Louis Althusser
Who Was Althusser?
Louis Althusser ( - 1990) was a French Marxist thinker who developed the thoughts of Marx, Gramsci and the Frankfurt School of thought. He focused his ideas on the ways in which dominant ideologies were maintained through different methods by those in power.
Althusser's Main Ideas
Ideological State Apparatus (ISAs)
ISAs, such as education institutions, the family, mass media, and religious institutions, encourage people to imagine their place within a social structure, thus instilling in them the idea that they naturally belong there.
Repressive State Apparatus (RSAs)
RSAs, such as the police, the army and other military organizations, use force and the threat of force to support dominant ideologies and class structures. They do so by repressing threats to those structures.
Interpellation
Althusser believed that practice preceded belief. This means that we believe our beliefs as a result of the things that we do. He writes that an idea's "existence is embedded in the actions or practices governed by rituals. These practices or rituals are defined by an ideological state apparatus" (Althusser, 1971). Interpellation is the process of becoming acquainted with an ideology through an action.