to the real conditions of existence”(162).
2.
All
ideologies are rooted to the base and are an offshoot of superstructure. “All
ideologies” ultimately “have a material basis or existence”(165). The
materiality of ideology can’t be ignored.
3.
“Ideology
interpellates individuals into subjects”(170); it transforms the
‘I’(individual) into all.
The notion of
‘ideology’ is derived from the notion of superstructure introduced by Karl Marx
and Friedrich Engels in works such as ‘A Contribution to the Critique of
Political Economy’ (1859) and ‘Grundrisse’(1939). In these works Marx and
Engels maintained that ‘superstructure’ includes certain definite forms of
consciousness - social, political, religious, ethical and aesthetic to
legitimise the power of the ruling class in society and to circulate its
dominant ideas. It is these dominant ideas that are projected as "true consciousness"
or the "common-sense" view of things. In this way the interests of
the dominant class are secured. The strategies adopted by the ruling class to
preserve its own interests may be numerous in an industrial capitalist economy
and these strategies in most cases do not come across as dominant from the
outside.
Like, Louis
Althusser who developed upon the notion of ideology, his Italian predecessor
Antonio Gramsci had made a distinction between ‘rule’ and ‘hegemony’ just as Althusser
made a similar distinction between ‘power’ and ‘control’.‘Ideology’ and
‘Hegemony’ operate in a subtle way brainwashing its recipients through mental
manipulation moulding ideas and attitudes. ‘Rule’ and ‘Power’ are directly
repressive as manifested through institutions like the army, the police, the
law courts which are all a part of the State machinery. ‘Hegemony’ and
‘Control’ are concepts which refer to the idea of ‘democratising’ operation of
control structures in a society to which a subject voluntarily choses to give
consensus to. Capitalism, according to Marxists is sustained only through the
trick of ideology and hegemony. One must note here that Althusser makes a
distinction between Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) and the Repressive State
Apparatus (RSA).
Remember that in
Marxist theory, the State Apparatus (SA) contains: the Government, the
Administration, the Army, the Police, the Courts, the Prisons, etc., which
constitute what I shall in future call the Repressive State Apparatus.
Repressive suggests that the State Apparatus in question ‘functions by
violence’ – at least ultimately (since repression, e.g. administrative
repression, may take non-physical forms) (Althusser 142).
While RSA
signifies singular physical imposition of power for gaining control through
generation of the fear of punishment, ISAs are pluralistic psychic tools of
manipulation that are subtly embedded to colonise the mind.
With all the reservations
implied by this requirement, we can for the moment regard the following
institutions as Ideological State Apparatuses (the order in which I have listed
them has no particular significance):
·
the religious ISA (the
system of the different churches),
·
the educational ISA (the
system of the different public and private ‘schools’),
·
the family ISA,
·
the legal ISA,
·
the political ISA (the
political system, including the different parties),
·
the trade-union ISA,
·
the communications ISA
(press, radio and television, etc.),
·
the cultural ISA
(literature, the arts, sports, etc.) (Althusser 143).
|
ISA |
RSA |
|
Covert
execution of power |
Overt
execution of power |
|
Indirect
deployment |
Direct
deployment |
|
Uses
‘Hegemony’ and ‘Control’ |
Uses
‘Rule’ and ‘Power’ |
|
No
coercive machinery |
Uses
coercion |
|
Functions
through ideology |
Functions
through violence |
|
Plurality |
Singularity
|
|
Belongs
to the private domain |
Belongs
to the public domain |
Conclusion
The materiality
of ideology is never overt as Althusser maintains; its covert strategies
effectively preserve the interests of the ruling class. Art and literature are
ultimately covert instruments of ideology. In late capitalist societies, the
media which comes across as a free agency, appearing to be neutral, ultimately
becomes a tool in generating consensus-driven ideology through interpellation.
They operate as vital instruments for the insertion or positioning of
individuals into the perceptual and symbolic forms of all dominant ideological
formulations. Ideology thus rarely appears ideological.
References
Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, Monthly Review Press, 1971, pp. 127–186.
Barker, Chris. “Ideological State Apparatuses.” The SAGE Dictionary of Cultural Studies, SAGE Publications, 2004.
Eagleton, Terry. “Althusser and Ideology.” Ideology: An Introduction, Verso, 1991, pp. 136-153.
Ebert, Teresa L. “The Knowable Good: Post-Althusserian Readings of ‘Ideology’ and the Subject of Critique.” Cultural Critique, no. 48, 2001, pp. 18-50.