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Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays
No figure among the western Marxist theoreticians has loomed larger in the postwar period than Louis Althusser. A rebel against the Catholic tradition in which he was raised, Althusser studied philosophy and later joined both the faculty of the Ecole normal superieure and the French Communist Party in 1948. Viewed as a "structuralist Marxist," Althusser was as much admired for his independence of intellect as he was for his rigorous defense of Marx. The latter was best illustrated in For Marx (1965), and Reading Capital (1968). These works, along with Lenin and Philosophy (1971) had an enormous influence on the New Left of the 1960s and continues to influence modern Marxist scholarship.
This classic work, which to date has sold more than 30,000 copies, covers the range of Louis Althusser's interests and contributions in philosophy, economics, psychology, aesthetics, and political science.
Marx, in Althusser's view, was subject in his earlier writings to the ruling ideology of his day. Thus for Althusser, the interpretation of Marx involves a repudiation of all efforts to draw from Marx's early writings a view of Marx as a "humanist" and "historicist."
Lenin and Philosophy also contains Althusser's essay on Lenin's study of Hegel; a major essay on the state, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," "Freud and A letter on Art in Reply to André Daspre," and "Cremonini, Painter of the Abstract." The book opens with a 1968 interview in which Althusser discusses his personal, political, and intellectual history.
This classic work, which to date has sold more than 30,000 copies, covers the range of Louis Althusser's interests and contributions in philosophy, economics, psychology, aesthetics, and political science.
Marx, in Althusser's view, was subject in his earlier writings to the ruling ideology of his day. Thus for Althusser, the interpretation of Marx involves a repudiation of all efforts to draw from Marx's early writings a view of Marx as a "humanist" and "historicist."
Lenin and Philosophy also contains Althusser's essay on Lenin's study of Hegel; a major essay on the state, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," "Freud and A letter on Art in Reply to André Daspre," and "Cremonini, Painter of the Abstract." The book opens with a 1968 interview in which Althusser discusses his personal, political, and intellectual history.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
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About the author
Louis Althusser
179 books515 followersLouis Pierre Althusser (1918–1990) was one of the most influential Marxist philosophers of the 20th Century. As they seemed to offer a renewal of Marxist thought as well as to render Marxism philosophically respectable, the claims he advanced in the 1960s about Marxist philosophy were discussed and debated worldwide. Due to apparent reversals in his theoretical positions, to the ill-fated facts of his life, and to the historical fortunes of Marxism in the late twentieth century, this intense interest in Althusser's reading of Marx did not survive the 1970s. Despite the comparative indifference shown to his work as a whole after these events, the theory of ideology Althusser developed within it has been broadly deployed in the social sciences and humanities and has provided a foundation for much “post-Marxist” philosophy. In addition, aspects of Althusser's project have served as inspiration for Analytic Marxism as well as for Critical Realism. Though this influence is not always explicit, Althusser's work and that of his students continues to inform the research programs of literary studies, political philosophy, history, economics, and sociology. In addition, his autobiography has been subject to much critical attention over the last decade. At present, Althusser's philosophy as a whole is undergoing a critical reevaluation by scholars who have benefited from the anthologization of hard-to-find and previously unpublished texts and who have begun to engage with the great mass of writings that remain in his archives.
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July 31, 2011I love this guy. Hard to think of any piece of writing thats influenced the way I think about the world more than "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses". When I read Althusser, I have a real sense of interacting with someone I really understand. Given that he was a pathologically self-doubting psycho who died in a mental ward, I'm not sure thats a good sign.
September 28, 2012
I was in London in September 2011 when the rioting occurred. I was staying in Dalston just south of Tottenham where the riots started. Three nights of mayhem ensued, lives were tragically lost and innocent people suffered. But what shocked me most was the style and level of reporting. It was perfectly understandable for those whose livelihood or lives were put at risk to speak of “feral youth”; however the way the media gleefully latched on to this language suggested an inability, or an unwillingness, to analyse the events more radically.
The liberal response seemed to be: if these excluded youth see bankers and speculators asset-stripping society for all they can carry off, why should they not smash a plate-glass window and grab as many trainers as they can carry? More needs to be done for these young people so that they feel they have a stake in society.
It was as if a hundred years of cultural theory had never existed. And yet such events - the riots - are indicative of the fractures within society which are the stuff of conjecture which theorists and philosophers speculate over as they consider how society is held together. No-one seemed to be mentioning Althusser’s work on ideology, hegemony and ISAs; no reference was made to Foucault’s theory on the creation of the self-repressing subject. And yet these ideas seemed to me to be glaring out of the riots. (Those who have heard me ranting on about these ideas should stop reading now. Nothing new here.)
Louis Althusser (1918-1990) takes a Marxist line and argues that capitalism (or any power system for that matter) defends itself against rioting and other threats to its legitimacy by evolving a “hegemony” or “ideology”- a way of understanding the world which everyone believes in - as “common sense” and “decency”. In reality, the ideology benefits and legitimises the powerful over the powerless. And so, for example, the ideology within which we live and have our being supports and benefits capitalism and profit. It is crucial that this hegemony works unseen; it’s like when you see the microphone appearing over the actors in an old film - it spoils the “realty” effect and reminds you that what you are watching is artifice. So it’s easier to see ideology at work in a culture that is not our own: consider the feudal model where subjects are indoctrinated into believing the hegemony of “The Divine Right of Kings”; convinced of this, the peasantry will not rise against the master. It would be “unnatural” and sinful - even if unjust taxation is beggaring your family.
Ideology, says Althusser, is buttressed by ISAs - Ideological State Apparatuses - which establish the ideology and (when necessary) RSAs Repressive State Apparatuses which fight tooth and nail to protect it. ISA’s are the church, family, education systems, the legal system, media, even trade unions - which (unconsciously?) create a society of obedience to the status quo. (Basically, we are told in every day and in every way to Obey The Man.) If a rupture appears in this fabric - as happened during the riots - then RSAs will kick in - police and army. I guess Althusser would argue that the RSAs work best if “we” believe they are on “our” side.
Althusser’s critique of the riots would then go something like: if power develops a smokescreen of apparent order, justice and decency to prop up its own exploitation and enjoyment of wealth and resources, it is likely that those below that level of power will occasionally glimpse through the smokescreen of ideology, thus challenging the ideology. (This might seem a grandiose analysis of somebody grabbing a telly, but much of this works at an unanalysed / subconscious level - both in the implementation of and the challenge to ideology. I can quite easily believe that Tory Grandees and Multinational Chairpersons believe the system is “fair”, as they see it.) Anyway, the “unrest” is eventually met by the force of the police, the rupture is stitched up and capitalism gets back to business - unless you get a revolutionary situation as perhaps the Arab Spring presents and then... who knows what new historical, economic, cultural process might ensue. The media’s apparent shock and horror about how feral youth could behave in such a way, therefore came across to me as hypocritical, since the media are one of the crucial ISAs which prop up our ideological system. What happened is pretty much exactly how it is meant to work. Pressure cooker.
How about Foucault? Michel Foucault (1926-1984) saw himself as a historian of ideas rather than a philosopher. He was interested in how ideas and attitudes changed through different periods of history. His book “Discipline and Punish” traced how the State controlled crime and dissent through the ages. It begins with a gut-wrenchingly awful four-page detailed description of the torturous execution in 1757 of an attempted regicide. This saw the end of the mediaeval idea of publicly and graphically showing the population just what could happen to them if they challenged / attacked a king. We move then to the Enlightenment and Foucault describes Jeremy Bentham’s “Panopticon” prison - so designed that one guard can see into all the cells to check up that no prisoner is misbehaving, but also designed so that the prisoner does not know when he is being observed. (Thus he is constrained ALWAYS to be on his best behaviour.)
