Division of Humanities

College of Arts & Sciences

UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES VISAYAS
Miagao, Iloilo

ARTS 1 - Critical Perspectives in the Arts

Module 1
The Demonic Nature of Art

INTRODUCTION

Christians, don’t be disturbed. The title is only an effort to sound catchy and it is figurative
language so, don’t take it literally. The idea of this title actually comes from a famous post-
structuralist theorist, Roland Barthes ( read about him on the net ), who, in his article entitled,
From Work to Text, suggested that the ‘text’ might take as a motto, the words of a man
possessed by the devil – “my name is legion for we are many.” Do you remember the Bible
story? Jesus went to an island and a man possessed by the devil kept on pestering Him. So He
asked the man, what is your name and that was the man’s reply—“my name is legion…”

In this course, we will approach Art as a sign system, or as what Barthes calls it, a text. Being
composed of several elements, history, ideological constructions and more, Art or text is a kind
of figurative person possessed with multitudes of meaning. We can pin down Art into a single
definition or construct. It is always elusive especially that language, the words we use to
describe it has its own limits.

You are not here to memorize a single definition of art and prepare for an objective exam. You
are here to understand what it is, so that ten years from now, you may have forgotten what you
have memorized, but you will never forget how art is formed, how it functions and how it
influences us as human beings and as members of a larger community.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After working on this module, you should be able to:

1. Discuss the different concepts in defining art from various perspectives;
2. Examine the relevance of art from an individual to a societal standpoint.

LET’S START ON THE TEXTBOOK DEFINITIONS OF ART

Read Alice Guillermo’s Preface, from Art and Society. The reading guide below will help you
look for the salient points she wishes to convey.

Reading Guide

1. What does she mean with she said, “art is a signifying practice which is grounded in society
and history.”
2. Search and read about ‘formalism’ in the internet and understand why she is not in favor
 with this approach.
3. She said something like, ‘art is a human construct and a result of the process’ what does
she mean?
4. ‘Art has social import.’ Why?
5. What is the result of our colonial experience to our own studies of Art?

The reading guide would eventually enable you to formulate your own understanding of Art. Jump to
MODULE 1 ASSIGNMENT GUIDE to know what you are expected to submit for this module.

VIDEO TIME!

Watch the documentary “Exit Through the Gift Shop”

VIEWING GUIDE
1. Who is Thierry Guetta? How did he become a renowned street artist?
2. Who are Banksy and Shepard Fairey? Compare and contrast their road to stardom with that of
Thierry Guetta.
3. Based on the video, what are the means of becoming an Artist?
4. Who/what are the different agencies/institutions that help build an artist’s career?
5. Is the film a celebration of one becoming an artist or is it the other way around?

The viewing guide would eventually enable you to formulate your own understanding of Art. Jump to
MODULE 1 ASSIGNMENT GUIDE to know what you are expected to submit for this module.

NOSE BLEED

Read Louise Althusser’s Ideology and the Ideological State Apparatus . The reading guide
below will help you look for the salient points she wishes to convey.

Reading Guide

1. What is ideology according to Althusser?

2. What is Repressive State Apparatus?
3. What is Ideological State Apparatus?
4. What is the process of interpellation?
5. In Althusser’s state, do you think Individuals have free will? I am not asking about your
opinion. I am asking about Althusser’s theory.
6. What are the implications of Althusser’s theory to constructions of Art?

The viewing guide would eventually enable you to formulate your own understanding of Art. Jump to
MODULE 1 ASSIGNMENT GUIDE to know what you are expected to submit for this module.
 MODULE 1 ASSIGNMENT GUIDE
READ AND UNDERSTAND THE INSTRUCTIONS VERY WELL. I don’t answer questions that are already answered
by the instructions. If you insist of asking the same questions, read my lips: READ THE INSTRUCTIONS.

This assignment is the required output for this module. Submit this on OCTOBER 3, 2022, 23:59. This is a target
deadline. Meaning, to avoid cramming at the end of the sem, you should submit the assignment on or before that date.
HOWEVER, in this online learning mode, given that not all have stable internet connections, LATE SUBMISSIONS
MAY STILL BE ACCEPTED before the semester ends on DECEMBER 21, 2022, 23:59. Papers will no longer be
accepted beyond that, unless the University issues an official extension of the end of the semester.

WHAT TO DO
1. Write an 800-1,200 word essay on this topic: A Critical Evaluation of the Academic Discussions of Art.
2. Submit as a word file or as a pdf file through the LMS submission link provided.
3. Write on A4 size, font type: Calibri, Arial or Helvetica, font size: 12, 1 inch margins on all sides, single spaced,
with pagination on the top right corner of the paper.
4. Follow the APA format in writing and documenting your paper.Click the link for reference.
5. You must cite the three module materials( Guillermo’s Preface from Arts and Scoeity, Exit through the Gift
Shop Documentary and Althusser’s ISA) as primary reference. Use of additional references are highly
encourage and don’t forget to cite your sources.
6. Failure to cite sources is plagiarism, and plagiarism is equivalent to a grade of ‘Dropped.’ The LMS where you
are required to upload your assignment is equipped with an anti-plagiarism extension. Make sure that when
your assignment is flagged for plagiarism, revise your paper immediately and request for a resubmission. If you
failed to act on this matter, you will be automatically dropped from the course.
7. These are the prescribed format and content you need to comply with for this exercise. Beyond that, use your
initiative and unleash the power of your imagination. Remember this is an Art class, not a ‘hard’ science class.
Don’t look up to me for answers. You will find none.

…and hearing me, eyes may lift themselves,

asking "How can I reach the sea?"
And I will pass to them, saying nothing,
the starry echoes of the wave,
a breaking up of foam and quicksand,
a rustling of salt withdrawing itself,
the grey cry of seabirds on the coast.

So, through me, freedom and the sea

will call in answer to the shrouded heart.

Excerpt from
The Poet’s Obligation by Pablo Neruda

Prepared by
Jonathan Jurilla
Asso Professor 3
[email protected]
Preface, from Art and Society

Art as discussed in this book covers the wide range of human artistic expressions--from oil
painting to basket weaving, from shamanistic chants to contemporary pop. While the art object
is contemplated and experienced visually and/or aurally, its understanding and appreciation
include taking account of the conditions and processes of its production within a social context
and, therefore, also of its social meanings and effects.

Because art is situated within society and history, its proper study is oriented towards clear
objectives: to foster the independent and critical faculties, involving the heightening of the
capacity to discern strategies; to distinguish and evaluate aesthetic and cultural positions in
the light of our needs and interests; to privilege the Filipino point of view in art and cultural
studies, thereby, contributing to the development of our national culture and art. At the same
time, we do not lose sight of the international perspective which includes contributions,
influences, as well as the interaction of forces and interests from within and without. The study
also foregrounds discourses, cultural and artistic expressions and forms which in terms of
class, gender, ethnicity, and race have been hitherto marginalized by the dominant canons and
discourses.

The following may be considered as the basic premises:

First of all, art is a signifying practice which is grounded in society and history. As such, art has
its own specificity--that is, the elements of art, forms, media, techniques, styles--which
distinguishes it from other fields. As found in works of art, these make up the signs consisting
of signifiers (material data) and signifieds (concepts) which in their relation to one another in
the visual work or text produce meaning. Traditionally, one might easily say that this
constitutes the formal aspect of the work. However, and here is the difference from the
traditional approach, the elements of art and its other material aspects are regarded as signs
that have a meaning-conveying potential (deriving both from human psychophysical
experiences and cultural codes) which becomes realized in the entire relations of the work,
since the material aspects or signifiers are intimately tied up with the conceptual aspects which
are the signifieds. A merit of this approach is that it makes a more solid grounding for the
study and interpretation of the art of the Philippines and other countries. Such an approach
finds a common ground for interpretations on the universal plane, that is, human
psychophysical experiences which are universally shared, and the national or local plane, that
is, the cultural codes shared by members of a particular society.
 It is not, however, the case that in the
semiotic approach one seeks to arrive
at a unified and seamless meaning at
all times. For it is possible that a work
of art may reveal contradictions that
reflect underlying ideological tensions.
Or the surface of the work's dominant
discourse may reveal gaps and fissures
in a symptomatic reading. It is through
these gaps and fissures, the silences
and unsaids or the "unconscious of the
work" that contrary elements break
through. In this case, the viewer/critic
does not make haste to reconcile or
absorb these contradictions into a
structuralist/functionalist whole. As
Eagleton writes, "the task of the critic
is not to gloss over contradictions but
to foreground them" in order to show
the work as a charged terrain of
contention. In the complex relation
between work and viewer/reader, one
does not find a single unilateral thread
of meaning but one finds a rich
polyphonic text on different planes and
different voices. Meaning then is not
the essential kernel that discloses itself
after one throws away the husk which
is the form. We refer instead to the
work's "horizon of meaning," following
Eagleton, which takes into account the
various possible meanings that operate
within the problematic of the work.

Second, and again this is how one

differs from the formalist approach, the work of art as sign is viewed in the dialogic situation of
the work and its viewer. In this semiotic approach, it is necessary to emphasize that the work
of art is seen not as a closed hermetic text but as an open work in which the signs are referred
back to their referents in the real world. For like language, we affirm that art, too, exists in a
dialogic situation in which an exchange takes place between the work and the viewer/listener.
Thus, the visual text is not purely self-referential--and here we choose to differ from the
theoreticians of the "infinite play of signifiers" and the postmodernist proponents of the pure
surface texture--rather, one chooses to forestall the formalist closure of the work by resituating
it as visual sign and text in its grounding in the real world. Furthermore, the concern to bring
out the worldviews and ideologies of a work does not end there but proceeds to investigate
how these ideas, values, narratives, discourses, worldviews have a bearing on our lives and
interests, and our social context as a whole, and as to whether or not they enhance our
humanity and further the goals of freedom and justice.
Another implication here is that one moves beyond the original artwork-and-historical-
background approach because now the work is shown to be profoundly imbricated in its socio-
historical context, and thus the relation of work and context is not merely mechanical or
incidental--a point which has a bearing on the teaching of art history.

The work of art as human construct and the result of the process. By this we mean that art is
not "the natural reflection of the world it delineates nor the spontaneous expression of the
author's subjectivity." What the concept of construct basically involves is the demystification of
the traditional notions of art. For instance, the concept of art as a "transparent window to the
world," as classic realist texts assume it to be, has been subjected to critique.

Countervailing the tendency to collapse art into sociology, the Russian Formalists sought to
define the specificity as such and to "bare the process of the text." Brecht as a Marxist
expanded the formalist project and gave it a political/instructional dimension by developing the
strategy of "defamiliarization" which operates in the alienation-effect of his epic theater,
changing the relationship between actors and viewers, and moving from the empathy of realist
theater to a critical and participatory experience.

Likewise, the concept of art as construct also questions the earlier notion of art as the
spontaneous expression of the artist's subjectivity. Artists are constrained by the possibilities of
time and place; they are also limited by the language or Symbolic Order (the way of ordering
the universe) that they not only use but in which they were born and reared, and therefore
profoundly implicated. Human experience is shaped by social institutions and ideological
discourses. In Brecht as in other theories, the element of the subjective becomes played down
to foreground the role of language and other social forces, institutions, conventions, and
discourses. This perspective effectively does away with notions of genius and of the artist as a
privileged being above ordinary mortals and therefore as one to be revered and never
questioned. It also does away with the notion of art as a mysterious ineffable creation rather
than real work in the real world. However, in Western contemporary theory, the phasing out of
subjectivity in structuralism and postmodernism has led to the "crisis of the subject" and to the
extreme theory of the "death of the author/artist," a theoretical issue which poses certain
problems in our specific context which we will later take into account.

