Cultural Studies: Exploring Critical Theory Concepts in Philosophy

Evil Flowers and Interpellation: Louis Althusser

Marx and Engels are the main precursors of the material study of ideology as something that is produced. Ideologies and identities are both products of very specific economic and material circumstances.

• "The condition of the working class in England", Engels (1845). Engels wrote this book by observing the working conditions of working class individuals in factories in cities such as Manchester and Liverpool. Despite his empowered position, he called the world's attention to the harsh conditions factory workers were facing with the industrial expansion across Europe.

While most authors at the time were more preoccupied with the loss of traditional ways of understanding British culture, Engels wrote about increasing mortality rates due to insecurity at work, child illiteracy, or the lack of access to proper medical and social services. For upper class individuals writing about England, it was easy to dismiss the working class claims as being the result of the avarice and ignorance of the "lower class" individuals who were stepping outside the place they had traditionally occupied. When these claims come from another rich person:

1. Even if these ideas are eventually dismissed, they create tension within the established system.
2. The book could be used as a tool for the working classes, [who, at the time still lacked meaningful forms of organisation for the defense of their own interests] to understand themselves and to help with the constitution of better organised and more knowledgeable working class groups.

"The Communist Manifesto", Engels and Marx (1848). This book is one of the most influential books ever written, affecting many fields such as cultural studies, economics, politics, history, or law significantly because of the way this book looks at the present, the past and the future and explains how society works at a structural level. They analysed history and claimed that human societies have always worked through the exploitative relationship between oppressors (nobility during the Middle Ages and members of the bourgeoisie after) and the oppressed (peasants and working class individuals). This exploitation has survived the passing of the centuries because of the traditional aristocrats' control of the army and legislative bodies of the State.

However, industrialisation not only made the working conditions of thousands of individuals worse, but also put all those thousands of oppressed individuals living next to each other, which made the organisation of the working classes easier.

In their view, as capitalism kept expanding, the situation of the working classes (the Proletariat) was getting increasingly worse. Marx and Engels understood their present as a turning point in history in which the proletariat was about to take control of the system that had oppressed them for centuries. This change was imminent for them, but it did not take place. However, their work has inspired millions of people to fight for a better life.

1It is very easy to talk about oppressors/oppressed in a working context and assume that we are only discussing wages, holidays, and material leave permits. When we say that THE system works in this way it means not just the economy what works in this way. For a system of oppression to survive the passing of time, the Army and any internal Peace-Keeping force, the law, religion and morality, and education need to be controlled as well. The economic interests of the oppressors control everything. These all work to keep the "natural" status quo of who oppresses whom stable and accepted.

This means that by analyzing and denouncing one single aspect of an unfair working system, they were in fact highlighting the interconnectedness of an entire social system throughout history. While their prediction was a bit off, they also explained the reasons behind the resilience of the established system both in the Communist Manifesto and ...

"Das Kapital", Marx & Engels (1867). They claimed that one of the main strengths of capitalism is found in its ability to reproduce the conditions it needs to keep existing.

By giving workers the money they need to survive and little more, Capitalism makes sure that workers keep accepting their working conditions By creating a sense of need for beautiful but mostly unnecessary products, workers spend whatever they save and have to keep on working.

For Marx and Engels, Capitalism ensures its survival by (1) giving workers just enough to survive and (2) by creating needs that guarantee that most people will need to work in order to afford them, just as certain working and material conditions guarantee that the very same system that created them in the first place kept/keeps on existing.

Louis Althusser's Ideology

Ideology is something that can be tracked down from very specific material and social traces.

1. THE MATERIAL ASPECTS OF IDEOLOGY
2. NON-MATERIAL ASPECTS OF IDEOLOGY

This distinction follows what Althusser calls "the productive forces" and "the existing relations of production" when explaining the ways modern societies make sure they keep on working.

Althusser's Borrowings from Marx and Engels

Althusser borrows from Marx's Capital and Marx and Engels' The Communist Manifesto to claim that "no production is possible which does not allow the reproduction of the material conditions of production".

Material Aspects of Production

On the surface, this clearly refers to the most obvious needs of production: Factories, roads, vehicles, and, of course, workers. The system ensures that it creates the conditions it needs to guarantee that it will always have workers, this means, the reproduction of the material conditions of production (the system makes sure that it creates the material elements it needs to keep on functioning). The most obvious and important example of these conditions is money.

The system basically makes sure that workers have enough money in the form of wages to survive and get to work every day, while also providing enough services so that they can give birth to and raise the next generation of future workers. However, wages are not a way for 2workers to get rich: basic needs such as housing, health or education require workers to keep on working to guarantee a stable flow of income. Tempting people to consume more in a way that is productive to the system also guarantees the survival of the system.