Bentham as an Enlightenment Utilitarian saw this as a huge progression from mediaeval theatrical torture; in contrast, Foucault sees it as more inhumane because this type of regime violates the integrity of the whole person, not just the body. He calls it “disciplinary punishment” and traces how our institutions have been influenced by the idea of the Panopticon. Schools, factories, mental institutions are laid out so that the teacher, the overseer the care worker can see exactly what the pupil / worker / inmate is doing at all times. There can be no slacking and no aberrant behaviour. The “clients” are constantly open to disciplinary observation. It is easy to see how this develops into modern life: phone hacking, computer surveillance, police cameras and all the new technologies invade our private lives without our knowledge. We can be constantly scrutinised and not know it.
Foucault’s is an argument about the rights of the individual. His worst nightmare is the situation we find ourselves in today; the individual (or the “self” - or “subject” as theorists prefer) has been so institutionalised and conditioned to behave and to be “good” AT ALL TIMES, that an overseer is no longer required. We have been conditioned to harshly discipline ourselves. We are our own overseer. That is the triumph of capitalism; it’s strongest allies are those who work for the system. (Reminiscent of the Highland troops who fought for the Empire then returned to find that their straths had been cleared to make way for more profitable sheep.)
It is a libertarian argument. Foucault is not nostalgic for hanging, drawing and quartering, but I think his proposition and critique of the self-disciplining subject is worth considering. It attacks the media’s claim of the moral high ground with its innate knowledge of “right and wrong”, suggesting instead that we are merely socialised and conditioned into behaving in a certain way - in fact in a way that will accord with Althusser’s ideas of how social control is mastered. Foucault is arguing that most of us no longer require ISAs or RSAs - we have become them ourselves.
And so... the riots? If, as Foucault claims a violence is being perpetrated on the body politic, and in fact we have been indoctrinated to punish ourselves in a deeply psychotic manner, then is it not to be expected that the body politic will erupt in some apparently psychotic manifestation? And if, as Althusser theorises, the system of power is thrusting an alienating ideology over all our experience, ruling out any other way for our development as the self, might we not expect some unruly Freudian eruption from the subconscious? I don’t know if these thinkers are right, but they have spent their lives developing ideas which seem very powerful and I would expect a responsible and adult media to at least consider these ways of seeing.
The liberal response seemed to be: if these excluded youth see bankers and speculators asset-stripping society for all they can carry off, why should they not smash a plate-glass window and grab as many trainers as they can carry? More needs to be done for these young people so that they feel they have a stake in society.
It was as if a hundred years of cultural theory had never existed. And yet such events - the riots - are indicative of the fractures within society which are the stuff of conjecture which theorists and philosophers speculate over as they consider how society is held together. No-one seemed to be mentioning Althusser’s work on ideology, hegemony and ISAs; no reference was made to Foucault’s theory on the creation of the self-repressing subject. And yet these ideas seemed to me to be glaring out of the riots. (Those who have heard me ranting on about these ideas should stop reading now. Nothing new here.)
Louis Althusser (1918-1990) takes a Marxist line and argues that capitalism (or any power system for that matter) defends itself against rioting and other threats to its legitimacy by evolving a “hegemony” or “ideology”- a way of understanding the world which everyone believes in - as “common sense” and “decency”. In reality, the ideology benefits and legitimises the powerful over the powerless. And so, for example, the ideology within which we live and have our being supports and benefits capitalism and profit. It is crucial that this hegemony works unseen; it’s like when you see the microphone appearing over the actors in an old film - it spoils the “realty” effect and reminds you that what you are watching is artifice. So it’s easier to see ideology at work in a culture that is not our own: consider the feudal model where subjects are indoctrinated into believing the hegemony of “The Divine Right of Kings”; convinced of this, the peasantry will not rise against the master. It would be “unnatural” and sinful - even if unjust taxation is beggaring your family.
Ideology, says Althusser, is buttressed by ISAs - Ideological State Apparatuses - which establish the ideology and (when necessary) RSAs Repressive State Apparatuses which fight tooth and nail to protect it. ISA’s are the church, family, education systems, the legal system, media, even trade unions - which (unconsciously?) create a society of obedience to the status quo. (Basically, we are told in every day and in every way to Obey The Man.) If a rupture appears in this fabric - as happened during the riots - then RSAs will kick in - police and army. I guess Althusser would argue that the RSAs work best if “we” believe they are on “our” side.
Althusser’s critique of the riots would then go something like: if power develops a smokescreen of apparent order, justice and decency to prop up its own exploitation and enjoyment of wealth and resources, it is likely that those below that level of power will occasionally glimpse through the smokescreen of ideology, thus challenging the ideology. (This might seem a grandiose analysis of somebody grabbing a telly, but much of this works at an unanalysed / subconscious level - both in the implementation of and the challenge to ideology. I can quite easily believe that Tory Grandees and Multinational Chairpersons believe the system is “fair”, as they see it.) Anyway, the “unrest” is eventually met by the force of the police, the rupture is stitched up and capitalism gets back to business - unless you get a revolutionary situation as perhaps the Arab Spring presents and then... who knows what new historical, economic, cultural process might ensue. The media’s apparent shock and horror about how feral youth could behave in such a way, therefore came across to me as hypocritical, since the media are one of the crucial ISAs which prop up our ideological system. What happened is pretty much exactly how it is meant to work. Pressure cooker.
How about Foucault? Michel Foucault (1926-1984) saw himself as a historian of ideas rather than a philosopher. He was interested in how ideas and attitudes changed through different periods of history. His book “Discipline and Punish” traced how the State controlled crime and dissent through the ages. It begins with a gut-wrenchingly awful four-page detailed description of the torturous execution in 1757 of an attempted regicide. This saw the end of the mediaeval idea of publicly and graphically showing the population just what could happen to them if they challenged / attacked a king. We move then to the Enlightenment and Foucault describes Jeremy Bentham’s “Panopticon” prison - so designed that one guard can see into all the cells to check up that no prisoner is misbehaving, but also designed so that the prisoner does not know when he is being observed. (Thus he is constrained ALWAYS to be on his best behaviour.)
Bentham as an Enlightenment Utilitarian saw this as a huge progression from mediaeval theatrical torture; in contrast, Foucault sees it as more inhumane because this type of regime violates the integrity of the whole person, not just the body. He calls it “disciplinary punishment” and traces how our institutions have been influenced by the idea of the Panopticon. Schools, factories, mental institutions are laid out so that the teacher, the overseer the care worker can see exactly what the pupil / worker / inmate is doing at all times. There can be no slacking and no aberrant behaviour. The “clients” are constantly open to disciplinary observation. It is easy to see how this develops into modern life: phone hacking, computer surveillance, police cameras and all the new technologies invade our private lives without our knowledge. We can be constantly scrutinised and not know it.
Foucault’s is an argument about the rights of the individual. His worst nightmare is the situation we find ourselves in today; the individual (or the “self” - or “subject” as theorists prefer) has been so institutionalised and conditioned to behave and to be “good” AT ALL TIMES, that an overseer is no longer required. We have been conditioned to harshly discipline ourselves. We are our own overseer. That is the triumph of capitalism; it’s strongest allies are those who work for the system. (Reminiscent of the Highland troops who fought for the Empire then returned to find that their straths had been cleared to make way for more profitable sheep.)