Again, "art as construct" also implies that art has its own mode of production. This includes the
resources of art, their mediums and techniques, their properties and problems of availability,
as well as artistic production as a material process. Such considerations also imply art
patronage and its influence, salutary or otherwise, on the art work, as well as the market
forces that impinge on artistic production. With respect to the traditional arts, it is important
not only to appreciate the qualities of the work, such as handwoven textile or an earthenware
vessel, but also to resituate it concepually in its original community, and to consider the
conditions and problems of its production, such as forced resettlement from ancestral lands by
decree of dominant groups or conditions of exploitation and scarcity of resources.

From the social and historical

contextualization of the work, we can proceed
to state that art has social import. Since the
material facts of the visual work or iconic sign
have a semiotic or meaning-conveying
potential drawn from human psychophysical
experiences and the cultural codes of a
particular society, they become value-laden.
And values, in turn, which constitute the
axiological aspect of art, are derived from
material fact. In other words, facts are not
neutral but value-laden and values
themselves arise from the facts and concrete
conditions. Color, for instance, is not neutral
because it is enmeshed in the symbolic
systems of a society. Likewise, the traditional
principles or organization, such as harmony
and proportion, formed part of the classical
canons. Because of the axiological aspect of
the visual work by which it becomes a bearer
not only of concepts and values, but also and
especially of worldviews and ideologies, art plays an important part in human endeavors as it,
directly or indirectly, supports the status quo or interrogates it, instills attitudes or persuades
one to assume positions within a range of interventions--from acceptance to denial, espousal
to rejection, with respect to concepts, issues, events, or various social phenomena. Also
because art conveys values, it assumes different social functions, including healing and
therapy.

There is likewise a need to rethink art history with respect to new assumptions proffered by
contemporary theory. History is not just a narration of events of the past, but is a constructed
narration or representation from a particular point of view with its particular social concerns
and interests. Thus, there are many, even conflicting histories, in the same way that the
culture of a country is not homogenous nor harmonous. In the case of colonized societies,
there is the history written by the colonial masters, and the oppositional history written by the
subjugated people. It is the history of the people narrated from their point of view that unites
them in their anti-colonial struggle. Thus, the plurality of historical narratives does not redound
to pure intertextuality or the formal interrelationship of texts on a single plane, for the
historical text continually refers to real struggles in the real world, thereby inviting partisanship
and alignment.

Part of the project of demystification in art studies is the assertion that aesthetics has its own
history as a distinct discipline which in the West had evolved from its classical origins to the
present. It does not consist of principles and canons which are true for all people and for all
time, contrary to what classical aesthetics asserts. In fact, we can say that each society and
community has its own aesthetics, so that there is not just one aesthetics which is that of the
Western tradition, but many different aesthetics all over the world. Furthermore, within each
country and society exist differenr aesthetics or aesthetic discourses, on one hand, the
dominant and canonical aesthetics associated with the ruling classes and, on the other hand,
those of the folk to which Mikhail Bakhtin ascribed a carnivalesque character subversive of the
dominant canons. When we recognize that there are many different aesthetics and histories of
aesthetics, we break away from the domination of the globalizing Western aesthetic tradition.

Our colonial experience which had laid

down the academic canons of art has
left a tradition of suppressing sectors of
Philippines expression, such as that of
the Muslim Filipinos and the animist
ethno-linguistic groups. The dominance
of Western-oriented elites has sought
to marginalize the rich folk culture of
the peasantry. And only recently has
the academe recognized popular
culture, such as the comics and film, as
a valid field of serious study. Moreover,
our long tradition of patriarchy in which
male cultural managers distinguished
netween "high art" and "low art"
marginalized a large section of
women's work and cultural expressions
related to everyday life. All these
suppressed voices, discourses,
expressions should be recognized and
brought to the fore in our studies.

Because these large sectors in our

country and in Asia as a whole have
traditionally suffered prejudice, neglect
and suppression--sectors and entire
societies that the dominant Self
(Western, white, ruling class, male)--
has constituted as the Other, it is
important that these colonized and
marginalized sectors find their voices in
their struggle for self-determination.
Thus, in our own particular context,
postmodernist concepts such as the
"crisis" or even "death of the subject" or the "disappearance of the signified" raise problems of
validity. For, as in the case of the women's struggle, what is crucial is for women to achieve
active subject position from her traditional status as passive object. As Catherine Belsey
stated, "To be subject is to be able to claim rights, to protest, and to be capable, therefore, of
devising a mode of resistance more sharply focused than prophesying, witchcraft or murder. It
is to be in a position to identify and analyze the nature of women's oppression" and so to begin
the struggle for change. In the case of the people of neocolonies or colonized societies, it
becomes imperative for them to constitute themselves as Subjects and active agents to be able
to carry out the liberating enterprise. It can only be from this firm positionality that we can be
able to problematize traditional and contemporary concepts in relation to our context and to
contribute original theorizing on our culture.

It is with respect to our cultural context that we cannot too strongly emphasize the need for
original research and field work as important components of a vital scholarship. So much in our
culture needs to be documented, recuperated, and invigorated with new enthusiasm and
interest. This retrieval of traditional forms will result in bringing into our consciousness and
that of the larger public elements of our culture that would otherwise be neglected or
irretrievably lost, as well as in piecing together and reconstructing the complex tapestry of our
culture. At the same time, this culture is not static but develops in relation to the historical
process, as its most dynamic aspects participate in the people's struggle.

It thus becomes clear that we must position ourselves as Filipinos and lay claim to a socio-
historical ground from which we respond or act with regard to external influences and
interventions. It is a position which foregrounds our interests, needs, struggles, and aspirations
as a people vis-a-vis the hegemonic strategies of the West.

In this project of assuming the Filipino point of view, we necessarily discard the colonial
distinction between high or fine arts and low or applied arts. All forms and genres, including
paintings, posters, assemblages, and handmade weaves have their own standards of quality.
Freed from academic hierarchies, we are thus able to privilege the indigenous arts of the
people, the expressions of the folk that link us to the original matrix of Southeast Asian
culture. At the same time, the Filipino identity is not found reified in the past, such as in the
pre-colonial period or in the 19th century Propaganda and Revolution, but is a dynamic concept
that is elaborated with the historical process. Our folk/ethnic expressions that grow out of the
oral traditions constitute the underlying stratum of our cultural identity. Our contemporary
arts, such as painting and sculpture, also form part of our national heritage, especialy in so far
as they show the judicious appropriation and indigenization of foreign influences.

To assume the Filipino viewpoint, however, is not a simple matter, for although the principal
subject of our studies is indeed Philippine culture and art, this by itself does not guarantee a
Filipino orientation. Given our colonial education, we have unconsciously and unwittingly
assumed a baggage of "orientalism" which consists of Western and imperialist concepts and
discourses of and about the Third World, stereotyped presuppositions, representations and
expectations with which traditional Western scholars view Asia and our part of the world. So
that it becomes possible the while we investigate our own culture, we may bring to bear upon
it an alien point of view which reproduces colonial attitudes, biases, and canonical judgements.
One common orientalist tendency, for instance, is to consider the large bulk of the artistic
productions of the Third World, especially of its suppressed peasant population, not as art but
exclusively as anthropological or ethnographic artifact for display in ethnographic and not in art
museums.

Thus we assume a nationalist position in the definition and development of a national art and
culture that is consistent with our interests, needs, and aspirations, particularly the needs of
the large majority of laboring Filipinos--a culture which is not a shadow or a mimicry of
Western culture. Part of the nationalist point of view valorizes as important fields of study and
documentation the large majority of the people's cultural and artistic expressions--in terms of
geography, from the North in the Cordilleras to the South in the Sulu archipelago, the lowland
Christian Filipinos, the Muslims of Mindanao and Sulu, and in terms of class, the
progressive/revolutionary cultural and artistic expressions of the workers, peasants and
fisherfolk, aside from those of the petit-bourgeoisie, expressions that advance the people's true
interests.

Doubtless, a nationalist point of view does not exclude foreign influences; rather, it can
indigenize what is usable and applicable to its context. For it is also important to recognize that
our contemporary art and culture have an international dimension which makes possible fruitful
exchanges. It is also on the international plane that we link up with contemporary
developments in progressive theory and criticism and, even more, with the struggles of people
all over the world towards realizing the full human potential. (Alice G. Guillermo)

 1482 / LOUIS ALTHUSSER IDEOLOGY AND IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUSES / 1483

On the contrary, we know that Balzac never abandoned his political positions. say. I am not perhaps speaking about exactly what you want or would like to
We know even more: his peculiar, reactionary political positions played a say, but about what you actually do say. When you counterpose 'rigorous
decisive part in the production of the content of his work. This is certainly ref/.ectiowon the concepts ofMarxism' to 'something else', in particular to what
a paradox, but it is the case, and history provides us with a number of exam­ art gives us, I believe you are establishing a comparison which is either
ples to which Marx7 drew our attention (on Balzac, I refer you to the article incomplete or illegitimate. Since art in fact provides us with something else
by R. Fayolle8 in the special 1965 number of Europe). These are examples other than science, there is not an opposition between them, but a differ­
of a deformation of sense very commonly found in the dialectic of ideologies. ence. On the contrary, if it is a matter of knowing art, it is absolutely essential
See what Lenin says about Tolstoy (cf. Macherey's article): Tolstoy's personal to begin with 'rigorous reflection on the basic concepts of Marxism': there is
ideological position is one component of the deep-lying causes of the con.tent no other way. And when I say, 'it is essential to begin ...', it is not enough
of his work. The fact that the content of the work of Balzac and Tolstoy is to say it, it is essential to do it. If not, it is easy to extricate oneself with a
'detached' fr�m their political ideology and in some way makes us 'see' it passing acknowledgement, like 'Althusser proposes to return to a rigorous study
from the outside, makes us 'perceive' it by a distantiation inside that ideology, of Marxist theory. I agree that this is indispensable. But I do not believe that
presupposes that ideology itself. It is certainly possible to say that it is an it is enough. My response to this is the only real criticism: there is a way of
1

'effect' of their art as novelists that it produces this distance inside their declaring an exigency 'indispensable' which consists precisely of dispensing
ideology, which makes us 'perceive' it, but it is not possible to say, as you do, with it, dispensing with a careful consideration of all its implications and
that art 1has its own logic' which 'made Balzac abandon his political concep­ consequences-by the acknowledgement accorded it in order to move
tions'. On· the contrary, only because he retained them could he produce his quickly on to 'something else'. Now I believe that the only way we can hope
work, only because he .stuck to his political ideology could he produce in it to reach a real knowledge of art, to go deeper into the specificity of the work
this internal 'distance' which gives us a critical 'view' of it. of art, to know the mechanisms which produce the 'aesthetic effect', is pre­
As you see, in order to answer most of the questions posed for us by the cisely to spend a long time and pay the greatest attention to the 'basic prin­
existence and specific nature of art, we are forced to produce an adequate ciples of Marxism' and not to be in a hurry to 'move on tci·something else',
(scientific) knowledge of the processes which produce the 'aesthetic effect' for if we move on too quickly to 'something else' we shall arrive not at a
of a work of art. In other words, in order to answer the question of the knowledge of art, but at an ideology of art: e.g., at the latent humanist ide­
relationship between art and knowledge we must produce a knowledge of art. ology which may be induced by what you say about the relations between
You are conscious of this necessity. But you ought also to know that in art and the 'human', an·&about artistic 'creation', etc.
this issue.we still have a long way to go. The recognition (even the political If we must turn (and this demands slow and arduous work) to the 'basic
recognition) of the existence and importance of art does not constitute a principles · of Marxism' in order to be:able to pose correctly, in concepts which
knowledge of art. I do not even think that it is possible to take as the begin­ are not the ideological concepts of aesthetic spontaneity, but scientific con­
nings of knowledge the texts you refer to, or even JoliotcCurie quoted by cepts adequate to their object, and thus necessarily new concepts, it is not
Mar.cenac.9 To say a few words about the sentence attributed to Jolicit-Curie, in order to pass art silently by or to sacrifice it to science: it is quite simply

