Documentation:Althusser

Louis Pierre Althusser (1918–1990) was one of the most influential Marxist philosophers of the 20th Century, well renowned for his views reconciling Marxism with Structuralism.His readings of Karl Marx, as well as his own theories on social apparatuses, interpellation and relative autonomy, were discussed and debated worldwide. He is most famous for his concept of ideology, which has been broadly deployed in the social sciences and humanities and has provided a foundation for much post-Marxist philosophy.

Biography

Althusser was born in in Birmandreis, a suburb of Algiers. His grandparents were pieds noirs, or French citizens who had chosen to settle in Algeria. In 1936, the family moved to Lyons, where Althusser was enrolled in the prestigious Lycée de Parc, and later became involved in the Roman Catholic youth group Jeunesse Étudiantes Chrêtiennes.

In 1939, Althusser was admitted to the prestigious École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris. However, before the school year began, he was inducted into the French army. In 1940 Althusser was captured, and spent the remainder of the World War II in a German prisoner of war camp. His experiences of the solidarity, political action, and community of the camp's prisoners became his first experiences of communist ideas. However, the camp conditions also contributed to his lifelong bouts of mental instability and depression.

After spending half a decade as a prisoner of war, Althusser was finally able to attend ENS. Althusser began applying his new leftist political views, attempting to embrace and synthesize Christian and Marxist thought, with one particular area of study being 19th Century German Idealism. In 1948, he was appointed to offer courses and tutorials at the ENS on historical figures in philosophy, as well as individual philosophical topics. He taught at the ENS for nearly three decades, leaving a lasting impression on a generation of French Philosophy students. During this period Althusser met his future wife, Hélène Rytman, a French Resistance activist and a member of the French Communist Party (PCF). In 1948, the same year he began teaching at ENS, Althusser also joined the Communist Party. While he recruited colleagues and students to the Party, and worked closely with the ENS-based communist cell during the 1950s, he mostly avoided bringing Marxist philosophy and Communist politics into his teachings.

Althusser entered into the heated debate about the continuity of Karl Marx's oeuvre and about what constitutes the core of Marxist philosophy with his 1961 essay On the Young Marx, which was collected in the volume For Marx, and his 1965 text Reading Capital. Altusser offered a 'scientific' alternative to Stalinism and a 'theoretical anti-humanism' alternative to the humanist and individualist revisions of Marxism then being proffered by the PCF. He divided Marx's work into that of the 'young' Marx, where his philosophies had not overcome the idealist ideological delusions of Hegel, and the 'mature' Marx, where he developed a new 'science' of history called Historical Materialism, which focused on the abstract and impersonal historical processes which are collectively produced by humanity, and must be discovered through ’theoretical practice’. Althusser believed that 'young' Marx's views, in which history is depicted as an individual goal-directed process aimed at the realization and fulfillment of human nature under communism, was the dominant force driving the PCF. During the mid-1960s, Althusser tried to use the faction he had created within the French Communist Party to try and force change, publishing regularly on Marxist philosophy and the 'epistemological break' between his 'mature' views and the dominant views of the PCF. These essays occasioned much public discussion and philosophical activity both in France and abroad, but was met with little appreciation from the leadership of the PCF.

Althusser later attempted to expand his theses' collective impact well beyond the realm of intra-party discussion, developing a comprehensive and intricate Structural Marxist model for society as a whole. In this model, society functions as a 'total' structure in a manner determined by its technology and its modes of production. Every individual action is solely determined by its role in relation to that technology. These relations to production result in 'apparatuses', 'ideologies', and the formation of the 'subject'.

As Althusser became internationally known for his re-thinking of Marxist philosophy, Althusser continued in his post at the ENS, but started to change his teaching style to focus more on Marxism and Marx's original texts. He also took on increasing institutional responsibility while continuing to edit and publish his own work and that of others in the series Théorie.

Nearing the end of the 1970's, Althusser's bouts of depression became more severe, as frequent hospitalization as well as aggressive treatments such as electroconvulsive therapy, narco-analysis, and psychoanalysis did nothing to alleviate his symptoms of profound regression, confusion, and paranoia. His relationship with his wife Hélène Rytman was also disintegrating into a destructive, despairing stalemate. In 1980 Althusser strangled her to death. He was judged unfit to stand trial, and was committed to a Paris hospital for the insane.

The last ten years of Althusser's life were spent in and out of various mental institutions and his apartment in Paris' 20th arrondissement. He wrote infrequently on topics such as the metaphysics of Marxism and the subjectless Aleatory Materialism, and was socially reclusive. Following further mental and physical deterioration in 1987, Althusser went to live at a psychiatric hospital in La Verrière, where he died of a heart attack three years later. Althusser’s confessional autobiography, The Future Lasts Forever, was published posthumously in 1992.