It is a libertarian argument. Foucault is not nostalgic for hanging, drawing and quartering, but I think his proposition and critique of the self-disciplining subject is worth considering. It attacks the media’s claim of the moral high ground with its innate knowledge of “right and wrong”, suggesting instead that we are merely socialised and conditioned into behaving in a certain way - in fact in a way that will accord with Althusser’s ideas of how social control is mastered. Foucault is arguing that most of us no longer require ISAs or RSAs - we have become them ourselves.
And so... the riots? If, as Foucault claims a violence is being perpetrated on the body politic, and in fact we have been indoctrinated to punish ourselves in a deeply psychotic manner, then is it not to be expected that the body politic will erupt in some apparently psychotic manifestation? And if, as Althusser theorises, the system of power is thrusting an alienating ideology over all our experience, ruling out any other way for our development as the self, might we not expect some unruly Freudian eruption from the subconscious? I don’t know if these thinkers are right, but they have spent their lives developing ideas which seem very powerful and I would expect a responsible and adult media to at least consider these ways of seeing.
February 20, 2013
Caveat, I'm only rating the essay on ideology in this book, which is also the most famous essay in the text. I'll get to that in a moment.
Although I read the preface, by Fredric Jameson, and an interview of Althusser, and an essay on Lenin, I skipped all the other essays. As usual in the interview and the essay on Lenin, everything I read was insane and philosophically ridiculous. Althusser is almost always a charlatan. Like in For Marx, Althusser begins all his essays the same way: "I'm only going to a sketch some provisional theses; this is not to be taken as a definite position." From there he continues to lay out more hypotheticals, each of which is in need of further exploration "later." Therefore, he acts as his own scapegoat by never sticking to a position, he's always working provisionally, and thus always capable of rejecting what he said, as soon as it's pointed out as untenable, or ridiculous. I think For Marx is a mostly atrocious book, and everything else I've read by him, except the ideology essay is equally snake oil and/or untenable. Not to mention – as Kolakowski pointed out about Althusser and Nussbaum about Butler – numerous neologisims are employed, and an idiosyncratic writing style is utilized, to say very commonplace things. Even when Althusser isn’t being his own scapegoat, his general writing style is nauseating. He fills his essays with fragmentary sentences and rhetorical questions directed at himself and the reader…Digressing…
That said, I now see why this ONE essay is so famous. Although it too is a "sketch," it definitely advances the theory of ideology in a materialist direction, and ACTUALLY provides working hypothesis and theses that ought to be further developed (I believe Pierre Bourdieu did this, among others).
Althusser wants to ask the basic Marxian question: how does society reproduce itself everyday through production? The means of production and the forces of production are already well explained by Marx, but what about the social relations of production? For this question a long exposition of the ideological state apparatus (ISA) is explored. The ISA is distinct from the state apparatus (SA), which is mostly based on force and coercion. The ISA refers to institutions like the media, the school, radio broad casting, etc. One might wonder why the ISA is even called a state then. Well, Atlhusser points out that private-public property is a rather bogus distinction, one which the bourgeois employ to justify their private property, which of course impacts the public 'privately' and 'publicly'. If a media outlet is private or public, or a school private or public, they still serve the function of reproducing the social relations around the means of production via ideology.
In feudal societies the church was the primary institution for reproducing the social relations of production, but under 20th (and 21st) century capitalism, it is now the school. By the time one graduates from high-school, they are convinced that the social relations under capitalism are perfectly normal and okay.
Althusser moves on to develop a unique theory of ideology and the subject. When one recognizes themselves as a subject, or is "called into" awareness of their subjectivity, this is called hailing, or interpellation. If one is walking down the street and hears a cop shout "hey you!" they become aware of their role as a subject. The general ideological structure of the ISA makes people aware of their roles as subject in such a way that they continue to reproduce social relations under capitalism.
There's more to be said and the essay isn't too long (40 pages). Despite the usual garbage Althusser espouses, this one is worth reading. As a result I MAY purchase Reading Capital...or Gregory Elliott’s book on Althusser. Just as Liberals feel they MUST mention Rawls in any theories, articles, essays, etc., they write, Marxists feel inclined to mention Althusser. For this essay alone, he does warrant a place in philosophical discourse, albeit For Marx warrants him a place the dustbin of history.
Although I read the preface, by Fredric Jameson, and an interview of Althusser, and an essay on Lenin, I skipped all the other essays. As usual in the interview and the essay on Lenin, everything I read was insane and philosophically ridiculous. Althusser is almost always a charlatan. Like in For Marx, Althusser begins all his essays the same way: "I'm only going to a sketch some provisional theses; this is not to be taken as a definite position." From there he continues to lay out more hypotheticals, each of which is in need of further exploration "later." Therefore, he acts as his own scapegoat by never sticking to a position, he's always working provisionally, and thus always capable of rejecting what he said, as soon as it's pointed out as untenable, or ridiculous. I think For Marx is a mostly atrocious book, and everything else I've read by him, except the ideology essay is equally snake oil and/or untenable. Not to mention – as Kolakowski pointed out about Althusser and Nussbaum about Butler – numerous neologisims are employed, and an idiosyncratic writing style is utilized, to say very commonplace things. Even when Althusser isn’t being his own scapegoat, his general writing style is nauseating. He fills his essays with fragmentary sentences and rhetorical questions directed at himself and the reader…Digressing…
That said, I now see why this ONE essay is so famous. Although it too is a "sketch," it definitely advances the theory of ideology in a materialist direction, and ACTUALLY provides working hypothesis and theses that ought to be further developed (I believe Pierre Bourdieu did this, among others).
Althusser wants to ask the basic Marxian question: how does society reproduce itself everyday through production? The means of production and the forces of production are already well explained by Marx, but what about the social relations of production? For this question a long exposition of the ideological state apparatus (ISA) is explored. The ISA is distinct from the state apparatus (SA), which is mostly based on force and coercion. The ISA refers to institutions like the media, the school, radio broad casting, etc. One might wonder why the ISA is even called a state then. Well, Atlhusser points out that private-public property is a rather bogus distinction, one which the bourgeois employ to justify their private property, which of course impacts the public 'privately' and 'publicly'. If a media outlet is private or public, or a school private or public, they still serve the function of reproducing the social relations around the means of production via ideology.
In feudal societies the church was the primary institution for reproducing the social relations of production, but under 20th (and 21st) century capitalism, it is now the school. By the time one graduates from high-school, they are convinced that the social relations under capitalism are perfectly normal and okay.
Althusser moves on to develop a unique theory of ideology and the subject. When one recognizes themselves as a subject, or is "called into" awareness of their subjectivity, this is called hailing, or interpellation. If one is walking down the street and hears a cop shout "hey you!" they become aware of their role as a subject. The general ideological structure of the ISA makes people aware of their roles as subject in such a way that they continue to reproduce social relations under capitalism.
There's more to be said and the essay isn't too long (40 pages). Despite the usual garbage Althusser espouses, this one is worth reading. As a result I MAY purchase Reading Capital...or Gregory Elliott’s book on Althusser. Just as Liberals feel they MUST mention Rawls in any theories, articles, essays, etc., they write, Marxists feel inclined to mention Althusser. For this essay alone, he does warrant a place in philosophical discourse, albeit For Marx warrants him a place the dustbin of history.
November 5, 2016
much of interest here, but most people read it for the very famous essay on ideological state apparatuses, which, of course, if one has not read it, one must be a philistine or a barbarian or a fascist or something.
One of the all-time great re-urgings of marxism, up there with Gramsci, Adorno & Horkheimer, Voloshinov.