I
it contains a terminology-'aesthetic creation, scientific creation�---,;.a. termi­ in orderto know it, and to give it its due.
nology which is certainly quite common, but one which in my opinion must
be abandoned and creplaced by another, in order to be able to pose: .the prob­ 1966
lem of the knowledge of art in the proper way. I know that the artist, and
the art lover, spontaneously express themselves in terms of 'creation', etc. It From Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses
is a 'spontaneous' language, but we know from Marx and Lenin that every
'spontaneous' language is an ideological language, the vehicle of an ideology,
(Notes towards an Inves�igation) 1
here the ideology of art and of the activity productive of aesthetic effects.
Like all knowledge, the knowledge of art presupposes a preli_minary rupture . .
From On the Reproduction of the_ Conditions of Production
. ..

with the language of ideological spontaneity and the constitution of a body

* * .*
of scientific concepts to replace it. It is essential to be conscious of the As Marx said, every child knows that a ·social· fo'rmation" 'which · did not
necessity for this rupture with ideology to be able to undertake the consti­ reproduce the coriditioris of production at the same time · as it produced
tution of the edifice of a knowledge of art. would not last a year.2 The ultimate condition of production is therefore the
Here perhaps, is where I must express a sharp reservation about what you reproduction of the conditions of production. This may be 'simple' (repro­
ducing exactly the previous conditions of production) or ' on an extended
7. KARL MARX (1818-1883), German social,politi­ scientifiC creation, whic-h he thought might even­ scale' (expanding them). Let us ignore this last distinction for the moment.
cal, and economic theorist. tually prove an identity in their procedures" [trans­ What, then, is the reproduction of the conditions of production?
8. Roger Fayolle (b. I 928); French literary critic. lator's note]. Jean-Frederic Joliot-Curie (1900-
9, Jean Marcenac [19J.3-1984],Les Lettresfran­ 1958); Nobel Prize-cwinning·French physicist and
�aises, 1966. "I have always regretted the fact that �lso member of the French Communist Party. Paul 1. Tr_anslatfd by Ben Brewst er, who �ometimes ser's note]. KARL MARX (1881-1883), German
_
F. Joliot-Curie never pursued the project he sug­ Eluard (1895-1952), and lyric retains the French word or phrase in parentheses. social, econo.mic; and political iheorist. Some of
· Fr_ench surrealist
·
geste� to me at the time o! El�ard'� death, �he��� poet. 2. Marx to Kugelmann, July 11, 1868, Selected the author's notes have been edited, and soine
_ , . -; Correspondence (Moscow, 1955), p. 209 [Althus- omitted.
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 IDEOLOGY AND IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUSES / 1487
,1486 / LOUIS ALTHUSSER

But this is to recognize the effective presence of a new reality: ideology. index of effectivity) are crucial; that it reveals that it is the base which in the
last instance determines the whole edifice; and that, as a con,sequence, it
* * * obliges us to pose the theoretical problem of the types of'derivatory' effec­
From Infrastructure and Superstructure tivity peculiar to the superstructure, i.e. it obliges us to think what the Marx­
ist tradition calls conjointly the relative autonomy of the superstructure and
On a number of occasions I have insisted on the revolutionary character of the reciprocal action of the superstructure on the base.
the Marxist conception of the 'social whole' insofar as it is distinct from the
Hegelian4 'totality'. I said (and this thesis only repeats famous propositions * * *
of historical materialism) that Marx conceived the structure of every society I shall give a short analysis of Law, the State and Ideology from this point
as constituted by 'levels' or 'instances' articulated by a specific determination: of view. And I shall reveal what happens both frori1 the point of view of
the infrastructure, or economic base (the 'unity' of the productive forces and practice and production on the one hand, and from that of reproduction on
the relations of production) and the superstructure, which itself contains two the other.
'levels' or 'instances': the politico-legal (law and the State) and ideology (the
different ideologies, religious, ethical, legal, political, etc.).
Besides its theoretico-didactic interest (it reveals the difference between From The State
Marx and Hegel), this representation has the following c'rucial theoretical The Marxist tradition is strict, here: in the Communist Manifesto and the
advantage: it makes it possible to inscribe in the theoretical apparatus of its Eighteenth Brumaire (and in all the later classical texts, above all in Marx's
essential concepts what I have called their respective indices of effectivity. writings ·on the Paris Commune and Lenin's6 on State and Revolution), the
What does this mean? State is explicitly conceived as a repressive apparatus. The State is a
It is easy to see that this representation of the structure of every society 'machine' of repression, which enables the ruling classes• (in the nineteenth
as an· edifice containing a base (infrastructure) oh which are erected the two century the bourgeois class and the 'class' of big landowners) to ensure their
'floors' of the superstructure, is a metaphor, to be quite precise, a spatial domination over the working class, thus·enabling the former to subject the
metaphor: the metaphor of a topography (topique).5 Like every metaphor, latter to the process of surplus-value extortion (i.e. to capitalist exploitation).
this metaphor suggests something, makes something visible. What? Precisely The State is thus first of all what the Marxist classics have called the State
this: that the upper floors could not 'stay up' (in the air) alone, if they did apparatus. This term means: not only the specialized apparatus (in the nar­
not rest precisely on their base. row sense) whose existence and necessity I have recognized in relation to the
Thus the object of the rtietaphor of the edifice is to represent above all the requirements of legal practice, i.e. the police, the courts, the prisons; but
'determihatiori in the last instance' by the economic base. The effect of this also the army, which (the proletariat has paid for this experience with its
spatial metaphor is to endow the base with an index of effectivity known by blood) intervenes directly as a supplementary repressive force in the last
the famous terrils: thl:! determination in the last instance of what happens in instance, when the police and its specialized auxiliary corps are 'outrun by
the upper 'floors' (of the superstructure) by what h3:ppens in the economic events'; and above this ensemble, the head of State, the government anp. the
·
base. , · ' administration.
Given this index of effectivity 'in the last instance', the 'floors' of the super­ Presented in this form, the Marxist-Leninist 'theory' of the State has its
structure are dearly endowed with different indices ofeffectivity. What kind finger on the essential point, and not for one moment can there be any
of indices? question of rejecting the fact that.this really is the essential point. The State
It is possible to say that the floors of the superstructure are not determi­ apparatus, which defines the State as a. force of.repressive execution and
nant ii;i the last instance, but that they are determined by the effectivity of intervention 'in the interests of the ruling classes' in the class struggle con­
the base; that if they are determinant in their own (as yet undefined) ways, ducted by the bourgeoisie and its allies against the proletariat, is quite cer­
this is true only insofar as they are determined by the base. tainly the State, and quite certainly defines its basic 'function'.
Their index of effectivity (or determination); as determined by the deter­
mination in the last instance of the base, is thought by the Marxist tradition * * *
in two ways: (1) there is a 'relative autonomy' of the superstnicture with The Essentials of the Marxist Theory of the State
respect to the base; (2) there is a 'reciprocal action' of the superstructure on
the base. Let me first clarify one important point: the State (and its existence in its
We can therefore say that the great theoretical adyantage of the Marxist apparatus) has no meaning except as a function of State power. The whole
topography, i.e. of the spatial metaphor of the edifice (base and superstruc­
ture) is simultaneously that it reveals that questions of determination (or of 6. V. L Lenin (1870-1924), leader of the Ru.ssian Eight�enth B,:uW,aire - of Lcniis Bonaparte from
Revolution of 1917 and author of many works on .1852. The latter, along with his Class. Stuggles in
revolutionary politics, including The State a!ld Rev­ France, 1848-- 1850 (1850) and The Civil War
olution: The Marxist Theory of the State and the in France.(18!1), deals with politicaf strugiiles in
4. Of GEORG FRIEDRICH WILHELM HEGEL (1770- :respective sites occupied by several realities: thus
Tasks of the Proletariat in the Revolution (191 7). Fran�e; the J?aris Commune was a re_voluti_onary
1831), German idealist philosopher. the economic is at the bottom (the base), the super­
Marx's famous Communist Manifesto (co-written government brief!}' established ·in Paris in the
5, Topog_raphy from the Gre�k topos: place, A -structure above it [Althusser's note];·
snrinP of 1871.
1488 / LOUIS ALTHUSSER IDEOLOGY AND IDE OLOGICAL STATE APP ARATUSES / 1489

of the political class struggle revolves around the State. By which I mean apparatus, but must not be confused with it. I shall call this reality by its
around the possession, i.e. the seizure and conservation of State power by a concept: the ideological State apparatuses. 9
certain class or by an alliance between classes or class fractions. This first What are the ideological State apparatuses (ISAs)?
clarification obliges me to distinguish between State power (conservation of They must not be confused with the (repressive) State apparatus. Remem­
State power. or seizure of State power), the objective of the political class ber that in Marxist theory, the State Apparatus (SA) contains: the Govern­
struggle on the one hand, and the State apparatus on the other. ment, the Administration, the Army, the Police, the Courts, the Prisons, etc.,
\,Ve know that the State apparatus may survive, as is proved by bourgeois which constitute what I shall in future call the Repressive State Apparatus.
'revolutions' in nineteenth-century France (1830, 1848), by coups d'etat Repressive suggests that the State Apparatus in question 'functions by vio­
(2 December, May 1958), by collapses of the State (the fall of the Empire lence'-at least ultimately (since repression, e.g. administrative repression,
in 1870, of the Third Republic in 1940), or by the political rise of the petty may take non-physical forms).
bourgeoisie (1890-95 in France), etc., without the State apparatus being I shall call Ideological State Apparatuses a certain number of realities
affected or modified: 7 it may survive political events which affect the pos­ which present themselves to the immediate observer in the form of distinct
session of State power. and specialized institutions. I propose an empirical list of these which will
Even after a social revolution like that of 191 7, 8 a large part of the State obviously have to be examined in detail, tested, corrected and reorganized.
apparatus survived after the seizure of State power by the alliance of the With all the reservations implied by this requirement, we can for the moment
proletariat and the small peasantry: Lenin repeated the fact again and again. regard the following institutions as Ideological State Apparatuses (the order
It is possible to describe the distinction between State power and State in which I have listed them has no particular significance):
apparatus as part of the 'Marxist theory' of the State, explicitly present since
-the religious ISA (the system of the different Churches),
Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire and Class Struggles in France.
-the educational ISA (the system of the different public and private
To summarize the 'Marxist theory of the State' on this point, it can be said
'Schools'),
that the Marxist classics have always claimed that ( 1) the State is the repres­
-the family ISA, 1
sive State apparatus, (2) State power and State apparatus must be distin­
-the legal ISA, 2
guished, (3) the objective of the class struggle concerns State power, and in
-the political ISA (the political system, including the different Parties),
consequence the use of the State apparatus by the classes (or alliance of
-the trade-union ISA,
classes or of fractions of classes) holding State power as a function of their
-the communications ISA (press, radio and television, etc.),
class objectives, and ( 4) the proletariat must seize State power in order to
-the cultural ISA (Literature, the Arts, sports, etc.).
destroy the existing bourgeois State apparatus and, in a first phase, replace
it with a quite different, proletarian, State apparatus, then in later phases I have said that the ISAs must not be confused with the (Repressive) State
set in motion a radical process, that of the destruction of the State (the end Apparatus. \Vhat constitutes the difference?
of State power, the end of every State apparatus). As a first moment, it is clear that while there is one (Repressive) State
In this perspective;. therefore, what I would propose to add to the �M,arxist Apparatus, there is a plurality of Ideological State Apparatuses. Even pre­
theory' of the State is already there in so many words. But it seems to me supposing that it exists, the unity that constitutes this plurality of ISAs as a
that even with this supplement, this theory is still in part descriptive, body is not immediately visible.
although it does now contain complex and differential elements whose func­ As a second moment, it is clear that whereas the-unified-(Repressive)
tioning and action cannot be understood without recourse to further sup­ State Apparatus belongs entirely to the public domain, much the larger part
plementary theoretical development. of the Ideological State Apparatuses (in their app�rent dispersion) are part,
on the contrary, of the private domain. Churches, Parties, Trade Unions,
The State Ideological Apparatuses families, some schools, most newspapers, cultural ventures, etc., etc., are
,:,:: * * private.
We can ignore the first observation for the moment. But someone is bound
In order to advance the theory of the State it is indispensable to take into
to question the second, asking me by what right I regard as Ideological State
account not only the distinction between State power and State apparatus,
but also another reality which is clearly on the side �f the (repressive) State
9. To my knowledge, Gramsci is the only one who 259, 260-63) [Afthusser's note]. ANTONIO GRAM­
went any distance in the road I am taking. He had SCI ( 1891-1937), Italian Marxist philosopher.
7. After the French Revolution ( 1789-92) and mune and the establishment of the Third Repub­ the "remarkable" idea that the State could not be l. The family obviously has other "functions" than
through the 19th century, France became a mod­ lic, which ended with the German occupation of reduced to the (Repressive) State Apparatus, but that of an ISA. It intervenes in the reproduction of
ern bureaucratic state dominated by the bourgeoi­ France in 1940. In 1958, during a political crisis included, as he put it, a certain number of insti­ labour power. In different modes of production it
sie (rather than a feudal aristocracy). Althusser caused by France's coloni�l war in Algeria, Charles tutions from "civil society": the Church, the is the unit of production and/or the unit of con­
refers to the overthrow of the restored Bourbon de Gaulle ( 1890�1970), the leader of the French Schools, the trade unions, etc. Unfortunately, sumption [Althusser's note].
monarchy in 1830; the ''Febrllary Revolu'tion" of Resistance during World War II, became preinier Gramsci did not systematize his institutions, which 2. The "Law" belongs both to the (Repressive)
1848 after which Napoleon llI became president �ith broad powers and then president (I 959-69) remained in the state of acute but fragmentai:y State Apparatus and to the system of the ISAs
and in 1852 emperor, establishing the Second of the Fifth Republic. notes ( cf. Gramsci, Selectionsfrom the Prison Note­ [Althusser's note].
Empire, which fell in 1870; and the Paris Com- 8. That is, in Russia. books [International Publishers, I 971], pp. 12,
1490 / LOUIS ALTHUS SER IDEOLOGY AND IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUSES / 1491