Structural Marxism

In contrast to Humanistic Marxism, Althusser stressed that Marxism should be a science that examined objective structures. A societal 'structure in dominance' contains major elements that organize all other practices, including organizing the production of moral values, scientific knowledge, the family, and art. In Western society this structure is generally the economic practice of commodity production and consumption.

This structuralist perspective takes the position that the institutions of the state must function in such a way as to ensure ongoing viability of capitalism more generally, serving the long-term interests of the capitalist class by regulating Karl Marx's irreconcilable class conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The state must function so as to reproduce the logic of capitalist society as a whole, in its economic, legal, and political institutions. The long-term self replicating structure of the hegemonic state and its institutions has a certain degree of independence from the ruling capitalist elites, and can therefore be studied independently.

Ideology

"Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence"

"all ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects"

Both of these quotes, taken from the essay Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Towards an Investigation) (1970).

Ideology colours our unconscious beliefs and assumptions, originates from a culture’s hegemony, and is bestowed on us before we are born. For Althusser, as for Jacques Lacan, it is impossible to access our ‘real conditions of existence’ due to our reliance on language to establish our reality, which we in turn (mis)represent in the imaginary, a Lacanian state that does not reflect the real world, as there is no difference, no absence, and no incompleteness. By being passively drawn into dominant social assumptions that we believe we have a complete relationship to (e.g. assuming that our choice of phone or car expresses our own individuality), we are being interpellated into ideology.

Ideology always manifests through our own actions; as we perform our relations and affirm our connections to others and to social institutions, we continually instantiate ourselves as subjects. This is also seen in Judith Butler's understanding of performativity. The material existence of ideology is so pervasive in its constitution of subjects that it forms our seemingly ‘true’ reality, and can make us believe in the naturalness, rightness, and inevitability of the capitalist economy and state. However, through a rigorous ‘scientific’ approach to society, economics, and history, Althusser believed you can come close to perceiving the ways that we are inscribed in ideology by recognizing ideology when it congeals (becomes visible), such as in advertisements or films that reinforce the capitalist norm.

An example of ideology is Louise’s marriage in Kate Chopin’s short story, Story Of An Hour – while her husband’s supposed death gives Louise the slight autonomy to recognise that her marriage was loveless and unsatisfying, her societal situation leaves her still dependant on men and marriage to provide her with a relatively care-free and effortless life. Through still recognising herself in the language of marriage as ‘Mrs Mallard’, she still affirms the institution of marriage (which itself begins with answering “I do” to an interpellating proposal) as true and right, and therefore remains subjected to it, ignoring the ‘real’ conditions of the patriarchal dominance limiting her options in the first place.

Key Terms

Interpellation

The dominant system hails, or calls us – and we answer by being passively and unconsciously drawn into its ideological assumptions, causing us to become subjects to the dominant system. One example of this is Hollywood interpellating its audience into a sexist ideology through producing films that implicitly promote a sexist way of thinking, and then advertising (hailing) its audience in order that they will view them. In Michel Foucault's essay Panopticism, self-interpellation occurs as individuals 'measure, asses, diagnose, cure, [and] transform' each other due to constant surveillance by the state.

Subject

The position when one has been subsumed in ideology. The state's delusions of individuality and selfhood prevent the individual from discovering their reduced power from being subjected and controlled by the dominant ideology.

Ideological state apparatuses

Similar to Antonio Gramsci’s concept of civil society, Ideological state apparatuses (ISA's) are the predominant cultural institutions that draw us into ideology, such as churches, our families, and mainstream media. ISA's reproduce capitalist relations of production and help maintain order through support for the state's dominant ideology. In contemporary society education has replaced religion as the primary ideological state apparatus.

Repressive state apparatuses

Similar to Antonio Gramsci’s concept of the state, Repressive state apparatuses (RSA's) are institutions such as the police, courts, and prisons, that operate using ‘hard power’, ruling by violence or the potential for violence. RSA's are not as prominent in the lives of ordinary civilians, and are not as subtle or effective at drawing people into an ideology.

Relative autonomy

Slight independence from interpellation which, along with exposure to sub/counterideologies, help you think critically about the interpellating dominant ideology.

False consciousness

The opposite of relative autonomy, where the individual is so subjected in oppressive ideologies that they act against their own interests. One example of this is how dominant ideology makes us believe that by going along with the capitalist system, we work for our own good, rather than the good of the system itself.