One of the all-time great re-urgings of marxism, up there with Gramsci, Adorno & Horkheimer, Voloshinov.
January 18, 2015
A Brief Note on the "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" Essay
Recently, I had reason to return to this important essay. I found its revision of the old marxist materialism cum 'economism' surprisingly compelling. But certainly not in the way our author intended. Althusser, with Lacan and Deleuze, have all become the 'master-thinkers' of post-marxism. The impossibility of revolution in any economically advanced nation has brought us to this impasse. It is my contention that Marxism today is but another Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) that explains and (therefore) controls suffering. I know, our author, and his readers, all thought very differently...
"Ideology has a material existence", Althusser tells us. And certainly this is an advance over cold war orthodox marxism. ideology is no longer merely in minds, it is out here in bodies and institutions and their activities. With Althusser, ideology becomes a material force. Why is this important? Control the ideology of individuals and institutions and you control their behavior. Instead of thinking of individuals as causes, we now think of them as effects. They are all made (i.e., produced and reproduced) within the various ISA's. This process of control/production our author calls interpellation. ISA's, btw, are never to be confused with the Repressive State Apparatus. It consists of the Government, Police, Military, etc. ISA's consist of the Church, Family, Education, and so on.
The hope, the dream, of readers of this essay, was that by going into the universities (the Gramscian 'long march' through the institutions), leftist intellectuals could snatch interpellation from the ruling class and use it to revolutionize the ruled. It has been over 40 years since this essay first appeared. The ineffectiveness of the project is easy to see. Our scholars have become but another clerisy; explaining suffering, but powerless to change it. I give four stars because of the advance that Althussers understanding of ideology represented in its time.
After reading this essay I came away feeling that what historically is (and has been) called "Freedom" is little more than the arguments that (elements of) the ruling strata has with itself. And that in the end, all these new (post-marxist) movements that the liberals and soi-disant 'leftists' so enthuse over, such as vegetarianism and ecology and sex revolution, are so privileged because they in no way attack property. In this way they are not really any different from the role religion traditionally has had. Whether you are busy getting your life 'right' with God, with Tantra, with Mother Nature, or with Cauliflower, it threatens property relations not at all. And this is why these various positions (and there are many others) are so easily supported by factions within the ruling strata. It is exactly as Colonel Ireton indicated at the Putney Debates so long ago, everything is always said and done with an eye towards (protecting) property. Everything. The ISA's of our author are but another way to theoretically come to terms with the varied ramifications of this inescapable fact in ever-changing circumstances.
And certainly the situation has changed! Ireton was speaking at a time (1647, during the English Civil War) when most forms of property were fixed (land, housing) and one strove to pass it on intact to future generations. Yes, certainly Ireton was aware of nascent capital relations. In his replies to the Levellers he strives to win over the bustling market towns and their guilds and manufacturers to his position. But in Ireton's conception of property there is so little movement! It was the restlessness of Capital that would destroy ye olde landowners and their world far better than the levellers had ever imagined. It is this restlessness that produces not only new means of production and new relations of production, but also new forms of labor too. And the new worker, the ever-new workers need ever new forms of ideology in their ever changing circumstances. This explains the necessity of the proliferation of leftish 'new movements' while the old USSR was going through its decades long death throes. And it also suggests that in the decades (perhaps centuries) long process of globalization the theory of ISA's will find much more to explain...
Postmodern nihilism, ultimately, is the result of the failure of the socialist revolutionary project to overcome capitalism. This failure is the root cause of the proliferation of theory in the academy. Given the inescapable fact of the dissatisfaction of people with/in capitalism, new ways, and ever new ways, had to be found to deal with this dissatisfaction. The multiplication of theoretical positions in the academy was one way; the antics of mass culture beyond the ivy tower was another. All of this was necessary; people always need explanations for their sacrifices and sufferings. - And they also need to forget or ignore the fact that these explanations change nothing at all.
The inability of socialism to overcome capitalism, not only through the USSR but in the streets of the advanced capitalist states, means that the battle for socialism must be fought on a different terrain than it was fought in the twentieth century. The question that now needs to be asked, the problem that now needs to be faced by marxists everywhere, is if all that is left of marxism is that it is nothing but another ideological position within theory manufacturing academia, how is marxism itself not another 'Ideological State Apparatus' that is enthused over by trend setting liberal cum leftists within and beyond the ruling strata?
It was the ceaseless movement of capital, not theory, that destroyed Ireton's beloved landowners. And I have come to believe that it is only the same relentless movement that will one day destroy Capitalism.
Recently, I had reason to return to this important essay. I found its revision of the old marxist materialism cum 'economism' surprisingly compelling. But certainly not in the way our author intended. Althusser, with Lacan and Deleuze, have all become the 'master-thinkers' of post-marxism. The impossibility of revolution in any economically advanced nation has brought us to this impasse. It is my contention that Marxism today is but another Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) that explains and (therefore) controls suffering. I know, our author, and his readers, all thought very differently...
"Ideology has a material existence", Althusser tells us. And certainly this is an advance over cold war orthodox marxism. ideology is no longer merely in minds, it is out here in bodies and institutions and their activities. With Althusser, ideology becomes a material force. Why is this important? Control the ideology of individuals and institutions and you control their behavior. Instead of thinking of individuals as causes, we now think of them as effects. They are all made (i.e., produced and reproduced) within the various ISA's. This process of control/production our author calls interpellation. ISA's, btw, are never to be confused with the Repressive State Apparatus. It consists of the Government, Police, Military, etc. ISA's consist of the Church, Family, Education, and so on.
The hope, the dream, of readers of this essay, was that by going into the universities (the Gramscian 'long march' through the institutions), leftist intellectuals could snatch interpellation from the ruling class and use it to revolutionize the ruled. It has been over 40 years since this essay first appeared. The ineffectiveness of the project is easy to see. Our scholars have become but another clerisy; explaining suffering, but powerless to change it. I give four stars because of the advance that Althussers understanding of ideology represented in its time.
After reading this essay I came away feeling that what historically is (and has been) called "Freedom" is little more than the arguments that (elements of) the ruling strata has with itself. And that in the end, all these new (post-marxist) movements that the liberals and soi-disant 'leftists' so enthuse over, such as vegetarianism and ecology and sex revolution, are so privileged because they in no way attack property. In this way they are not really any different from the role religion traditionally has had. Whether you are busy getting your life 'right' with God, with Tantra, with Mother Nature, or with Cauliflower, it threatens property relations not at all. And this is why these various positions (and there are many others) are so easily supported by factions within the ruling strata. It is exactly as Colonel Ireton indicated at the Putney Debates so long ago, everything is always said and done with an eye towards (protecting) property. Everything. The ISA's of our author are but another way to theoretically come to terms with the varied ramifications of this inescapable fact in ever-changing circumstances.
And certainly the situation has changed! Ireton was speaking at a time (1647, during the English Civil War) when most forms of property were fixed (land, housing) and one strove to pass it on intact to future generations. Yes, certainly Ireton was aware of nascent capital relations. In his replies to the Levellers he strives to win over the bustling market towns and their guilds and manufacturers to his position. But in Ireton's conception of property there is so little movement! It was the restlessness of Capital that would destroy ye olde landowners and their world far better than the levellers had ever imagined. It is this restlessness that produces not only new means of production and new relations of production, but also new forms of labor too. And the new worker, the ever-new workers need ever new forms of ideology in their ever changing circumstances. This explains the necessity of the proliferation of leftish 'new movements' while the old USSR was going through its decades long death throes. And it also suggests that in the decades (perhaps centuries) long process of globalization the theory of ISA's will find much more to explain...