Apparatuses, institutions which for the most part do not possess public tion is always in fact unified, despite its diversity and its contradictions,
status, but are quite simply private institutions. As a conscious Marx,ist, beneath the ruling ideology, which is the ideology of 'the ruling class'.Given
Gramsci already forestalled this objection in one sentence. The distinction the fact that the 'ruling class' in principle holds State power (openly ormore
between the public and the private is a distinction internal to bourgeois law, often by means of alliances between classes or class fractions), and therefore
and valid in the (subordinate) domains in which bourgeois law exercises its has its disposal the (Repressive) State Apparatus, we can accept the fact that
'authority'. The domain of the State escapes it because the latter is 'above this same ruling class is active in the Ideological State Apparatuses insofar
the law': the State, which is the State of the ruling class, is neither public as it is ultimately the ruling ideology which is realized in the Ideological State
nor private; on the contrary, it is the precondition for any distinction between Apparatuses, precisely in its contradictions. Of course, it is a quite different
public and private. The same thing can be said from the starting-point of our thing to act by laws and decrees in the (Repressive) State Apparatus and to
State Ideological Apparatuses. It is unimportant whether the institutions in 'act' through the intermediary of the ruling ideology in the Ideological State
which they are realized are 'public' or 'private'. What matters is how they Apparatuses. We must go into the details of this difference-but it cannot
function. Private institutions can perfectly well 'function' as Ideological State mask the reality of a profound identity. To my knowledge, no class can hold
Apparatuses. A reasonably thorough analysis of any one of the ISAs proves State power over a long period without at the same time exercising its hegemony
it. over and in the State Ideological Apparatuses. I only need one example and
But now for what is essential. What distinguishes the ISAs from the proof of this: Lenin's anguished concern to revolutionize the educational
(Repressive) State Apparatus is the following basic difference: the Repressive Ideological State Apparatus (among others), simply to make it possible for
State Apparatus functions 'by violence', whereas the Ideological State Appa­ the Soviet proletariat, who had seized State power, to secure the future of
ratuses function 'by ideology.' the dictatorship of the proletariat and the transition of socialism.
I can clarify matters by correcting this distinction. I shall say rather that This last comment puts us in a position to understand that the Ideological
every State Apparatus, whether Repressive or Ideological, 'functions' both by State Apparatuses may be not only the stake, but also the site of class. struggle,
violence and ideology, but with one very important distinction which makes and often of bitter forms of class strug'gle. The class (or class alliance) in
it imperative not to confuse the Ideological State Apparatus with the (Repres- power cannot lay down the law in the ISAs as easily as it can.in the (repres­
sive) State Apparatus, sive) State apparatus, not only because the former ruling classes are able to
This is the fact that the (Repressive) State Apparatus functions massively retain strong positions there for a long time, but also because the resistance
and predominantly by repression (including physical repression), while func­ of the exploited classes is able to find means and occasions to express itself
tioning secondarily by ideology.(There is no such'thing as a purely repressive there, either by the utilization of their contradictions, or by conquering com­
apparatus.) For example, the Army and the Police also fiinction by ideology bat positions in them in struggle.3
both to ensure their own cohesion and reproduction, and in the 'values' they * * *
propound externally.
In the same way, but inversely,, it is essential to say that for their part the
Ideological StateApparatuses function massively and predominant�yJ,y ide­ From On the Reproduction of the Relations of Production
ology, but they also function secondarily by repression, even if ultimately, I can now answer the central question which I have left in suspense for many
but only ultimately, this is very attenuated ahd concealed, even symbolic. long pages: how is the reproduction of the relations of production secured?
(There is no such thing as a purely ideological apparatus.) Thus Schools and In the topographical language (Infrastructure, Superstructure), I can say:
Churches use suitable methods of punishment, expulsion, selecti�n, etc., to for the most part, it is secured by the legal-political and ideological super­
'discipline' not only theiF shepherds, but also their flocks. The same is true structure.
of the Family.. .. The same is true of the cultural IS Apparatus (censorship, But as I have argued that it is essential to go beyond this still descriptive
among other things), etc. language, I shall say: for the most part, it is secured by the exercise of State
Is it necessary to add that this determination of the double 'functioning'
(predominantly, secondarily) by repression and by ideology, according to
3 .. What I have said in these few brief words about conflict and fight it out." The class strugg�e is thus
whether it is a matter of the (Repressive) State Apparatus or the Ideological the class struggle in the ISAs is obviously far from expressed and exercised in ideological forms, thus
State Apparatus, makes it clear that very subtle explicit or tacit combinations exhausting thei question of the class struggle. also in the ideological forms of the ISAs. But the
To approach this question, two principles must class struggle extends far beyond these forms, .and
may be woven from the interplay of the (Repressive) State Apparatus and be borne in mind: it is because it extends beyond them that the strug­
the Ideological State Apparatuses? Everyday life provides us with innumer­ The first principle was formulated by Marx in the gle of the exploited classes may also be exercised
preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Politi­ in the forms o.f the ISAs, and thus t1,1rn the weapon
able examples of this, but they must be studied in detail if we are to go further cal Economy [1859]: "In considering such trans­ of ideology against the classes in power.
than this mere observation. formations [a social revolution] a distinction This is by virtue of the second principle: the class
should always be made between the material trans­ struggle extends beyond the ISAs because it is
Nevertheless, this remark leads us towards an understanding of what con­ formation 6f the economic conditions of pr0duc­ rooted elsewhere than in ideology, in the Infra­
stitutes the unity of the apparently disparate body of the ISAs. If the ISAs tion, which can be determined with the precision structure, in the relations of production, which are
of. natural science, and the legal, political, reli­ relations of exploitation and con,stitute the base for
'function' massively and predominantly by ideology, what unifies their diver­ gious, aesthetic or philos0phic-in short, ideolog­ class re�ations [Althusser's note}.
sity is precisely this functioning, insofar as the ideology by which they func- ical forms in which men become conscious of this
1492 / LOUIS ALTHUSSER IDEOLOGY AND IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUSES / 1493

power in the State Apparatuses, on the one hand the (Repressive) State But in the social formations of that mode of production characterized by
Apparatus, on the other the Ideological State Apparatuses. 'serfdom' (usually called the feudal mode of production), we observe that
What I have just said must also be taken into account, and it can be although there is a single repressive State apparatus which, since the earliest
assembled in the form of the following three features: known Ancient States, let alone the Absolute Monarchies, has been formally
l. All the State Apparatuses function both by repression and by ideology, very similar to the one we know today, the number of Ideological State Appa­
with the difference that the (Repressive) State Apparatus functions massively ratuses is smaller and their individual types are different. For example, we
and predominantly by repression, whereas the Ideological State Apparatuses observe that during the Middle Ages, the Church (thereligious ideological
function massively and predominantly by ideology. State apparatus) accumulated a number of functions which have today
2. Whereas the (Repressive) State Apparatus constitutes an organized devolved on to several distinct ideological State apparatuses, new ones in
whole whose different parts are centralized beneath a commanding unity, relation to the past I am invoking, in particular educational and cultural
that of the politics of class struggle applied by the political representatives functions. Alongside the Church there was the family Ideological State Appa­
of the ruling classes in possession of State power, the Ideological State Appa­ ratus, which played a considerable part, incommensurable with its role in
ratuses are multiple, distinct, 'relatively autonomous' and capable of provid­ capitalist social formations. Despite appearances, the Church and the Family
ing an objective field to contradictions which express, in forms which may were not the only Ideological State Apparatuses. There was also a political
be limited or extreme, the effects of the clashes between the capitalist class Ideological State Apparatus (the Estates General, the Parlement, the differ­
struggle and the proletarian class struggle, as well as their subordinate forms. ent political factions and Leagues, the ancestors of the· modern political
3. Whereas the unity of the (Repressive) State Apparatus is secured by parties, and the whole political system of the free Communes and then of
its unified and centralized organization under the leadership of the repre­ the Villes4), There was also a powerful 'proto-trade-union' Ideological State
sentatives of the classes in power executing the politics of the class struggle Apparatus, if I may venture such an anachronistic term (the powerful mer­
of the classes in power, the unity of the different Ideological State Appara­ chants' and bankers' guilds and the journeymen's associations, etc.). Pub­
tuses is secured, usually in contradictory forms, by the ruling ideology, the lishing and Communications, even, saw an indisputable development, as did
ideology of the ruling class. the theatre; initially both were integral parts of the Church, then they
Taking these features into account, it is possible to represent the repro­ became more and more independent of it.
duction of the relations of production in the following way, according to a In the pre-capitalist historical period which I have examined extremely
kind of 'division of labour'. broadly, it is absolutely clear that there was one dominant Ideological State
The role of the repressive State apparatus, insofar as it is a repressive Apparatus, the Church, which concentrated within it not only religious func­
apparatus, consists essentially in securing by force (physical or otherwise) tions, but also educational ones, and a large proportion of the functions of
the political conditions of the reproduction of relations of production which communications and 'culture'. It is no accident that all ideological struggle,
are in the last resort relations of exploitation. Not only does the State appa­ from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, starting with the first shocks

I
ratus contribute generously to its own reproduction (the capitalist State con­ of the Reformation, was concentrated in an imti0clerical and anti-religious

