Andrew deSouza

M.A. (P)
SOC 102 - Sociological Theories: Some Conceptual Issues

Louis Althusser’s work has served to transform the marxist debates around ideology for
decades, and has sparked numerous discussions around questions of determination, state
power, class struggle, among other things. Crucial to his theory of ideology is the concept of
interpellation. ​But first we will need to look at his theory of ideology before delving into a
study of the latter. For this essay, i will attempt to look at interpellation in itself: as a concept,
what does it imply and how can it be understood? I will be making use of Stuart Hall’s
Signification, Representation, Ideology: Althusser and Post-Structuralist Debates ​(1985). For
Althusser, I will be using his most famous text: ​Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses
(Notes Towards an Investigation) ​as it appears in ​On the Reproduction of Capitalism ​(2014).

I will attempt to first provide a brief (and necessarily superficial) outline of what
Althusser is suggesting in this essay. He begins it through the perspective of reproduction: for
a mode of production to survive, it must secure for itself the reproduction of the conditions of
production. This includes material conditions - machinery, raw materials, etc - but also labour
power. The reproduction of labour power is secured through wages -

“wages represent only that part of the value produced by the expenditure of labour-power
which is indispensable … to the reconstitution of the labour-power of the wage-earner (the
wherewithal to pay for housing, food and clothing, in short to enable the wage earner to
present himself again at the factory gate the next day … and we should add: indispensable for
raising and educating the children in whom the proletarian reproduces himself” (Althusser,
234-235)

However, it is not enough for labour power to simply be reproduced, so to speak,

‘biologically’. For the economic system to be reproduced, it requires labour power to be
“diversely” skilled. This is done by the capitalist education system. But in addition to
learning skills, children at school must also learn the “rules” - they must learn to submit to the
existing order, to find their place within it and to occupy it. This is where ideology comes in.
 For Althusser, the distinction between state power (the power that the state can
exercise over its population) and state apparatus (the mechanisms through which it does so)
requires a further breaking down: there are two kinds of state apparatus. The Repressive State
Apparatuses (RSAs) consist of “the government, the administration, the army, the police, the
courts, the prisons, etc” (Althusser, 243). In addition to this, there are also the Ideological
State Apparatuses (ISAs), which are “a certain number of realities which present themselves
to the immediate observer in the form of distinct and specialized institutions” (Althusser
243). These include: the family ISA, the religious ISA, the education ISA, the
communications ISA, the legal ISA, etc. These multiple (and apparently “private” bodies) are
that they are united under a single ideology. According to Althusser: “What distinguishes the
ISAs from the (Repressive) State Apparatus is the following basic difference: the Repressive
State Apparatus functions 'by violence', whereas the Ideological State Apparatuses' ​function
'by ideology'​.” (244) Although he does clarify that all apparatuses function using both
violence and ideology, but whereas the RSAs predominantly use violence and use ideology
secondarily, the ISAs predominantly use ideology and use violence secondarily.

To see why the ISAs are so important, we must first see that Althusser argues for
further subdividing the base/superstructure model, where the superstructure “contains two
'levels' or 'instances': the politico-legal (law and the state) and ideology (the different
ideologies, religious, ethical, legal, political, etc.) (237). Also, the reproduction of the
relations of production is secured via the superstructure: “how is the reproduction of the
relations of production secured? In the topographical language (base, superstructure), I can
say: for the most part, it is secured by the legal-political and ideological superstructure.”
(246) Thus the ISAs are responsible for securing the reproduction of relations of production,
and thereby of capitalism as a whole.

IDEOLOGY - IMAGINED, ENACTED, INTERPELLATED

Althusser’s theory of ideology represents a fundamental break from earlier marxist

theories that characterised it as a “false consciousness”, a kind of veil/error/illusion that
prevented the people from seeing their oppression clearly and misplaced their interests.
However, this presupposes that there is an objectively knowable set of relations and that the
coming out of ideology means being able to see these clearly. On the other hand,

“For Althusser, as for Lacan, it is impossible to access the ‘Real conditions of existence’ due
to our reliance on language; however, through a rigorous ‘scientific’ approach to society,
economics, and history, we can come close to perceiving if not those ‘Real conditions’ at least
the ways that we are inscribed in ideology by complex processes of recognition.” (Felluga)

Althusser sets forth some theses to explore his theory of ideology:

1) Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of

existence (Althusser 256).

“it is not their real conditions of existence, their real world, that 'men' 'represent to
themselves' in ideology, but above all it is their relation to those conditions of
existence which is represented to them there. It is this relation which is at the centre of
every ideological, i.e. imaginary, representation of the real world.(257)

Or, as Hall paraphrases his definition from ​For Marx, “​systems of representation - composed
of concepts, ideas, myths, or images - in which men and women (my addition) live their
imaginary relations to the real conditions of existence.” (Hall, 103)

2) Ideology has a material existence.