Postmodern nihilism, ultimately, is the result of the failure of the socialist revolutionary project to overcome capitalism. This failure is the root cause of the proliferation of theory in the academy. Given the inescapable fact of the dissatisfaction of people with/in capitalism, new ways, and ever new ways, had to be found to deal with this dissatisfaction. The multiplication of theoretical positions in the academy was one way; the antics of mass culture beyond the ivy tower was another. All of this was necessary; people always need explanations for their sacrifices and sufferings. - And they also need to forget or ignore the fact that these explanations change nothing at all.
The inability of socialism to overcome capitalism, not only through the USSR but in the streets of the advanced capitalist states, means that the battle for socialism must be fought on a different terrain than it was fought in the twentieth century. The question that now needs to be asked, the problem that now needs to be faced by marxists everywhere, is if all that is left of marxism is that it is nothing but another ideological position within theory manufacturing academia, how is marxism itself not another 'Ideological State Apparatus' that is enthused over by trend setting liberal cum leftists within and beyond the ruling strata?
It was the ceaseless movement of capital, not theory, that destroyed Ireton's beloved landowners. And I have come to believe that it is only the same relentless movement that will one day destroy Capitalism.
July 19, 2023
мое чтение этой книги это процесс без субъекта потому что я почти ниче не понял
но написано захватывающе, тематика важная, ленин с марксом крутые, гегель тоже неплох, а альтюссер ваще
но написано захватывающе, тематика важная, ленин с марксом крутые, гегель тоже неплох, а альтюссер ваще
November 11, 2012
While not particularly an esay read, this collection of essays is crucial for understanding the transitions from a Marxian-structuralism to post-Marxism and post-Structuralism. Foucault's development out of his teacher's thought can also be traced from this by careful reading, but it it is not without controversy even amongst both traditional Marxists and Maoist figures. The move away from the economic and to the state as a the locus on power can be problematic. Furthermore, it is not entirely clear if Althusser things the ideology and the Ideological State Apparatus is truly presenting itself as transhistorical or is somehow transhistorical. Ranceire's critiques of Althusser tendency to a total answer are also pretty apparent in the book.
September 12, 2023
I believe this to be the unequivocal introduction to Althusser’s thought (Althusserian Marxism, Althusser’s Marxism-Leninism, etc.). I say this both to Marxist-Leninists and those who are not. For the prior, this is where Althusser is the most explicitly communist in the Marxist-Leninist sense (militant, revolutionary, and useful for socialist theory), and for the latter, this is where one learns how integral Marxism-Leninism is to Althusser’s entire project and philosophy, which is easily diluted by his possible ‘post-structuralist’ label and the general discontents with 21st-century academic theory (this is why you can see scholars claim Althusser as their ‘favorite Marxist’ yet have essentially zero grasp of revolutionary people’s history and praxis, being literal liberals or some other vague leftist). Also, this collection is where you can find Althusser most clear in his writing (or speaking) while retaining the depth of his thought in some of the most important essays to date (Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses the most famous of them). Frederic Jameson also perfectly places these essays in their context by his introduction: this is Althusser’s “war on all fronts to restore Marxism-Leninism to its original class-based antagonistic stance” (viii).
I will keep this review shorter by plugging my own essay I wrote studying under a 2nd generation Althusserian where I utilize the three most Lenin-centric essays (Philosophy as a Revolutionary Weapon, Lenin and Philosophy, and Lenin before Hegel) in this book to argue for Lenin’s importance in Philosophy proper: https://led4646.wixsite.com/leodeng/p...
Besides these three essays, his preface for the French edition of Marx’s Capital notably advises a ‘proletarian’ reading order, where the first Part on the commodity is skipped because of its lasting Hegelian influence and thus, difficulty in reading for someone without any background in canonical philosophy. The first Part is then come back to after the more straightforward Parts (2-4, 6-8) and to be read with “infinite caution.” Part 5 (“The Production of Absolute and Relative Surplus-value”) comes last. There’s other interesting context and commentary in this preface but the main thesis is still very arguable.
Then, there is the famous “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” that importantly emphasizes the absolute significance of the two concepts/phenomena of Ideology (connected to subject) and Reproduction. The basic premise of the argument is that Althusser takes the Marxist conception of base and superstructure and shows how material the reality of the superstructure actually is, especially in constant, necessary relation to the reproduction of capitalism. The material reality of the superstructure is precisely Ideology—a “profoundly unconscious” phenomenon that is disseminated by the Ideological State Apparatuses (private institutions like Education, the Church, Family, Mass Media, etc.) that are material spots/places of ritual and guides the material behaviors and practices of such and such ideologue. Additionally, the primary function of ideology is to reproduce the relations of production that ultimately upholds the mode of production, which is how capitalism and thus, society function. Ultimately, if you reflect on the infinite complexity of niches and roles that allow society to function the way it does, the younger generations have to be taught to uphold society in the way it previously functioned, and if they disagree, they can revolt. This is what Althusser means by the Ideological State Apparatuses being a site or battleground for revolution(?). Furthermore, Althusser argues that Ideology is material because it is always-already existing and changing while humans are born into this world—already attached to these material sites of ritual and material practices and behaviors. Thus, subjects are always-already ideological. Going back to Marx’s German Ideology, Ideology has no history because it is precisely the eternal reflection of the history of ideologies—Ideology in general has no history. “If it is true that the representation of the real conditions of existence of the individuals occupying the posts of agents of production, exploitation, repression, ideologization and scientific practice, does in the last analysis arise from the relations of production, and from relations deriving from the relations of production, we can say the following: all ideology represents in its necessarily imaginary distortion not the existing relations of production (and the other relations that derive from them), but above all the (imaginary) relationship of individuals to the relations of production and the relations that derive from them. What is represented in ideology is therefore not the system of the real relations which govern the existence of individuals, but the imaginary relation of those individuals to the real relations in which they live.” “Ideas have disappeared as such (insofar as they are endowed with an ideal or spiritual existence), to the precise extent that it has emerged that their existence is inscribed in the actions of practices governed by rituals defined in the last instance by an ideological apparatus. It therefore appears that the subject acts insofar as he is acted by the following system (set out in the order of its real determination): ideology existing in a material ideological apparatus, prescribing material practices governed by a material ritual, which practices exist in the material actions of a subject acting in all consciousness according to his belief.” Thus, there is a double constitution between subject and ideology—Ideology only exists for subjects, and practice (by subjects) is always in Ideology. An important material manifestation, then, of Ideology that shows up as instrument is the famous idea of ‘interpellation.’ The example by Althusser is when a police officer shouts ‘hey, you’ to someone on the street and thus, interpellating (hailing/addressing) them as a subject, clearly subordinating the person to ruling ideology congealed in this moment--this moment of interpellation.
Lastly, the appendix has some great insights as “Freud and Lacan” champions and defends psychoanalysis as truly scientific in that it has a clear object that is the unconscious, while being backed with a theory that is ever-evolving. This is essentially Althusser’s Philosophy of Science that was extremely influential in France only (although for a short time), where a practice, technique, and theory were necessary for a genuine science. Obviously, this would also mean the critical view of the positivistic sciences that have no theory and flawed technique, which also lays vulnerable to unintentionally upholding the status quo (which is extremely clear in many STEM fields today, but Althusser points out Biology interestingly in this chapter). The “Letter on Art” and “Cremonini, Painter of the Abstract” lays the foundation of art’s power of ‘redistributing the sensible’ precisely with the distance that it creates with the audience that Ranciere takes up afterward.