I
tains political dynasties, military dyn asties, etc.), but also and abov�,all, the struggle; rather this is a function precisely of the dominant position of the
State apparatus secures by repression (from the most brutal physical force, religious ideological State apparatus.
via mere administrative commands and interdictions, to open and tacit cen­ The foremost objective and achievement of the French Revolution was not
sorship) the political conditions for the action of the Ideological S,tate Appa­ just to transfer State power from the feudal aristocracy to the merchant­
ratuses. capitalist bourgeoisie, to break part of the former repressive State apparatus
In fact, it is the latter which largely secure the reproduction specifically and replace it with a new one (e,g., the national popular Army)-but also to
of the relations of production, behind a 'shield' provided by the repressive attack the number-one Ideological State Apparatus: the Church. Hence the
State apparatus. It is here that the role of the ruling ideology is heavily civil constitution of the clergy, the confiscation of ecclesiastical wealth, and
concentrated, the ideology of the ruling class, which holds State power. It is the creation of new ideological State apparatuses to replace the religious
the intermediation of the ruling ideology that ensures a (sometimes teeth­ ideological State apparatus in its dominant role.
gritting) 'harmony' between the repressive State apparatus and the Ideolog­ * * *
ical State Apparatuses, and between the different State Ideological
Apparatuses. I believe that the ideological State apparatus which has been installed in
We are thus led to envisage the following hypothesis, as a function pre­ the dominant position in mature capitalist social formations as a result of a
cisely of the diversity of ideological State Apparatuses in their single, because violent political and ideological class struggle against the old dominant ide­
shared, role of the reproduction of the relations of production. ological State apparatus, is the educational ideological apparatus.
Indeed we have listed a relatively large number of ideological State appa­
ratuses in contemporary capitalist social formations: the educational appa­ 4. The Villes: a system instituted under Napoleon moners. When convened by Louis XVI to stave off
ratus, the religious apparatus, the family apparatus, the political apparatus, in I 799 that divided the country into di.stricts social unrest in I 789, they instead created their
administered by a central government. The Estates own assembly, the Parlement, \\_'hi<::h
_ was .over­
the trade-union apparatus, the communications apparatus, the 'cultural' General: the three groups holding distinct political thrown in I 792 during the French Revolution and
::tnn::lr::1t11,. Ptc. oowers in France: the clern:v. nobilitv. and com-
 1494 / LOUIS ALTHUSSER IDEOLOGY AND IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUSES / 1495

* * * Each mass ejected en route is practically provided with the ideology which
suits the role it has to fulfil in class society: the role of the exploited (with a
Why is the educational apparatus in fact the dominant ideological State 'highly-developed'• 'professional', 'ethical', 'civic', 'national' and a-political
apparatus in capitalist social formations, and how does it function? consciousness); the role of the agent of exploitation (ability to give the work­
For the moment it must suffice to say: ers orders and speak to them: 'human relations'), of the agent of repression
1. All ideological State apparatuses, whatever they are, contribute to the (ability to give orders and enforce obedience 'without discussion', or ability
same result: the reproduction of the relations of production, i.e. of capitalist to manipulate the demagogy of a political leader's rhetoric), or of the pro­
relations of exploitation. fessional ideologist (ability to treat consciousnesses with the respect, i.e. with
2. Each of them contributes towards this single result in the way proper the contempt, blackmail, and demagogy they deserve, adapted to the accents
to it. The political apparatus by subjecting individuals to the political State of Morality, of Virtue, of 'Transcendence', of the Nation, of France's World
ideology, the 'indirect' (parliamentary) or 'direct' (plebiscitary or fascist) Role, etc.).
'democratic' ideology. The communications apparatus by cramming every Of course, many of these contrasting Virtues (modesty, resignation, sub­
'citizen' with daily doses of nationalism, chauvinism, liberalism, moralism, missiveness on the one hand, cynicism, contempt, arrogance, confidence,
etc., by means of the press, the radio and television.The same goes for the self-importance, even smooth talk and cunning on the other) are also taught
cultural apparatus (the role of sport in chauvinism is of the first importance), in the Family, in the Church, in the Army, in Good Books, in films and even
etc. The religious apparatus by recalling in sermons and the other great in the football 6 stadium. But no other ideological State apparatus has the
ceremonies of Birth, Marriage and Death, that man is only ashes, unless he obligatory (and not least, free) audience of the totality of the children in the
loves his neighbour to the extent of turning the other cheek to whoever capitaiist social formation, eight hours a day for five or six days out of seven.
strikes first.The family apparatus .. . but there is no need to go on. But it is by an apprenticeship in a variety of know,how wrapped up in the
3. This concert is dominated by .a single score, occasionally disturbed by massive inculcation of the ideology of the ruling class that the relations of
contradictions (those of the cemnants of former ruling classes, those of the production in a capitalist social formation, i.e. the relations of _exploited to
proletarians and their organizations): the score of the Ideology of the current exploiters and exploiters to exploited, are largely reproduced. The mecha­
ruling class which integrates into its music the great themes of the Human­ nisms which produce this vital result for the capitalist regime are naturally
ism of the Great Forefathers, 5 who produced the Greek Miracle even before covered up and concealed by a' universally reigning ideology of the School,
Christianity, and afterwards the Glory of Rome, the Eternal City, and the universally reigning because it is one of the essential forms of the ruling
themes of Interest, particular and general, etc, nationalism, moralism and bourgeois ideology: an ideology which represents the School as a neutral
economism. environment purged ·of ideology· (because it is .. .lay), where teachers
4. Nevertheless, in this concert, one ideological State apparatus certainly respectful of the 'conscience' and 'freedom' of the children who are entrusted
has the dominant role, although hardly anyone lends an ear to its music: it to them (in complete confidence) by their 'parents' (who are free, too, i.e.
is so silent! This is the School. the owners of their children) open up for them the path to the freedom,
. It takes children from every class at infant-school age; and then for years, morality and responsibility of adults by their own example, by knowledge,
the years in which the child is most 'vulnerable', squeezed between the family literature and their 'liberating' virtues. . .
State apparatus and the educational State apparatus, it drums into them, I ask the pardon of those teachers who, in dreadful'conditions, attempt to
whether it uses new or old methods, a certain amount of 'know-how' wrapped turn t_he few weapons they can find in the history and learning they 'teach'
in the ruling ideology (Frep.ch, arithmetic, natural history, the sciences, lit­ against the ideology, the system and the practices in which they are trapped.
erature) or simply the ruling ideology in its pure state (ethics, civic instruc­ They are a kind of hero. But they are rare and how many (the majority) do
tion, philosophy). Somewhere around the age of sixteen, a huge mass of not even begin to suspect the 'work' the system (which is bigger than they
children are ejected 'into production': these are the workers or small peas­ are and crusl;ies them) forces them to do, or worse, put all their heart and
ants. Another portion of scholastically adapted-youth carries on: and, for ingenuity into performing it with the most advanced awareness (the famous
better or worse, it goes somewhat further, until it falls by the wayside and new methods!). So little do they suspect it that their own devotion co_ntrib­
fills the posts of small and middle technicians, white-collar workers, small utes to the rnaintenance and nourishment of this ideological representatiqn
and middle executives, petty bourgeois of all kinds. A last portion reaches of the School, which makes the School today as 'natural', indispensable­
the summit, either to fall into intellectual semi-employment, or to provide, useful and even beneficial for our contemporaries as the Church was 'nat­
as well as the 'intellectuals of the collective labourer', the agents of exploi­ ural', indispensable and generous for our ancestors a few centuries ago.
tation (capitalists, managers), the agents of repression (soldiers, policemen; In fact, _the Church has been replaced today in its role as the dominant

I
politicians, administrators, etc.) and the professional ideologists (priests of Ideological State Apparatus by the School. It is coupled with the Family just
all sorts, most of whom are convinced 'laymen'). as the Church was once coupled with the Fainily. We can now claim that
the unprecedentedly deep crisis which is now shaking the education system
5. Tha_t is, privileging the concept of "Mari" and idealizing the achie'veffients of the ancient Greeks as well
as Christianity and the Catholic Church. 6. Soccer.
1496 LOUIS ALTHUSSEH IDEOLOGY AND IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUSES / 1497

of so many States across the globe, often in conjunction with a crisis (already the purely imaginary, i.e. null, result of 'day's residues', presented in an arbi­
proclaimed in the Communist Manifesto) shaking the family system, takes trary arrangement and order, sometimes even 'inverted', in other words, in
on a political meaning, given that the School (and the School-Family couple) 'disorder'. For them, the dream was the imaginary, it was empty, null and
constitutes the dominant Ideological State Apparatus, the Apparatus playing arbitrarily 'stuck together' (bricole), once the eyes had closed, from the res­
a determinant part in the reproduction of the relations of production of a idues of the only full and positive reality, the reality of the day. This is exactly
mode of production threatened in its existence by the world class struggle. the status of philosophy and ideology (since in this book philosophy is ide­
ology par excellence) in The German Ideology.
Ideology, then, is for Marx an imaginary assemblage (bricolage), 1 a pure
From On Ideology
dream, empty and vain, constituted by the 'day's residues' from the only full
When I put forward the concept of an Ideological State Apparatus, when I and positive reality, that of the concrete history of concrete material individ­
said that the TSAs 'function by ideology', I invoked a reality which needs a uals materially producing their existence. It is on this basis that ideology has
little discussion: ideology. no history in The German Ideology, since its history is outside it, where the
only existing history is the history of concrete individuals, etc. In T1ie German
Ideology, the thesis that ideology has no history is therefore a purely negative
Ideology Has No History thesis, since it means both:
I. ideology is nothing insofar as it is a pure dream (manufactured by who
One word first of all to expound the reason in principle which seems to me
knows, what power: if not by the alienation of the division of labour, but that,
to found, or at least to justify, the project of a theory of ideology in general,
too, is a negative determination);
and not a theory of particular ideologies, which, whatever their form (reli­
2. ideology has no history, which emphatically does not mean that there
gious, ethical, legal, political), always express class positions.
is no history in it (on the contrary, for it is merely the pale, empty and
It is quite obvious that it is necessary to proceed towards a theory of ide­
inverted reflection of real history) but that it has no history of its own.
ologies in the two respects I have just suggested. It will then be clear that a
Now, while the thesis I wish to defend formally speaking adopts the terms
theory of ideologies depends in the last resort on the history of social for­
of The German Ideology ('ideology has no history'), it is radically different
mations, and thus of the modes of production combined in social formations,
from the positivist and historicist thesis of The German Ideology.
and of the class struggles which develop in them. In this sense it is clear that
For on the one hand, I think it is possible to hold that ideologies have a
there can be no question of a theory of ideologies in general, since ideologies
history of their own (although it is determined in the last instance by the class
(defined in the double respect suggested above: regional and class) have a
struggle); and on the other, I think it is possible to hold that ideology in
history, whose determination in the last instance is clearly situated outside
general has no history, not in a negative sense (its history is external to it),
ideologies alone, although it involves them.
but in an absolutely positive sense.
On the contrary, if I am able to put forward the project of a theory of
This sense is a positive one if it is true that the peculiarity of ideology is
ideology in general, and if this theory really is one of the element� o,n which
that it is endowed with a structure and a functioning such as to make it a
theories of ideologies depend, that entails an apparently paradoxical propo­
non-historical reality, i.e. an omni-historical reality, in the sense in which
sition which I shall express in the following terms: ideology has no history.
that structure and functioning are immutable, present in the same form
As we know, this formulation appears in so many words in a passage from
throughout what we can call history, in the sense in which the Communist
The German Ideology. 7 Marx utters it with respect to metaphysics, which, he
Manifesto defines history as the history of class struggles, i.e. the history of
says, has no more historithan ethics (meaning also the other forms of ide­
class societies.
ology).
To give a theoretical reference-point here, I might say that, to return to
In The German Ideology, this formulation appears in a plainly positivist8
our example of the dream, in its Freudian conception this time, our propo­
context. Ideology is conceived as a pure illusion, a pure dream, i.e. as
sition: ideology has no history, can and must (and in a way which has abso­
nothingness. All its reality is external to it. Ideology is thus thought as an
lutely nothing arbitrary about i�, but, quite the reverse, is theoretically
imaginary construction whose status is exactly like the theoretical status of
necessary, for there is an organic link between the two propositions) be
the dream among writers before Freud. 9 For these writers, the dream was
related directly to Freud's proposition that the unconscious is eternal, i.e. that
it has no history.
7. "The phantoms formed in the human br3.in are thinking and the products of their thinking." TTie If eternal means, not transcendent to all (temporal) history, but omni­
a!s0 1 necessarily, sublimates of their material life� Gennan Ideology (1846), in TTie Marx-Engels
Reader, ed. Roberi C. Tucker, 2.d ed. (New York,
present, trans-historical and therefore immutable in form throughout the
processes, which is empirically verifiable and