“an ideology always exists in an apparatus, and its practice, or practices. This existence is
material.” (Althusser, 259)

Where a single subject is concerned,

“the existence of the ideas of his belief is material in that his ideas are his material actions
inserted into material practices governed by material rituals which are themselves defined by
the material ideological apparatus from which derive the ideas of that subject.” (260)

Ideology, for Althusser, is realised through practices - through actions and dispositions of
subjects. In this sense, it is ‘material’ He even goes so far as to invoke Pascal in suggesting
that the mere act of performing an ‘ideological’ ritual/act can bring forth the ideology in the
mind of the subject: “Pascal says, more or less : ‘Kneel down, move your lips in prayer, and
you will believe.’” (260)

3) “​[A]ll ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects​, by the

functioning of the category of the subject.” (264)

We have now come to one of the central theses of Althusser’s theory of ideology (and the
central point of this essay): that of interpellation. By way of an example, Althusser enacts a
scene where a policeman in the street calls out “Hey you there!” and the individual turns
around, knowing it was addressed to her/him.
By this mere 180-degree physical conversion, he becomes a subject. Why? Because he has
recognized that the hail was 'really' addressed to him, and that 'it was really him who was
hailed' (and not someone else). (264)

IDEOLOGY AND INTERPELLATION

However, Althusser is quick to point out that the temporal character of the scene he
has enacted is not accurate. “ideology has always-already interpellated individuals as
subjects, which amounts to making it clear that individuals are always-already interpellated
by ideology as subjects, which necessarily leads us to one last proposition: ​individuals are
always-already subjects.” (265) Althusser is drawing a distinction between individuals and
subjects: it is ideology (and interpellation) that converts individuals into subjects, and since
ideology is eternal and has always-already interpellated individuals, the “individual” as such
does not exist without being a subject. The implications of this suggestion are monumental
because they strip away the idea of an autonomous individual/subject/agent who, through
their own actions and thoughts, subscribes to the ideologies that they please. It is rather
ideology that is “recruiting” them. Althusser mentions the two dimensions that being a
subject confers on the individual:
In the ordinary use of the term, subject in fact means: 1) a free subjectivity, a centre of
initiatives, author of and responsible for its actions; 2) a subjected being, who submits to a
 higher authority, and is therefore stripped of all freedom except that of freely accepting his
submission. (269)
Thus the subject is both subject in the sense of agent or author of one’s actions, and also
‘subject’ to the ideology they are interpellated into (and expected to master).

Althusser uses the example of religious ideology to demonstrate his theory of

ideology and interpellation. Here, he also posits the existence of a “Subject” (with the S
capitalised), a subject par excellence, to whom all subjects are subjected. “the interpellation
of individuals as subjects presupposes the ‘existence’ of a unique and central other Subject, in
whose name the religious ideology interpellates all individuals as subjects.” (267)
This is
duplicate mirror-structure of ideology ensures simultaneously:
1) the interpellation of 'individuals' as subjects;
2) their subjection to the Subject;
3) the mutual recognition of subjects and Subject, the subjects' recognition of each other, and
finally the subject's recognition of himself
4) the absolute guarantee that everything really is so, and that on condition that the subjects
recognize what they are and behave accordingly, everything will be all right: Amen - 'So be it'
(268-269)

We are now in a position to pose some critical questions on the concept of interpellation -
although not in this exact order.

- The nature of the distinction between Ideology (in general) and ideologies.
- Whether interpellation is an event (as in the example of the hailing) or a process
- How interpellation inserts us as subjects into ideology and into society
- How individuals act as subjects within and between ideologies.

✽
According to Althusser, ideology in general has no history, it is the necessary condition of
individuals living within a society. However, this is not the same for ideolo​gies​. If
interpellation creates subjects through the category of the subject, do ideolo​gies as well? We
can answer this at two levels. On the one hand, the individual itself is transformed into
ideology before even being an individual: before birth, depending on the ideological shape
and structure of the family in that particular society, the child will be given a name, a gender,
possibly a religion, and an ethnicity. Thus it is ideology which transforms the biological
foetus (and subsequent child, adolescent, and adult) into a subject. Ideology, as a generally
existing, ever-present category of society, creates that particular person. In this sense,
interpellation cannot be thought of as a temporally singular event. However, it can be thought
of as a collection of disparate events - the conception, the knowledge of the pregnancy, the
knowledge of the child’s sex, etc.. However, stretched too far, this becomes tenuous. Is there
an event at which the religion of the child is decided? Its ethnicity? Before we attempt to
resolve this, let us first look at ideolo​gies.