Ultimately, this is one of the most important appraisals of Lenin in the realm of Philosophy and for serious theoretical discussion to consider his thought again. Furthermore, you see the ever-present militancy and revolutionary consciousness of Althusser himself as a true attempt to revive and reinvigorate Marxism-Leninism for the next generations. His contributions to theory will always be remembered, especially on Ideology, but very importantly we have to read his completion of that essay in On the Reproduction of Capitalism.
I will keep this review shorter by plugging my own essay I wrote studying under a 2nd generation Althusserian where I utilize the three most Lenin-centric essays (Philosophy as a Revolutionary Weapon, Lenin and Philosophy, and Lenin before Hegel) in this book to argue for Lenin’s importance in Philosophy proper: https://led4646.wixsite.com/leodeng/p...
Besides these three essays, his preface for the French edition of Marx’s Capital notably advises a ‘proletarian’ reading order, where the first Part on the commodity is skipped because of its lasting Hegelian influence and thus, difficulty in reading for someone without any background in canonical philosophy. The first Part is then come back to after the more straightforward Parts (2-4, 6-8) and to be read with “infinite caution.” Part 5 (“The Production of Absolute and Relative Surplus-value”) comes last. There’s other interesting context and commentary in this preface but the main thesis is still very arguable.
Then, there is the famous “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” that importantly emphasizes the absolute significance of the two concepts/phenomena of Ideology (connected to subject) and Reproduction. The basic premise of the argument is that Althusser takes the Marxist conception of base and superstructure and shows how material the reality of the superstructure actually is, especially in constant, necessary relation to the reproduction of capitalism. The material reality of the superstructure is precisely Ideology—a “profoundly unconscious” phenomenon that is disseminated by the Ideological State Apparatuses (private institutions like Education, the Church, Family, Mass Media, etc.) that are material spots/places of ritual and guides the material behaviors and practices of such and such ideologue. Additionally, the primary function of ideology is to reproduce the relations of production that ultimately upholds the mode of production, which is how capitalism and thus, society function. Ultimately, if you reflect on the infinite complexity of niches and roles that allow society to function the way it does, the younger generations have to be taught to uphold society in the way it previously functioned, and if they disagree, they can revolt. This is what Althusser means by the Ideological State Apparatuses being a site or battleground for revolution(?). Furthermore, Althusser argues that Ideology is material because it is always-already existing and changing while humans are born into this world—already attached to these material sites of ritual and material practices and behaviors. Thus, subjects are always-already ideological. Going back to Marx’s German Ideology, Ideology has no history because it is precisely the eternal reflection of the history of ideologies—Ideology in general has no history. “If it is true that the representation of the real conditions of existence of the individuals occupying the posts of agents of production, exploitation, repression, ideologization and scientific practice, does in the last analysis arise from the relations of production, and from relations deriving from the relations of production, we can say the following: all ideology represents in its necessarily imaginary distortion not the existing relations of production (and the other relations that derive from them), but above all the (imaginary) relationship of individuals to the relations of production and the relations that derive from them. What is represented in ideology is therefore not the system of the real relations which govern the existence of individuals, but the imaginary relation of those individuals to the real relations in which they live.” “Ideas have disappeared as such (insofar as they are endowed with an ideal or spiritual existence), to the precise extent that it has emerged that their existence is inscribed in the actions of practices governed by rituals defined in the last instance by an ideological apparatus. It therefore appears that the subject acts insofar as he is acted by the following system (set out in the order of its real determination): ideology existing in a material ideological apparatus, prescribing material practices governed by a material ritual, which practices exist in the material actions of a subject acting in all consciousness according to his belief.” Thus, there is a double constitution between subject and ideology—Ideology only exists for subjects, and practice (by subjects) is always in Ideology. An important material manifestation, then, of Ideology that shows up as instrument is the famous idea of ‘interpellation.’ The example by Althusser is when a police officer shouts ‘hey, you’ to someone on the street and thus, interpellating (hailing/addressing) them as a subject, clearly subordinating the person to ruling ideology congealed in this moment--this moment of interpellation.
Lastly, the appendix has some great insights as “Freud and Lacan” champions and defends psychoanalysis as truly scientific in that it has a clear object that is the unconscious, while being backed with a theory that is ever-evolving. This is essentially Althusser’s Philosophy of Science that was extremely influential in France only (although for a short time), where a practice, technique, and theory were necessary for a genuine science. Obviously, this would also mean the critical view of the positivistic sciences that have no theory and flawed technique, which also lays vulnerable to unintentionally upholding the status quo (which is extremely clear in many STEM fields today, but Althusser points out Biology interestingly in this chapter). The “Letter on Art” and “Cremonini, Painter of the Abstract” lays the foundation of art’s power of ‘redistributing the sensible’ precisely with the distance that it creates with the audience that Ranciere takes up afterward.
Ultimately, this is one of the most important appraisals of Lenin in the realm of Philosophy and for serious theoretical discussion to consider his thought again. Furthermore, you see the ever-present militancy and revolutionary consciousness of Althusser himself as a true attempt to revive and reinvigorate Marxism-Leninism for the next generations. His contributions to theory will always be remembered, especially on Ideology, but very importantly we have to read his completion of that essay in On the Reproduction of Capitalism.
February 6, 2020
Four stars only for the tremendous essay, 'Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus' and 'Preface to the Capital'. Otherwise, Three stars. I would not pretend that I fully got it, maybe on my second reading. The Marxist vocabulary is incomprehensible and formidable for a neophyte like me. It really bewildered me. I might read Capital — because without reading it, one can't understand the work of Marxist philosophers — it's a Bible for Marxists.
The essay Lenin and philosophy is garbage. The glorification of Comrade Lenin is too much.
The essay Lenin and philosophy is garbage. The glorification of Comrade Lenin is too much.
November 9, 2019
Had to read his Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus for a module, end up reading the rest of the book anyways.
June 20, 2022
قسمتاییش که میفهمیدم جالب بود بعضا. ولی خیلی غیرقابل فهم بود خوشحالم تموم شد لامصب.
May 27, 2018
Excellent set of essays: of course the Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus is a Marxist classic (as it should be, pretty tough going but intuitive once you understand I think). But I really enjoyed his Lenin and Philosophy and Lenin and Hegel articles. The writing in every article except ISA one is written very clearly and concisely, maybe a little college education is required but not much - this is probably about as clear as Marxist(-Leninist) theory gets. The ISA article is much tougher to grasp, I think understanding the topology of society (base/superstructure) and the determination-in-the-last-instance is a key part of understanding it, but i have struggle to understand either :D Interpellation is also now a textbook Marxist piece of jargon and I'm probably mistaken here (because I think I read it, but can't remember) but I'm unsure if he clearly articulates what he means by interpellation beyond its the process of becoming a subject of ideology (i think) and giving examples of being "hailed". I don't quite get that.. Ideology is a complex subject, so the ideas must be complex. This is something I will need to re-read.
The Defense of Lacan article at the end I found interesting - I do not know how much of an Althusserian spin was put on his explication of Lacan but I found it readable and engaging - a rarity for anything dealing with Lacan, so I found it enjoyable. I did not know Althusser tried to get Lacan accepted by the Party.
The last two essays are essays on Marxist aesthetics. The first one was alright, but the second one I skipped because it seemed like I needed to be familiar with Cremonini's art which unfortunately I am not - and there seems to be a lack of it online.
