Figuring out what Ideology is, when understanding these Marxist terminology, it’s important to look at these ideas not as obsolete reality but an ever evolving pervasive concept. Karl Marx, has his own definition of Ideology as ideas and beliefs set out by the dominant class of a society for everyone to obey and thus justify the actions of the dominant class in any society. Here, Louis Althusser sets out with his own interpretation and has worked in “On The Reproduction Of Capitalism: Ideology And Ideological State Apparatuses”, that; i) Ideology has no history, it is eternal; ii) Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence; iii) Ideology has a material (or spiritual) existence; iv) Ideology interpellates individuals as subjects. The four of these points become a pinnacle to what Althusser insists in the nature of Ideology.
These 4 parameters help us understand its nature, to what Ideology represents, for when man entered the state of nature, by subscribing to ideas and beliefs, we subscribed to this ideology, which though speaks of, no history in itself, it’s still is an implicit force that drives the Capitalistic existence, although omnipresent. And leading on to the second point, that “men represent their real conditions of existence to themselves in an imaginary form”. Who one is, is just another fragmented idea of you, which Lacan also states in the Mirror Stage and this is crucial in the understanding of this idea as well, that ideology works within multiplicity of narratives, conscious or unconscious, that shapes or has the ability to shape one’s identity. When the material existence of ideology is brought up, it is the material practices, ritual, and action that works under Ideology, unsuspecting and yet controlling one within their grasp. And lastly, Althusser believes, ideology interpellates individuals as subjects – their subjection to the category of subjects. There is no ideology except by the subject and for subjects, which by working seamlessly and weaving thoroughly over the three previous paradigms to concreticise the concept of ideology.
One could say, Althusser’s insight about the “social unconscious” when it comes to assessing the concrete political realities and struggles, is thus become not just another crucial point to define and understand Ideology, but in itself a very significant negotiation of the concept of ideology in itself.
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