Sarah Zuckerman
October 12, 2013
Research Methodologies AVT 600
Assignment #8
In "Ideology and the Ideological State Apparatuses" Louis Althusser notes the way in which people act is the construct of ideology and the apparatuses used to force this idea on to people without them knowing it. He views this action as a kind of reproduction of production and find the the conditions have to remain the same for the outcome of the the production to be the same. The way that this happens is that there are organizations in play that repress people through physical intimidation like police and prisons but also there are ISAs (Ideological State Apparatuses) which perpetuate the ideas of the ideology and make it so that people think these things of their "own free will". ISAs are things like churches, schools, and families - they teach you to think to act a certain way, or that it is the social norm, and to act outside of that is not what you should do. In this way ideology controls everyone, but they don't know that it does. People don't question what they have been taught and we are all subjects of this ideology, even the writer (who seems to be acutely aware of the matter) as well as the reader (taking in this reading in an educational system, yet another ISA). Also there are people who are considered ideology pushers, like priests and teachers. What I found really interesting was the idea of teachers as these professional ideologists, that they have this ability, each day, to teach children (when a person is most easily influenced is childhood, perhaps) and tells them whats right and whats wrong and then we carry that for our whole lives. We think everything is free will but really its the push of ideology on us, just in a way that we don't know it. It all kind of seems to make sense. But overall I would rather not think that I don't have free will and am just the construct of ideology within my culture, but even by ignoring or trying to work around this, there seems to be no escape from it.
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