Althusser mentions a difference between ideology and ideologies, but does not proceed to
elaborate on how multiple ideologies interact with each other or with subjects. We can
imagine that ideolog​ies interpellate individuals differently. They do not exist everywhere in
the same manner or form. Consider an individual who is interpellated by ​an ​ideology: s/he
reads or sees or receives some kind of sensory input that makes her/him feel that a particular
ideology (liberalism, feminism, capitalism, anarchism, individualism, masculinity, etc.) is
addressing her/him. This may in fact take the form of a particular event. But to suppose that a
single event is sufficient to “convert” an individual to a particular ideology would suggest a
notion of the individual as a receptacle that either sticks to the very first set of dominant
ideologies it encounters, or constantly switches between multiple ideologies at every moment
of interpellation. Thus we must consider that the single event of interpellation is not sufficient
in itself. The individual may only believe half-heartedly in the truth or validity of the
ideology they are interpellated into. Subsequent encounters may either enmesh them deeper
or make them skeptical. And yet we have not yet addressed the more complex matter of how
an individual comes across a symbol or set of symbols that triggers this interpellation. It is
clear, then, that even in the case of ideolog​ies​, a event-based theory is not sufficient to
explain interpellation.
 How can one think of the temporal character of the act of interpellation? Let us first
imagine it as a process that consists of a series of events - some of which are more temporally
stable than others, and many of which cannot be easily resolved or pinned down. To speak in
causal terms would be counterproductive, since an empiricist hunting down of the exact
moment in which an individual may be “recruited” into ideology or ideologies will be less
than fruitful. Rather, these ideologies exist in certain shapes depending on the society in
which they are found. They are more likely to be encountered by some people and at some
times than others. The existing background conditions - such as class, gender, and
geographical location of the individual - cannot be thought of either as interpellation nor as
completely unrelated to it. They bring an individual closer to or further from the ideology, but
are not determinist in inscribing certain kinds of ideologies to certain individuals.

This is what Hall (1985) is saying when he rejects both the “necessary
correspondence” and the “necessarily no correspondence” positions that suggest that class
position must lead to certain ideological positions, and that there is no link between the two,
respectively. He, instead suggests that

there is no law which guarantees that the ideology of a class is already and
unequivocally given in or corresponds to the position which that class holds in the
economic relations of capitalist production. The claim of "no guarantee" - which
breaks with teleology - also implies that there is no necessary non-correspondence.
(Hall, 94)

“The principal theoretical reversal accomplished by "no necessary correspondence" is

that determinacy is transferred from the genetic origins of class or other social forces
in a structure to the effects or results of a practice.” (Hall, 95)

Individuals, then, are not necessarily the carriers of certain ideologies simply because
of their position in the hierarchies of class, gender, etc. However, it is likely that these
positions will make an individual more likely to be interpellated into certain ideologies.
How are we “primed” to be interpellated? Hall rejects the thesis of psychoanalysis which
suggests that unconscious processes in infancy orient the individual to be positioned towards
ideology in certain ways: certainly these are important, but they can not be said to be the sole
factor: “subjects are not positioned in relation to the field of ideologies exclusively by the
resolution of unconscious processes in infancy. They are also positioned by the discursive
formations of specific social formations. They are situated differently in relation to a different
range of social sites.” (Hall, 106)

Before we go further into discussing the mechanisms of interpellation, it will be

useful to bring what I consider to be an important way to understand interpellation and
ideology. When introducing the concept of interpellation, Hall suggests, “We are constituted
by the unconscious processes of ideology, in that position of recognition or fixture between
ourselves and the signifying chain without which no signification of ideological meaning
would be possible.” (102). I consider this a very fruitful way of situating the concept of
interpellation: interpellation places the subject within a chain of signification. When we
realise we are being addressed, we find ourselves within a chain of symbols or signifiers, we
consider certain things to be true, through the referral of other truths. When taken with
another of Hall’s suggestions, this becomes even more illuminating:
“Ideologies do not operate through single ideas; they operate, in discursive chains, in clusters,
in semantic fields, in discursive formations. As you enter an ideological field and pick out any
one nodal representation or idea, you immediately trigger off a whole chain of connotative
associations. Ideological representations connote - summon - one another.” (104)

Taken together, these two arguments represent a way in which we can imagine how it
is that interpellation inserts individuals as subjects. If ideologies consist of linked,
overlapping fields of meaning and signification, interpellation is the process of “drawing in”
an individual, such that the individual is able to form a part of that field: a “subject” of that
ideology.
 When discussing how being ‘black’ or ‘coloured’ or ‘Negro’ is constructed
differently, Hall notes: “All of them inscribe me "in place" in a signifying chain which
constructs identity through the categories of color, ethnicity, race” (108).
Thus, interpellation serves to place the subject within a chain or field of signification
or meaning: the subject is assigned a position relative to the Absolute Subject ​etc. Therefore,
the position of the subject within an ideology is always in relation to other elements within it.