I
bound to material premises.· Morality, religion, Norton, 1978), pp. 154-55. extent of history, I shall adopt Freud's expression word for word, and write
metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their cor­ 8. Taking knowledge and meanipg to derive solely
from what can ·be empirically observed.
ideology is eternal, exactly like the unconscious. And I add that I find this
responding forms of c.onsciousness, thus no longer
retain the semblance of independence. They have 9. SIGMUND FREUD (1856-1939), Austrian foun­
no history, no development; but men, developing der of psychoanalysis; The Interpretation of Dreams
their material production and their materia] inter� (I 900) was his seminal work. I. A term associated with the French anthropologist CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS (b. 1908), who employed it to
course, alter, along with their real existence, their describe the patchwork of tools used in his structuralist methodology.
 1498 / LOUIS ALTHUSSER
IDEOLOGY ANO IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUSES / 1499

c omparison theoretically justified by the fact that the eternity of the uncon­ tion: Priests or Despots are responsible. They 'forged' the Beautiful Lies so
scious is not unrelated to the eternity of ideology in general. that, in the belief that they were obeying God, men would in fact obey the
That is why I believe I am ju stified, hypothetically at least, in proposing a Priests and Despots, who are usually in alliance in their imposture, the
theory of ideology in general, in the sense that Freud presented a theory of Priests acting in the interests of the Desp ots or vice versa, accor ding to
the unconscious in general. the political positions of the 'theoreticians' concerned, There is therefore a
To simplify the phrase, it is c onvenient, taking into account what has been ca use for the imaginary transp osition of the real conditions of existence: that
said about ideologies, to use the plain term ideology to designate ideology in cause is the existence of a small number of cynical men who base their
general, which I have just said has no history, or, what comes to the same domination and exploitation of the 'people' on a falsified representation o f
thing, is eternal, i.e. omnipresent in its immutable form throughout history the world which they have imagined in order to enslave other minds by dom­
( = the history of social formations containing social classes). For the inating their imaginations.
moment I .shall restrict myself to 'class societies' and their history. The second answer (that of Feuerbach, taken over word for word by Marx
in his Early Works) is more 'p rofound', i.e. just as false. It, too , seeks and
Ideology Is a 'Representation' of the Imaginary Relationship of
finds a cause for the imaginary transp osition and distortion o f men's real
Individuals to Their Real Conditions of Existence conditions of existence, in short, for the alienation in the imagina ry o f the
representation of men's conditions of existence. This cause is no longer
In order to approach my central thesis on the structure 'and functioning of Priests or Despots, nor their active imagination and the passive imagination
ide ology, I shall first present two theses, one negative, the other positive. The of their victims. This cau se is the material alienation which reigns in the
first conce rns the object which is 'rep resented' in the imaginary form of conditions of existence of men themselves. This is how, in The Jewish Ques­
ideology, the second concerns the materiality of ideology. tion and elsewhere, Marx defends the Feue rbachian idea that men make
THESIS I: Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to themselves an alienated ( = imaginary) representation of their c onditions of
their real conditions of existence. existence because these conditions of existence are themselves a lienating (in
We commonly call religious ideology, ethical ideology, legal ideology, the 1844 Manuscripts: 3 because these conditions are dominated by the
political ideology, etc., so many 'world outlooks'. Of course, assuming that essence of alienated society-'alienated labour').
we do not live one of these ideologies as the truth (e.g. 'believe' in God, Duty, All these interpretations thus take literally the thesis which they presup­
J ustice, etc. . . .), we admit that the ideology we are discussing from a critical p ose, and on which they depend, i.e. that what is reflected in the imaginary
point of view, examining it as the ethnologist examines the myths of a 'prim­ representation of the world found in an ideology is the conditions of existence
itive society', that these 'world outlooks' are largely imaginary, i.e. do not of men, i.e. their real world.
'correspond to reality.' N ow I can return to a thesis which I have already advanced: it is not their
However, while admitting that they do riot correspond to reality, i.e. that r eal conditions of existence, their real w orld, that 'men' 'repr esent to them­
they constitute an illusion, we admit ,that they do make allusion to reality, selves' in ideology, but above all it is their relation to those conditions of
and that they need only be 'interpreted' to discover the r eality of ,ti:!� world existence which is represented to them there. It is this relation which is at
behind. their imaginary representation of that world (ideology = illusion/ the centre of every ideological, i.e. imaginary, representation of the real
allusion). world. It is this relation that contains the 'cause' which has to explain the
There are different types of interpretation, the most famous of which are imaginary distortion of the ideological representation of the real wor ld. Or
the mechanistic type, current in the eighteenth century (God is the imaginary r ather, to leave aside the language of causality it is necessary to advance the
representation of the re al King), and· the 'hermeneutic' interpr etation, in­ thesis that it is the imaginary nature of this relation which underlies all the
augurated by the earliest Church Fathers, and revived by Feuerbach and imaginary distortion that we can observe (if we do not live in its truth) in all
the theologico-phil osophical school which descends from him, e.g. the the­ ideol ogy.
ologian Barth2 (to Feuer bach, for ex ample, God is the essence of r eal Man). To speak in a Marxist language, if it is true that the representation of the
The essential point is that on condition that we interpret the imaginary trans­ r eal conditi ons, of existence of the individu als occ upying the p osts of agents
position (and inversion) of ideology we arrive at the concl usion. that iri ide­ of production, exploitation, rep ression, ideologization and scientific practice,
ology 'inen represent their real conditions of existence to themsel�es 1n ari does .in the last analysis arise from the relations of p ro duction, and from
imaginary form'. , · relations deriving from the relations of production; we can say the following:
Unfo rtunately, this interpretation leaves one small problem unsettled: why all ideology ,represents in its necessarily imaginary distortion not the existing
do men 'need' this imaginary transposition of their real conditions of exis­ relations of p rod uction (and the o ther rel ations that derive from them), but
tence in orde r to ' represent to themseives' their real conditions of existence? ab ove all the (imaginary) relationship of individuals to the relations of pro­
The fi rst answer (that of the eighteenth century) proposes a simple solu- duction and the relations that derive from them. Wha t is represented in
ideology is therefore not the system of the real relations which govern the
2, Karl Barth (1886-1968), German theologian; Feuerbach" (1845}, The German Ideology, and The
Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872}, .German philos­ Jewish Question (1843).
opher to whom Marx responded in "Theses· on 3, Marx's Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 was not published until 1932·,
1500 / LOUIS ALTHUSSER IDEOLOGY AND IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUSES / 1501

existence of individuals, but the imaginary relation of those individuals to instance, to the relations of production and to class relations (ideology = an
the real relations in which they live. imaginary relation to real relations). I shall say that this imaginary relation
If this is the case, the question of the 'cause' of the imaginary distortion is itself endowed with a material existence.
of the real relations in ideology disappears and must be replaced by a differ­ Now I observe the following.
ent question: why is the representation given to individuals of their (individ­ An individual believes in God, or Duty, or Justice, etc. This belief derives
ual) relation to the social relations which govern their conditions of existence (for everyone, i.e. for all those who live in an ideological representation of
and their collective and individual life necessarily an imaginary relation? And ideology, which reduces ideology to ideas endowed by definition with a spir­
what is the nature of this imaginariness? Posed in this way, the question itual existence) from the ideas of the individual concerned, i.e. from him as
explodes the solution by a 'clique'", by a group of individuals (Priests or a subject with a consciousness which contains the ideas of his belief. In this
Despots) who are the authors of the great ideological mystification, just as way, i.e. by means of the absolutely ideological 'conceptual' device
it explodes the solution by the alienated character of the real world. We shall (dispositif) thus set up (a subject endowed with a consciousness in which he
see why later in my exposition. For the moment I shall go no further. freely forms or freely recognizes ideas in which he believes), the (material)
THESIS II: Ideology has a material existence. attitude of the subject concerned naturally follows.
I have already touched on this thesis by saying that the 'ideas' or 'repre­ The individual in question behaves in such and such a way, adopts such
sentations', etc., which seem to make up ideology do not ha_ve an ideal (ideale and such a practical attitude, and, what is more, participates in certain reg­
or ideelle) 5 or spiritual existence, but a material existence. I even suggested ular practices which are those of the ideological apparatus on which 'depend'
that the ideal (ideale, ideelle) and spiritual existence of 'ideas' arises exclu­ the ideas which he has in all consciousness freely chosen as a subject. If he
sively in an ideology of the 'idea' and of ideology, and let me add, in an believes i1,1 God, he goes to Church to attend Mass, kneels, prays, confesses,
ideology of what seems to have 'founded' this conception since the emer­ does penance (once it was material in the ordinary sense of the term) and
gence of the sciences, i.e. what the practicians of the sciences represent to naturally repents and so on. If he believes in Duty, he will have the corre­
themselves in their spontaneous ideology as 'ideas', true or false. Of course, sponding attitudes, inscribed in ritual practices 'according to the correct
presented in affirmative form, this thesis is unproven. I simply ask that the principles'. If he believes- in Justice, he will submit unconditionally to the
reader be favourably disposed towards it, say, in the name of materialism. A rules of the Law, and may even protest when they are violated, sign petitions,
long series of arguments would be necessary to prove it. take part in a demonstration, etc.
This hypothetical thesis of the not spiritual but material existence of 'ideas' Throughout this schema we observe that the ideological representation of
or other 'rep,esentations' is indeed necessary if we are to advance in our ideology is itself forced to recognize that every 'subject' endowed with a 'con­
analysis of the nature of ideology. Or rather, it is merely useful to us in order sciousness' and believing in the 'ideas' that his 'consciousness' inspires in
the better to reveal what every at all serious analysis of any ideology will him and freely accepts, must 'act according to his ideas', must therefore
immediately and empirically show to every observer, however critical. inscribe his own ideas as a free subject in the actions of his material practice.
While discussing the ideological State apparatuses and their practices, I If he does not do so, 'that is wicked'.
said that each of them was the realization of an ideology (the unity_ of these Indeed, if he does not do what he ought to do as a function of what he
different regional ideologies-religious, ethical, legal, political, aesthetic, believes, it is because he does something else, which, still as a function of
etc.-being assured by their subjection to the ruling ideology). I now return the same idealist scheme, implies that he has other ideas in his head as well
to this thesis: an ideology always exists in·an apparatus, and its practice, or as those he proclaims, and that he acts according to these other ideas, as a
practices. This existence is material. man who is either 'inconsistent' ('no one is willingly evil') or cynical, or per­
Of course, the material existence of the ideology in an apparatus and its verse. .
practices does not have the same modality as the material existence of a In every case, the ideology of ideology thus recognizes, despite its imagi­
paving-stone or a rifle. But, at the risk of being taken for a Neo-Aris'totelian nary distortion, that the 'ideas' of a human subject exist in his actions, or
(NB Marx had a very high regard for Aristotle),6 I shall say that 'matter is ought to exist in his actions, and if that is not the case, it lends him other
disc,ti�sed in many senses', or rather that it exists in different modaliti�s, all ideas corresponding to the actions (however perverse) that he does perform.
rooted in the last instance in 'physical' matter. This ideology talks of actions: I shall talk of actions inserted into practices.
Having said this, let me move straight on and see what happens to the And I shall point out that these practices are governed by the rituals in which
'individuals' who live in ideology, i.e. in a determinate (religious, ethical, etc.) these practices are inscribed, within the material existence of an ideological
representation of the world whose imaginary distortion depends on their apparatus, be it only a small part of that apparatus: a small mass in a small
imaginary relation to their conditions of existence, in other words, in the last church, a funeral, a minor match at a sports' club, a school day, a political
party meeting, etc.
4. I use this very modern term deliberately. For ale means "ideaI"·and ideeUe me�ns "ideati0ral" or
Besides, we are indebted to Pascal's7 defensive 'dialectic' for the wonderful
even in Communist circles,· unfortunately, it is a "conceptual."
commonplace to "explain" some political deviation 6. The Greek philosopher ARISTOTLE (384-322 7. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), French theologian I 638), whose posthumously published writings
by the action of a "clique" {Althusser's note]. 8.C.E.) emphasized the direct observation of nature and mathematician; he was influenced by the reli­ fostered a movement condemned as heretical by
5. Though the words sound similar in French, ide- and insisted on rigorous scientific procedure. gious thinking of Bishop Cornelius Jansen (1585- the Roman Catholic Church.
1502 / LOUIS ALTHUSSER IDEOLOGY AND IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUSES / 1503