Overall recommended to anyone interested in (specificially Marxist[-Leninist]) philosophy
The Defense of Lacan article at the end I found interesting - I do not know how much of an Althusserian spin was put on his explication of Lacan but I found it readable and engaging - a rarity for anything dealing with Lacan, so I found it enjoyable. I did not know Althusser tried to get Lacan accepted by the Party.
The last two essays are essays on Marxist aesthetics. The first one was alright, but the second one I skipped because it seemed like I needed to be familiar with Cremonini's art which unfortunately I am not - and there seems to be a lack of it online.
Overall recommended to anyone interested in (specificially Marxist[-Leninist]) philosophy
October 14, 2021
Althusser is a strange beast. His deflationary characterization of philosophy as merely an arena where the effects of class struggle going on "elsewhere" are played out and dissipated is bound to offend the sensibilities of most philosophers, even those sympathetic to the Marxist cause. It takes a certain kind of dogmatism to believe that two thousand years of philosophical labor since the time of Plato can be condensed into the form of a conflict between materialism and idealism. Indeed, according to the late Marxist Leninist, this is the real import of the eleventh thesis; the sublimation of philosophy into science. Since historical materialism (history) and dialectical materialism (science) have both absorbed the lessons of idealism, philosophy must ultimately be left without a possession to call its own. But this does not spell the end of philosophy just yet. For in the wake of Marx's opening up of the continent of history proletarian thinkers are now called upon to practice philosophy in a different way; as a certain 'continuation of class politics'. Althusser finds the role model of this new anti-philosophy in Lenin. Whereas the generation of Marxists- Leninists before him were content with regurgitating platitudes about the end of philosophy, Althusser at least sincerely attempted to gain some conceptual and scientific clarity on the theme of class-conscious philosophy, even though in my opinion he was misguided from the very start.
September 12, 2021
I reread this book today. Most important is the title essay « Lenin and Philosophy ». Wittgenstein’s logico-philosophical investigation on theme of testing of the politician qualification in communication practices , especially for a newcomer, by three steps.
1. Thesis
2. Practice
3. Participation in party organization
It is naturally not the testing simulation methodology simply restricted to communist party partisanship.
I examined the film « The Long Goodbye », starring Elliott Gould, directed by Robert Altman, 1973. Situation is post-Vietnam Los Angels. Gould’s Marlowe seemed to me a typical New Left survivor such as an intellectual in the sense of « safe ».
Is this a panorama of Inside America from a point of view of part-times researcher or professor without tenures ?
Returning to Althusser, I thought his famous essay on Ideological State Apparatus could be interpreted as follows. For us, academic researchers, our daily concerns are simply State, Reproducibility, Creativity. On the other hand, Religion, Ethical Family, Private Schools ownership simply belong to Inside America. We are thus perfect foreigners to Inside America. I recognized Althusser’s position in the United States.
1. Thesis
2. Practice
3. Participation in party organization
It is naturally not the testing simulation methodology simply restricted to communist party partisanship.
I examined the film « The Long Goodbye », starring Elliott Gould, directed by Robert Altman, 1973. Situation is post-Vietnam Los Angels. Gould’s Marlowe seemed to me a typical New Left survivor such as an intellectual in the sense of « safe ».
Is this a panorama of Inside America from a point of view of part-times researcher or professor without tenures ?
Returning to Althusser, I thought his famous essay on Ideological State Apparatus could be interpreted as follows. For us, academic researchers, our daily concerns are simply State, Reproducibility, Creativity. On the other hand, Religion, Ethical Family, Private Schools ownership simply belong to Inside America. We are thus perfect foreigners to Inside America. I recognized Althusser’s position in the United States.
February 6, 2018
This book is fairly easy to follow, but honestly most of the Lenin essays, along with the Introduction to Marx’s Capital, is fairly redundant. The essay “Ideology and the State,” however is phenomenal, and came close to influencing me to giving this five stars. The first time I read “Ideology and the State” was in the first year of my graduate school career. At the time I hadn’t the ability to appreciate how brilliant an essay this is. The way that Althusser breaks the State down into the (Repressive) State Apparatus, State Power, and the Ideological State Apparatus provides a means for scrutinizing how political influence is cultivated within the confines of a government/organization. While I do not agree with Althusser’s claim that ideology has no history, this essay has relevance to anyone concerned with political theory, activism, and education.
September 8, 2022
This has a well-deserved status as a classic. Though some of this volume is pretty ancillary and inside-baseball in the realm of theory, the essay on Ideological State Apparatuses is necessary reading. Althusser writes fairly clearly, and his analysis of how our society reproduces itself is foundational to so much important contemporary work. For the student of Gramsci who is questioning how hegemony reproduces itself, this is a necessary next step.
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September 13, 2008I disagree with the structural, "scientific" Marxism that Althusser pursues, but some of his observations-- especially those on the formation, dissemination, and cementation of ideologies-- ring true, and help to explain some of the fulsome phenomena that accompany capitalist society. While I strongly disagree with orthodox Marxism, it's still interesting, radical, and thought-provoking.
January 5, 2020
The overarching concept of "ideology as having no history" strikes me as idealist and metaphysical.
October 28, 2021
Philosophy is full of successful creative mis-interpretations: if Aristotle hadn't taken the least plausible interpretation of Plato, he wouldn't have been Aristotle; ditto for Hegel and Kant; for Habermas and Adorno; for Althusser and literally the entire history of Marxist thought. It is astonishing that Althusser could come up with even vaguely interesting things to say given his near total ignorance of the tradition that he claims to be explaining and exemplifying. He swallowed entire the Soviet-institutionalized understand of Lenin's understanding of Marx, so we get a lot of nonsense about deviations and materialism vs idealism and the idea that the very concept of 'alienation' is 'anti-Marxist: built to fight revolutionaries,' which would be news to, e.g., Marx, who built the entirety of his reasoning for opposing capitalism on alienation and reification. Or Althusser's admittedly cool notion of a process without a subject, which is what he says capital is, even though Marx literally describes the capitalist accumulation of value a subject that is also a substance. You can go through and pile up this kind of fact-checking. For instance, 'the whole Marxist tradition has refused to say that it is 'man' who makes history.' I'll wait while you google 'marx men make their own history.'
No, I won't wait. In any case, Althusser also intentionally misreads Lenin. "Lenin wrote: 'without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.' He could equally have written: without scientific theory there can be no production of scientific knowledge". I mean, sure. He could equally have written "Fourteen ducks eat chicken feed in France," but he didn't write anything about ducks and chicken feed or about the production of scientific knowledge. Since, later in his life, Lenin became an ardent Hegel scholar and came to see that Marx's work is dialectical in a fully Hegelian sense, Althusser is forced to claim that Lenin is somehow saying exactly the opposite of what he obviously says (i.e., "I, Lenin, did not understand Marx properly until after I had read Hegel's Logic"), on the basis that... I don't know, people aren't allowed to change their mind unless they're changing their mind to agree with Althusser's terrible no good utterly failed understanding of Marx and Hegel.
The famous Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses essay is much better, although it would have been much easier to write if he'd read Gramsci instead of pissing from the immense height the French university onto Gramsci's corpse (which, as a reminder, was turned into a corpse by fascists because Gramsci was a Marxist). This essay, too, is deeply flawed, though in an interesting way, since Althusser claims that everyone is subjectivated by ISAs, but then drags in the class struggle, so that some (working class) subjects are more subjectivated than other (bourgeois) subjects, which kind of makes no sense.
On the upside, this is a fabulous scratching post, and kudos to Althusser for writing with force and conviction even while everyone around him was descending into the worst kind of theoretical jargon mongering. Of course, he did that too, but not here.
