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On Ideology

I was glad to finally read the writing of Louis Althusser this week—I am well acquainted with his name but, until this class, was yet to examine his work. Althusser’s differentiation between ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) and the (Repressive) State Apparatus (SA) invited me to consider how these often function in tandem to disrupt and destabilize campaigns for social justice such as Black Lives Matter. Police intimidate and beat protestors, while the courts effectively criminalize protests through heavy fines and prison sentences (SA). At the same time, ‘news’ stations (the communications ISA) frame the protestors as a vicious threat to society—‘society’ of course, being the status quo—and legitimize the implementation of violent SA through calls for law and order. Beyond protests, demands for the banning of Critical Race Theory and books that discuss racism are a further example of the utilization of ISAs to suppress movements for racial justice. 


In a footnote, Althusser states “The class struggle is thus expressed and exercised in ideological forms, thus also in the ideological forms of the ISAs. But the class struggle extends far beyond these forms, and it is because it extends beyond them that the struggle of the exploited classes may also be exercised in the forms of the ISAs, and thus turn the weapon of ideology against the classes in power.” This passage relates to my first question: 


In what ways can the exploited classes “turn the weapon of ideology against the classes in power”? 

a. Could this refer to organizations such as independent media outlets, and/or decentralized forms of education such as reading groups?


As Hall discusses in The Problem of Ideology: Marxism without Guarantees, mediation on ideology formed a focal point for the western European marxist intellectual scene. My second question concerns this ferment of thought and asks: 


Were marxist intellectuals from outside of western Europe as ‘preoccupied’ with ideology during the same time period? 

a. What, so far, have been the major developments of Marxist thought in the 21st century? 



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