formula which will enable us to invert the order of the notional schema of with the rise of bourgeois ideology, above all with the rise of legal ideology,8
ideology. Pascal says more or less: 'Kneel down, move your lips in prayer, the category of the subject (which may function under other names: e.g., as
and you will believe.' He thus scandalously inverts the order of things, bring­ the soul in Plato,9 as God, etc.) is the constitutive category of all ideology,
ing, like Christ, not peace but strife, and in addition something hardly Chris­ whatever its determination (regional or class) and whatever its historical
tian (for woe to him who brings scandal into the world!)-scandal itself. A date-since ideology has no history.
fortunate scandal which makes him stick with Jansenist defiance to a lan­ I say: the category of the subject is constitutive.of all ideology, but at the
guage that directly names the reality. same time and immediately I add that the category of the .subject is only
I will be allowed to leave Pascal to the arguments of his ideological struggle constitutive of all ideology insofar as all ideology has the function (which
with the religious ideological State apparatus of his day. And I s·hall be defines it) of 'constituting' concrete individuals as subjects. In the interaction
expected to use a more directly Marxist vocabulary, if that is possible, for-we of this double constitution exists the functioning of all ideology, ideology
are advancing in still poorly explored domains. being nothing but its functioning in the material forms of existence of that
I shall therefore say that, where only a single subject (such and such an functioning.
individual) is concerned, the existence of the ideas of his belief is material * * *
in that his ideas are his material actions inserted into material practices gov­
erned by material rituals which are themselves defined by ihe material ideo­ At work in this reaction is the ideological recognition function which is
logical apparatus from which derive the ideas of that subject. Naturally, the one of the two functions of ideology as such (its inverse being the function
four inscriptions of the adjective 'material' in my proposition must be of misrecognition-meconnaissance).
affected by different modalities: the materialities of a displacement for going To take a highly 'concrete' example, we all have friends who, when they
to mass, of kneeling down, of the gesture of the sign of the cross, or of the knock on· our door and we ask, through the door, the question 'Who's there?',
mea culpa, ofa sentence, of a prayer, of an act of contrition, of a penitence, answer (since 'it's obvious') 'It's me'. And we recognize that 'it is him', or
of a gaze, of a hand-shake, of an external verbal discourse or an 'internal' 'her'. We open the door, and 'it's true, it really was she who was there'. To
verbal discourse (consciousness), are not one and the same materiality. I take another example, when we recognize somebody of our (previous)
shall leave on one side the problem of a theory of the differences between acquaintance ((re)-connaissance) in the street, we show him that we have
th'e modalities of materiality. recognized him (and have recognized that he has recognized us) by saying
It remains that in-this inverted presentation of things, we are not dealing to him 'Hello, my friend', and shaking his hand (a material ritual practice of
with an 'inversion' at all, since it is clear that certain notions have purely and ideological recognition in everyday life--in France, at least; elsewhere, there
simply disappeared from our presentation, whereas others on the contrary are other rituals),
survive, and new terms appear. In this preliminary remark and these concrete illustrations, I only wish to
Disappeared: the term ideas. point out that you and I are always already subjects, and as such constantly

I
Survive: the terms subject, consciousness, belief, actions. practice the rituals of ideological recognition, which gl\arantee for us that
Appear: the terms practices, rituals, ideological'apparatus. we are indeed concrete, individual, distinguishable and (naturally) irreplace­

I
* * able subjects. The writing I am currently executing and the reading yoti are
*
currently1 performing are also in this respect rituals of ideological recognic
But this very presentation reveals that we ha�e retained the following tion, including the 'obviousness' with which the 'truth' or 'error' of my reflec­
notions: subject, consciousness, belief, actions. From this sei:ies I shall tions may impose itself on you.
immediately extract the decisive central term on which everything else But to recognize that we are subjects and that we function in the practical
depends: the notion of the subject. rituals of the most elementary everyday life (the ·hand-shake, the fact of
And I shall immediately set down two conjoint theses: calling you by your name, the fact of knowing, even if I do not know what it
I. ·there is no practice except by and in an ideology; is, that you 'have' a name of your own, which means that you are recognized
2: :there is no "ideofogy except by the subject and for subjects. as a unique sµbject, etc.)-this recognition only gives us the 'consciousness'
I can now come to my central thesis. of our incessant (eternal) practice of ideological recognition-its conscious­
ness, i.e. its recognition-but in no sense does it give us the (scientific)
kno-wledge of the mechanism of this recognition. Now it is this knowledge
· Ideology lnterpellates Individuals as Subjects
that-we have to reach, if you will, while speaking in ideology, and from within
This thesis is simply a matter of making my last proposition explicit: there is
no ideology except by the subject and for subjects. Meaning, there is no 8. Which borrowed the legal category of "subject 1. NB: this double "currently" is one ITlore proof
ideology except for concrete subjects, and this destination for ideology is only in law" to make an ideological notion: man is by
nature a subject [Althusser's note].
of the fact that ideology is "eternal/' since these
two currentlys n are separated by an indefinite
11

made possible by the subject: meaning, by the category of the subject and its 9. In discussing the structure of the ideal city in interval; I am writing these_ l!nes on April 6, l.969,
functioning. . . . .
his Repulilic, the Greek philosopher PLATO (ca.
427-ca. 347 D.C.E.) analyzed the structure of the
you_ may read them ·at any. subsequent tim�
[Althusser's note].
By this I mean that, even if it only appears under this name (the subject) inhabitants' souls.
 1504 / Lou,s·ALTHUSSER IDEOLOGY AND IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUSES / 1505

ideology we have to outline a discourse which tries to break with ideology, individuals are always-already interpellated by ideology as subjects, which
in order to dare to be the beginning of a scientific (i.e. subjectless) discourse necessarily leads us to one last proposition: individuals are alwccys-already
on ideology. subjects. Hence individuals are 'abstract' with respect to the subjects which
Thus in order to represent why the category of the 'subject' is constitutive they always-already are. This proposition might seem paradoxical.
of ideology, which only exists by constituting concrete subjects as subjects, That an individual is always-already a subject, even before he is born, is
I shall employ a special mode of exposition: 'concrete' enough to be recog­ nevertheless the plain reality, accessible to everyone and not a paradox at
nized, but abstract enough to be thinkable and thought, giving rise to a all. Freud shows that individuals are always 'abstract' with respect to the
knowledge. subjects they always-already are, simply by noting the ideological ritual that
As a first formulation I shall say: all ideology hails or interpellates concrete surrounds the expectation of a 'birth', that 'happy event'. Everyone knows
individuals as concrete subjects, by the functioning of the category of the how much and in what way an unborn child is expected. Which amounts to
subject. saying, very prosaically, if we agree to drop the 'sentiments', i.e. the forms of
This is a proposition which entails that we distinguish for the moment family ideology (paternal/maternal/conjugal/fraternal) in which the unborn
between concrete individuals on the one hand and concrete subjects on the child is expected: it is certain in advance that it will bear its Father's Name,
other, although at this level concrete subjects only exist insofar as they are and will therefore have an identity and be irreplaceable. Before its birth, the
supported by a concrete individual. child is therefore always-already a subject, appointed as a subject in and by
I shall then suggest that ideology 'acts' or 'functions' in such a way that it the specific familial ideological configuration in which it is 'expected' once
'recruits' subjects among the individuals (it recruits them all), or 'transforms' it has been conceived. I hardly need add that this familial ideological con­
the individuals into subjects (it transforms them all) by that very precise figuratiori is, in its uniqueness, highly structured, and that it is in this implac­
operation which · I have called interpellation or hailing, and which can be able and more or less 'pathological' (presupposing that any meani.1g can be
imagined along the lines of the most commonplace everyday police (or other) assigned to that term) structure that the former subject-to-be will have to
hailing: 'Hey, you there!'2 'find' 'its' place, i.e. 'become' the sexual subject (boy or girl) which it already
Assuming that the theoretical scene I have imagined takes place in the is in advance. It is clear that this ideological constraint and pre-appointment,
street, the hailed individual will turn round. By this mere one-hundred-and­ and all the rituals of rearing and then education in the family, have some
eighty-degree physical conversion, he becomes a subject. Why? Because he relationship with what Freud studied in the forms of the pre-genital and
has recognized that the hail was 'really' addressed to him, and that 'it was genital 'stages' of sexuality, i.e. in the 'grip' of what Freud registered by its
really him who was hailed' (and not someone else). Experience shows that effects as being the unconscious. But let us leave this point, too, on one side.
the practical telecommunication of hailings is such that they hardly ever miss Let me go one step further. What I shall now turn my attention to is the
their man: verbal call or whistle, the one hailed always recognizes that it is way the 'actors' in this mise en scene ofinterpellation, and their respective
really him who is being hailed. And yet it is a strange phenomenon, and one roles, are reflected in the very structure of all ideology.
which cannot be explained solely by 'guilt feelings', despite the large numbers
who 'have something on their consciences'.
An Example: The Christian Religious Ideology
Naturally for the convenience and clarity of my little theoretical :theatre I
have had to present things in the form of a sequence, with a before and an As the formal structure of all ideology is always the same, I shall restrict my
after, and thus in the form of a temporal· succession. There are. individuals analysis to a single example, one accessible to everyone, that of religious
·walking along. Somewhere (usually behind them) the hail rings out: 'Hey, ideology, with the proviso that the same demonstration can be produced for
you there!' One individual (nine times out of ten it is the right one) turns ethical, legal, political, aesthetic ideology, etc.
round, believing/suspecting/knowing that it is for him, i.e. recognizing that Let us therefore consider the Christian religious ideology. I shall use a:
'it really is he' who is meant by the hailing. But in reality these things happen rhetorical figure and 'make it speak', i.e. collect into a fictional discourse
without any succession. The existence of ideology and the hailing or inter­ what it 'says' not only in its two Testaments, its Theologians, Sermons, but
pellation of individuals as subjects are one and the same thing. also in its practices, its rituals, its ceremonies and its sacraments. The Chris­
* * * tian religious ideology says something like this:
It says: I address myself to you, a human individual called Peter (every
Thus ideology hails or interpellates individuals as. subjects. As ideology is individual is called by his name, in the passive sense, it is never he who
eternal, I must now suppress the temporal form in which I have presented provides his own name), in order to tell you that God exists and that you are
the functioning of ideology, and say: ideology has always-already inter­ answerable to Him. It adds: God addresses himself to you through my voice
pellated individuals as subjects, which amounts to making it clear that (Scripture having collected the Word of God, Tradition having transmitted
it, Papal Infallibility fixing it for ever on 'nice' points). It says: this is who you
2. Hailing as an everyday prac�ice subject. to a precise ritual takes a quite ' special" form in the policeman's
1 are: you are Peter! This is your origin, you were created by God for all eter­
practice of "hailing" which concerns the hailing of "suspects" [Althusser's no.te]. nity, although you were born in the 1920th year of Our Lord! This is your
1506 / LOUIS ALTHUSSER 1, IDEOLOGY AND IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUSES / 1507
i:
II
.,�'
place in the, world! This is what you must do! By these means, if you observe the terrible inversion of hfa image in them (when the subjects wallow in
the ,'law of love' you will be saved, you, Peter, and will become part of the debauchery, i.e. sin).
Glorious Body of Christ! Etc.... * * *
Now this is quite a familiar and banal discourse, but at the same time
quite a surprising.one. Let us decipher into theoretical language this wonderful necessity for the
Surprising .because if we consider that religious ideology is indeed duplication of the Subject into subjects and of the Subject itself into a suhject­
addressed to individuals;a in order to 'transforrrUhem into subjects\by intet­ Suhject.
pellating the individual,.Peter, in order to make him a subject, free to obey We observe that the structure of all ideology, interpellating individuals as
or disobey the appeal, i.e. God's commandments; if it calls these individuals subjects in the name of a Unique and Absolute Subject is speculary, i.e. a
by their names, thus recognizing that they are always-already interpellated mirror-structure, and doubly speculary: this mirror duplication is constitutive
as subjects with a personal identity (to the extent that Pascal's Christ says: of ideology and ensures its functioning. Which means that all ideology is
'It is for you that I have shed this drop of my blood!'); if it interpellates them centred, that the-Absolute Subject occupies the unique place of the Centre,
in.such a way ,that the subject responds: 'Yes, it really is me!' if it obtains from and ihterpellates around it the infinity of individuals into subjects in a double
them the recognition that they really do occupy the place it designates for mirror-connexion such that it subjects the subjects to the Subject, while giv­
them as theirs in the world, a fixed residence: 'It really is me, I am here, a ing them in the Subject in which each subject can contemplate its own image
,it•
worker, a boss or a ·soldier!' in this vale: of tears; if it obtains from them the (present and future) the guarantee that this really concerns them and Him,

