Althusser & Ideology

Althusser aligns himself with the Marxist idea that the reproduction of the relations of reproduction (i.e. the reproduction of classist exploitation) is produced by the subjection of (all) classes to the ruling ideology (88).  However he diverges from Marx in his 'idea' of ideology in that he finds a historical and material element to it - or, rather, to particular ideologies.  On page 102 he asserts that "'ideas' or 'representations', etc., which seem to make up ideology do not have an ideal [...] or spiritual existence, but a material existence. I even suggested that the ideal [...] and spiritual existence of 'ideas' arises exclusively in an ideology of the 'idea' and of ideology." This last comment is an attempt to prove that everyone - even Marx - has an ideology insofar as it is "not their real conditions of existence, their real world, that 'men' 'represent to themselves' in ideology, but above all it is their relation to those conditions of existence which is represented" (101), and which "need only be 'interpreted' to discover the reality of the world behind their imaginary representation of that world (ideology = illusion/allusion)" (100).

Thus Althusser concludes that ideology must be subjective (and that the subject is always ideological), and therefore must be material and historical insofar as the subject is materially and historically constituted, where the existence of ideas are "inscribed in the actions of practices governed by rituals defined in the last instance by an ideological apparatus" and "that the subject acts insofar as he is acted by [...] ideology existing in a material ideological apparatus, prescribing material practices governed by a material ritual, which practices exist in the material actions of a subject acting [...] according to his belief" (103).

Ideology for Althusser, then, is a distinctly historical and material element which "always exists in an apparatus, and its practice," (102), and as such is central to the reproduction of the relations of production secured by the State Apparatuses.  Thus, ideology is much more important to Althusser than for Marx vis-a-vis class struggle, where "no class can hold State power over a long period without at the same time exercising its hegemony over and in the State Ideological Apparatuses" (94) and where it is "the action of the Ideological State Apparatuses [...] which largely secure the reproduction specifically of the relations of production, behind a 'shield' provided by the repressive State apparatus.  It is here that the role of the ruling ideology is heavily concentrated" (95), although the exact way in which ideology - as the practice of ISAs - contributes to this reproduction is contingent on the specific ideological apparatus.  Althusser briefly describes that in his second point on the top of page 97.

Specifically, Althusser makes note of education as "the ideological State apparatus which has been installed in the dominant position in mature capitalist social formations," which "takes children from every class [...] and drums into them [...] a certain amount of 'know-how' wrapped in the ruling ideology," (96-97), and, at different graduate stages, "each mass [of graduates] ejected en route is practically provided with the ideology which suits the role it has to fulfill in class society..." (97). Supported by Althusser's observations that no other 'ideological' institution than the School-Family couple subjects individuals to a greater extent to a particular 'ideology' we can see this in America where historical and social studies involve a lot of nationalism, liberalism (how many times have I had to relearn the - particular (State) - view on the American Revolution?).  On the other hand, schools aren't exclusively propaganda machines, where, for instance, learning critical Marxism at the University of Minnesota wouldn't exactly align with the Marxist interpretation of the school as the locus of ideological alienation.