No, I won't wait. In any case, Althusser also intentionally misreads Lenin. "Lenin wrote: 'without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.' He could equally have written: without scientific theory there can be no production of scientific knowledge". I mean, sure. He could equally have written "Fourteen ducks eat chicken feed in France," but he didn't write anything about ducks and chicken feed or about the production of scientific knowledge. Since, later in his life, Lenin became an ardent Hegel scholar and came to see that Marx's work is dialectical in a fully Hegelian sense, Althusser is forced to claim that Lenin is somehow saying exactly the opposite of what he obviously says (i.e., "I, Lenin, did not understand Marx properly until after I had read Hegel's Logic"), on the basis that... I don't know, people aren't allowed to change their mind unless they're changing their mind to agree with Althusser's terrible no good utterly failed understanding of Marx and Hegel.
The famous Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses essay is much better, although it would have been much easier to write if he'd read Gramsci instead of pissing from the immense height the French university onto Gramsci's corpse (which, as a reminder, was turned into a corpse by fascists because Gramsci was a Marxist). This essay, too, is deeply flawed, though in an interesting way, since Althusser claims that everyone is subjectivated by ISAs, but then drags in the class struggle, so that some (working class) subjects are more subjectivated than other (bourgeois) subjects, which kind of makes no sense.
On the upside, this is a fabulous scratching post, and kudos to Althusser for writing with force and conviction even while everyone around him was descending into the worst kind of theoretical jargon mongering. Of course, he did that too, but not here.
May 21, 2020
If more Marxists were like Althusser, I would probably be at least adjacent to them ideologically. Sadly, his discipline is utterly overrun with moralists, humanists, and LARPers. In a way it always was, but not to the degree of today. The individualist label, ironically, finds some of its greatest support for the left-of-liberal segment of society, always ready to parachute into a discussion with a mutual circlejerk of 'you are valids' to each other. Because as we all know, adopting the rhetoric of a neoliberal HR department merged with a Kpop obsessed legbeard and secularized church ladies grasping their pearls is is now the revolutionary vanguard. Yikes sweaty problematic xhe/xhir pronouns only please.
Althusser gets that Marx was, originally, a process philosopher and a materialist before anything else. He also gets that Lenin was his greatest successor and interpreter and that Lenin's strength came from his ruthlessness and his rejection of humanist idealism. This relationship comes directly from wanting to exercise power rather than just 'problematize' or theorize it. Indeed, all successful political philosophers worth paying attention to-no matter where they fall ideologically-are interested in seizing power as much if not more than disembodied theory. This is how you parse the kids from the adults. If there isnt at least a bit of Machiavelli or Kautilya in there then I don't bother.
Personally, and perhaps most strangely, I found the final essay-about the anti-humanism of the painter Cremonini-the most enjoyable. Not an artist I knew much about but upon looking him up it became obvious as to why Althusser was so interested in him as emblematic of showing process over individualized form.
Althusser gets that Marx was, originally, a process philosopher and a materialist before anything else. He also gets that Lenin was his greatest successor and interpreter and that Lenin's strength came from his ruthlessness and his rejection of humanist idealism. This relationship comes directly from wanting to exercise power rather than just 'problematize' or theorize it. Indeed, all successful political philosophers worth paying attention to-no matter where they fall ideologically-are interested in seizing power as much if not more than disembodied theory. This is how you parse the kids from the adults. If there isnt at least a bit of Machiavelli or Kautilya in there then I don't bother.
Personally, and perhaps most strangely, I found the final essay-about the anti-humanism of the painter Cremonini-the most enjoyable. Not an artist I knew much about but upon looking him up it became obvious as to why Althusser was so interested in him as emblematic of showing process over individualized form.
February 6, 2020
First two essays are quite good at giving an informative theory of Lenin's opposition to empiricism, and also a good way to understand the complex relation that exists between Lenin, Marx and Hegel--even though it is somewhat apparent in the book that Althusser is working off quite rudimentary understandings of both Hegel and Lacan...
The appendix is mostly him discussing the importance of psychoanalysis (which, again, if you already know psychoanalysis, would register only at a basic level) and some comments regarding art that don't seem awfully insightful. The entire essay regarding ISAs, however, as well-known, is, brevity aside, a very intriguing description of the ideological mechanisms at work in capitalism.
The appendix is mostly him discussing the importance of psychoanalysis (which, again, if you already know psychoanalysis, would register only at a basic level) and some comments regarding art that don't seem awfully insightful. The entire essay regarding ISAs, however, as well-known, is, brevity aside, a very intriguing description of the ideological mechanisms at work in capitalism.
February 17, 2021
Ottaen huomioon kuinka vähän konkreettisia historiallisia esimerkkejä tai huutamaansa "tieteellistä" analyysiä Althusserin tekstit sisältää, se kyllä huutelee paljon muille siitä kuinka niiden interventioista puuttuu näitä ominaisuuksia. Tässä filosofi, jonka tarjonnasta löytyy täyttä paskaa ja timantteja. Plussaa saksaksi lukemiselle, koska tuntui että toin tän lähemmäksi Hegeliä ja täten pois mukavuusalueeltaan.
Sanotaan sen verran, että Lenin-excursus on toki ihan arvokasta, mutta ehkä Bogdanov-fanina on vaikea asennoitua ikinä kenenkään puolelle, kenen mielestä Materialismi ja Empiriokritisismi on jotenkin tosi knockdown teksti.
Sanotaan sen verran, että Lenin-excursus on toki ihan arvokasta, mutta ehkä Bogdanov-fanina on vaikea asennoitua ikinä kenenkään puolelle, kenen mielestä Materialismi ja Empiriokritisismi on jotenkin tosi knockdown teksti.
August 3, 2017
lol all the reviews are basically only for the ideology essay, which is obviously a classic must-read, but honestly the verso 'on ideology' edition has all of that plus the freud/lacan ones as well. i think the only thing added here that is of substantial use is althusser's preface to capital, which is also worth reading -- my edition didn't even have jameson's introduction, natch. the actual stuff on lenin and philosophy is amiable but would need more development for underqualified me to truly get at what arguments it wants to build.
November 22, 2022
Makes some convincing arguments for dialectical-MATERIALISM, and underlines some of the dangers of deviation from the materialist portion of those two things. To me, this speaks to a growing danger today of pure dialectical philosophy that gets lost in pointless relativism which inevitably arcs back into a kind of reactionary idealism.
December 21, 2023
The essay on Ideology is a classic and a must-read. But even this essay is full of only half- (or less) articulated ideas about the role of politics in philosophy or the difference between art and science. Judith Butler has a great reading of Althusser in her Psychic Life Power that is worth reading alongside the Ideology essay.
October 28, 2020
A good collection of essays that provide an overview of Althussers thought. Definitely recommend On the Reproduction of Capitalism for the full treatment of Ideological State Apparatuses, but the rest of the essays are quite interesting.
May 25, 2023
althussers reading of lacan omits the real, and this omission can be found in thinkers influenced by althusser eg mulvey et al. not sure if lacan at the time of these publications himself had theorized much on the real
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March 29, 2019A surprisingly fast and enjoyable read. The classic paper on ISAs is basically Freudian, which I bet would explain much of its appeal.
April 8, 2020
Was quite skeptical in the beginning when I started reading, but a really great work that I think is still very valuable even today, or especially today.
April 17, 2020
Review based on Ideology and Ideological State Appratus. Read that essay, introducing Kapital, and his interview, not the whole text.
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