!�.·_,
recognition of ,a destination (eternal life or damnation) according to. the and · that since everything takes place in the Family (the. Holy Family: the
respect or contempt they show to '.God's Commandments', Law become Family is. in essence Holy), 'God will recognize his own init', i.e.those who
Love;-if everythh:1g does happen in. this way (in the practices of the well­ ',' have recognized God, and have recognized themselves in Him, will be saved.
known rituals of baptism,,confirmation; communion, confession and extreme Let me summarize what we have discovered about ideology in general.
unction, etc. ...), we should note that all.this '.procedure' to set up Christian .,
11' The dupliq1te mirror-structure of ideology ensures simultaneously:
religious subjects is dominated by a strange phenomenon: the fact that there I. the interpellation.of 'individuals' as subjects;
can only be such a multitude of possible religious subjects on the absolute 2. their subjection to the Subject;
condition that there is a Unique, Absolute, Other Subject, i.e. God. 3. the mutual recognition of subjects and Subject, the subjects' recogni­
It is· convenient to designate this new and remarkable Subject by writ� tion of each other, and finally the subject's recognition of himself;
ing Subject with a capital .S to distinguish it from ordinary subjects, with a 4. the absolute guarantee that everything really is so, and that on condi­
small s. tion that the subjects recognize what they are and behave accordingly, every­
It then emerges that the'interpellation of individuals as subjects presup­ thing will be all right: Amen-'So he it'.
poses the 'existence' of . a Unique and central Other Subject, in whose Name Result: caught in this quadruple system of interpellation as subjects, of
the religious ideology interpellates all individuals as subjects. All this is subjection to the Subject, of universal recognition and of absolute guarantee,
clearly written in what is rightly called the Scriptures. 'Aqd it came to pass the subjects 'work', they 'work by themselves' in the vast majority of cases,
at that time that God the Lord (Yahweh) spoke to Moses in the cloud. And with the exception of the 'bad subjects' who on occasion provoke the inter­
the Lord cried to Moses, "Moses!" And Moses replied "It is (really) I! I am vention of one of the detachments of the (repressive) State apparatus. But
Moses thy servant, speak and I shall listen!" And the Lord spoke to Moses the vast majority of (good) subjects work all right 'all by themselves', i.e. by
and said to-him, "I am that.I am"'. ideology (whose concrete forms are realized in the Ideological State Appa­
God thus defines himself as the Subject par excellence, he who is through ratuses). They are inserted into practices governed by the rituals of the ISAs.
himself and for himself ('I am that.I am'), and he who interpellates his sub­ They 'recognize' the existing state of affairs, that 'it really is true that it is so
ject, the individual subjected to him by his very interpellation; i.e. the indis and not otherwise', and that they must be obedient to God, to their con­
vidualnamed Moses, And Moses, interpellated-called by his Name, having science, to the priest, to de Gaulle, to the boss, to the engineer, that thou
recognized that it 'really' was he who was called by God, recognizes that he shalt 'love thy neighbour as thyself', etc. Their concrete, material behaviour
is a subject, a subject of God, a subject subjected to God, a subject through is simply the inscription in life of the admirable words of the prayer: 'Amen­
the Subject and subjected to the Subject. The proof: he obeys him, and makes So he it'.
his people obey God's Commandments, Yes, the subjects 'work by themselves'. The whole mystery of this effect
. God.is thus the Subject, and Moses'and the innumerable subjects of God's lies in the first two moments of the quadruple system I have c just discussed,
people, the Subject's interlocutors-interpellates: his mirrors, his reflections. or, if you prefer, in the ambiguity of the term subject. In the ordinary use of
Were not men made in the image of God? As all theological reflection proves, the term, subject in fact means: ( I),a free subjectivity, a centre of initiatives,·
whereas He 'could' perfectly well have done without men, God needs them, author of and responsible for its actions; (2) a subjected being, who submits
the Subject needs the subjects, just as men need God, the subjects need the to a higher authority, and is therefore stripped of all freedom except that of
Subject. Better: God needs men, the great Subject needs subjects, even in freely accepting his -submission.This last note gives us the0 rneaning of this
1508 / LOUIS ALTHUSSER PAUL DE MAN 1509

ambiguity, which is merely a reflection of the effect which produces it: the ruled class must necessarily be measured and confronted, ideologies are not
individual is interpellated as a (free) subject in order that he shall submitfreely 'born' in the ISAs but from the social classes at grips in the class struggle:
to the commandments of the Subject, i.e. in order that he shall (freely) accept from their conditions of existence, their practices, their experience of the
his subjection, i.e. in order that he shall make the gestures and actions of his struggle, etc.
subjection 'all by himself'. There are no subjects except by and for their sub­ 1970
jection. That is why they 'work all by themselves'.
'So be it! . .. 'This phrase which registers the effect to be obtained proves
that it is not 'naturally' so ('naturally': outside the prayer, i.e. outside the
ideological intervention).This phrase proves that it has to be so if things are
to be what they must be, and let us let the words slip: if the reproduction of
the relations of production is to be assured, even in the. processes of pro­
PAUL DE MAN
duction and circulation, every day, in the 'consciousness', i.e. in the attitudes
of the individualcsubjects occupying the posts which the socio-technical divi­ 1919-1983
sion of labour assigns to them in production, exploitation, repression, ideo­
logization, scientific. practice, etc. Indeed, what is really in question in this Spurred by the expansion of research universities, American academic literary criti­
mechanism.of the :mirror recognition of the Subject and of the individuals cism flourished from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. Ideas from contempo­
interpellated as subjects, and of the guarantee given by the Subject to the rary Continental philosophy, linguistics, psychoanalysis, and criticism surged into its
subjects if they freely accept their subjection to the Subject's 'command­ comparatively narrow confines, .which had been dominated by the model of close
ments'? The reality in question in this mechanism, the reality which is nec­ reading pr.acticed by New Critics like CLEANTH BROOKS. Central to these new and
essarily ignored (meconnue) in the very forms of recognition (ideology = avowedly theoretical stances toward literature was the group of critics then at Yale
misrecognition/ignorance) is indeed, in the last resort, the reproduction of University, including Paul de Man, HAROLD BLOOM, JACQUES. DERRIDA, Geoffrey
Hartman, J. Hillis Miller, Shoshana. Felman, and de Man's student BARBARA JOHN­
the relations of production and of the relations deriving from them.
SON. Called the "Yale School," they revitalized-or, according to antagonists,
January-A11ril 1969 ruined'--American literary criticism-by importing Continental theory and, to varying
degress, by·espousing deconstruction. An erudite and wide-ranging critic of critics as
well as a sophisticated reader of literary texts, de Man was the most influential literary
P.S.
ii
theorist of the Yale School, and perhaps of his generation. Complementing Derrida's

I
* * * broader philosophical project, de Man promulgated deconstruction in literary criti­

I
cism. His essay "Semiology and Rhetoric" ( 1973) programmatically outlines his model
I have suggested that the ideologies were realized in institutions, in their of deconstructive reading, arguing that rhetoric and figural language ultimately
rituals and their practices, in the ISAs. We have seen that on this basis they undermine determinate .interpretation and that texts become allegories of their own
contribute to that form of class struggle, vital for the ruling class, the repro­ interpretive difficulties. Responding to charges that deconstruction threatens literary
duction of the relations of production. But the point of view itself, however study, de Man shifts focus in "The Return to Philology" ( 1982) to offer a defense of
, ,. theory, grounding it historically in the linguistically oriented tradition of phil"ology
real, is still an .abstract one.
and castigating its critics as alarmists.
In fact, the State and its Apparatuses only have meaning from the point De Man was a prominent academic figure in the United States in his later life, but
of view of the class struggle, as an apparatus of class struggle ensuring class his early life in Europe was marked by the events of World War II, the decisive
oppression and guaranteeing the conditions of exploitation and its reproduc0 historical event of his generation. He was born and schooled in Antwerp, Belgium,
tion. But there. is no class struggle without antagonistic· classes. Whoever where his father was. a manufacturer of medical equipment and his uncle, Hendrik
says class struggle of the ruling class says resistance, revolt and class struggle de Man, was a leading figure in the Socialist Party. In 1937 he entered the University
of the ruled class. of Brussels, first studying engineering and eventually taking degrees in chemistry
(I940) and then philosophy (l 942). While he was a student, Belgium was invaded
* * *
by German forces, and it was under German military occupation from 1940 to 1944 .
It is only from the point of view of the classes, i.e. of the class struggle, De Man tried to flee to Spain in the summer of 1940 but was denied permission to
immigrate; he returned to Belgium in the fall. During this period, he published jour­
that it is possible to explain the ideologies existing in a social formation. Not
nalism on literature and music; in 1939 he wrote for a democratic, antifascist student
only is it from this starting-point that it is possible to explain the realization paper, and from 1940 to 1942 he regularly wrote for a Belgian newspaper, Le Soir
of the ruling ideology in the ISAs and of the forms of class struggle for which (The Evening), then under German control.
the ISAs are the seat and the stake. But it is also and above all from this After the war de Man tried his hand at publishing and translating, but in 1948 he
starting-point that it is possible to understand the provenance of the ideol­ emigrated to the United States, where he worked .at Doubleday Bookstore in New
ogies which are realized in the ISAs and confront one another there. For if York and was introduced to prominent New York intellectuals. With the help of the
it is true that the ISAs represent the form in which the ideology of the ruling writer Mary McCarthy, in 1949 he took a job as an instructor of French at Bard
class must necessarily be realized, and the form in which the ideology of the College, and in I95 I he moved to Boston to teach at the Berlitz language school. In