Althusser's State Apparatuses

Althusser pays attention to both the material (money) and the non-material aspects of ideology (i.e. education). According to Althusser, schools teach children "good behaviour" or how to occupy their positions as future workers/acceptable citizens. However, while important, education is one (among many) of the tools Capitalism makes use of to keep on going, which Althusser calls "State Apparatuses". Althusser makes a very important distinction between the State, the State Power and the State Apparatuses:

State Power stands for the very capacity/"power" to shape any given community and influence the way a society works and understands itself. The capacity to write laws prohibiting and allowing certain actions, the capacity to change the way public and private institutions work, the capacity to stir the economy in certain directions .... People "representing" or making use of State Power may change (from totalitarian kings, to bourgeois-ruled societies, or dictator-ravaged communities) ... but the State Apparatus largely remains for the most part the same.

Simply put, the State is the group of people (or the amorphous and hard-to-wrasp mass of interests) yielding State Power. It is not something intangible that exists by itself, but exists through the use of State Power to implement and/or enforce specific practices.

State Apparatuses are the different institutions that are used as tools to exert State Power (the Army, Schools, the Legal System ... )

Institutions/resources such as the Laws, families and schools, religion and culture are the tools (the State Apparatuses) used to make the system function. Thus, State Power is the use of any of these tools, and the state is whoever and whatever has the ability to utilize any of these tools to make use of State Power. According to Althusser, in most societies, workers are kept away from and subjected to the State (and State power) and the SAs. By preventing workers from making use of any of the SAs in any meaningful way and, therefore, not allowing them to exert any form of State Power, Capitalism guarantees its workers to keep existing. So:

1. The State is that which makes use of State Power. The more democratic any given society is, the more evenly distributed State Power is. Dictators latch themselves to power by controlling as many aspects of it as possible.
2. Being part of the State is not a permanent status/condition, who the state is isn't stable. With the passing of time, power changes (or is forced to change) hands.
3. While who/what the State is may change, the State Apparatuses mostly remain stable.

Althusser reads Marx's ideas by linking State, State Power, and State Apparatuses with class struggle. For Marx, workers should try to control the means of production, while Althusser had a more complete understanding of how modern societies work, as Marx paid more attention to the material aspects of production whereas Althusser paid attention to both material aspects and ideology.

Proletariat's Aim in Althusser's View

3In addition to fighting for the improvement of the material aspect of their lives, the aim of the Proletariat should be to fight to become the State by making use of a proletariat-oriented State Power and, in the process, to align or substitute the existing apparatuses with proletarian- oriented ones. To change the system and make it more aligned with the working class needs, workers should:

1. Try to control existing State Apparatuses (or replace them)
2. Exert State Power in a way that benefits workers
3. By doing 1 and 2, become/create a worker-oriented state.

Althusser also pays attention to explaining how State Apparatuses work. Many of them function through repression (at least the ones that focus on the material elements of production and reproduction of ideology). However, he is far more interested in State Apparatuses that do not focus so much on repression.

Non-Material Aspects of Ideology

For Althusser, the material and the non-material aspects of ideology are manifested and made use of by those in power through 2 different types of State Apparatuses.

Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs): Are connected to State Apparatuses that focus on direct material repression first. The State Power exerted through them is material or represents a physical threat. - Army, Administration, Police, Courts, Prisons ... Their function is to make people behave properly through potential material/physical repression. The state is who determines what "proper behaviour" is.

Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs): function to convince, lead towards, and teach people desired behaviours. A more subtle, non-material truncheon that tries to convince you. ISAs take many forms: Religious, educational, family, legal, political, trade-union, communications or cultural.

The RSAs function primarily through direct repression, and, secondarily, through ideology (policemen at a manifestation). ISAs function first through ideology and secondarily, through repression (sins). They are all used by the ruling class to exert State Power. But, at the same time, because of their diversity, they also offer contradictions/ exceptions allowing for:

• some remains of the control held by the previous ruling class (illegal radio stations that sympathized with the Republic in the Civil War).
• Some pockets of resistance against current forms of control (left-wing newspaper despite right-wing media shift).

For Althusser, class struggle is mostly about the control of ISAs for the dissemination of ideology (object of struggle), but also the place where the majority of struggle happens. Thus, ISAs are the place of class struggle because they are where ideological battles are fought. Similarly, they are the object of the struggle because they are also the tool used to win ideological battles. When ISAs disseminate ideology they ensure that the relations of production are reproduced.

According to Althusser, in pre-capitalist societies, religion functioned as the main ISA by embodying several functions now held by a variety of other ISAs (moral compass, site of cultural activity, educating people).