If the subject is a relational position within a field of signification, it is also not fixed
in place within single ideology. As Hall recounts his own personal experiences of growing up
in the West Indies and how the term ‘coloured’ there took on a very different connotation
there (not quite ‘black’) than it did in the U.K. (not-white), we can see how the same subject
can slip between fields of meaning. In Jamaica, ‘coloured-ness’ is defined in opposition to
both white-ness and black-ness; in the U.K., it is merely another name for not-white-ness.
“Meaning is relational within an ideological system of presences and absences.” (109)

Even continuing to posit that interpellation is a process consisting of a series of events

can have it flaws. For example, how does one then account for “common sense”, perhaps the
most ideological state of all? Common sense closes and precludes critical inquiry into
ideological underpinnings, firm in the belief that it is true simply because it is, because
“everyone” knows it to be. In the case of common sense, it would be hard to pick out any real
“events” as such when a subject is interpellated. Rather, it seems to be more of a background
process. This raises the question: does interpellation also occur without the conscious
acknowledgement of the hail by the individual, the ‘turn’ in Althusser’s hailing scene? Or
rather, does the individual know s/he has turned towards the ideology? This suggests that to
approach interpellation from the perspective of an event may be misleading: perhaps the
“event” is merely one articulation of the interpellating process. This process is constantly
acting, through the actions of individuals who are all interpellated as subjects. To posit
ideology as existing ​outside the human mind would be to imagine some kind of universal
ether, which is a conjecture that is not worth being made. However, we can think of the sum
of social locations, the proximity of those locations to certain ideologies, and the resulting
morphology of the ideologies as a kind of matrix into which individuals are interpellated:
both by ideology in general, and by ideolog​ies.

In conclusion, we can see that Althusser’s theory of ideology and interpellation are
useful in a number of ways. Not only because they fill the gap in orthodox marxism of a
theory of ideology, but also because by i) accounting for ideology as an element in the
reproduction of a mode of production, and ii) suggesting that ideology has a material
existence, Althusser brings what may have been thought of as belonging to the realm of
‘ideas’ into concrete social and historical spheres. I believe that the arguments set up by
Althusser are extremely rewarding, despite their flaws, as is evidenced by Hall’s treatment of
it. In fact, Hall’s working of Althusser’s concept has the effect of straightening out some of
its crinks - the claimed tendency to “functional marxism”, the monolithic nomenclature for
the state - and also of expanding and elaborating its mechanisms. By situating practice within
a field of semiotics and claiming ideologies as interlinked fields of meaning and signification,
he allows for a mechanism of ideology that both acknowledges its material and ritual
necessity, and also relies heavily on the construction and currency of meaning.

To combine and summarise the two, then, ideology, as part of the superstructure, is
involved in sustaining the base and therefore the mode of production. It does so through
“state” apparatuses - bodies through which the state (and all the ambiguity the term implies)
moulds the labour power of a society so as to be easily absorbed into the economic system.
This is done on two levels. On the one hand, “material” acts, practices, rituals are both the
manner in which ideology is realised and also the generators of ideology. ​On the other,
ideology/ies ​interpellate ​individuals into concrete subjects, situating them within a structure
by making them believe that it is them being addressed. Hall suggests that ideologies operate
in discursive chains and clusters. Ideology then “recruits” individuals as subjects by showing
them a spot within this space or cluster and saying “this is yours”. Also, meaning within
ideologies is relational: it is constructed by historical and social features and events.
Ideologies may share a kind of “currency” of concepts, but these will mean different things in
different discourses, because they are ​referring to different things. It is possible for a position
within one ideology to be constructed extremely differently from its parallel in another.
It seems we must move away somewhat from Althusser’s theory of ideology for the
sake of more nuance. Althusser’s conception leaves no room for ideologies or individuals to
counter or subvert the dominant or ruling ideology. It may also suggest a rather inscriptive
notion of ideology as being tied to the class character of social groups. Hall’s important
conception of “no necessary correspondence” and the equally important “no necessary
non-correspondence” may appear to merely avoid the question altogether, but seems to be the
more appropriate position to take. However, the foundation Althusser gives us is
unquestionably critical for the inquiry into ideology. As the media and its forms continue to
explode, as advertisement through the medium of the internet becomes increasingly targeted
towards individuals, and as political and social turmoil continues to unfold, interpellation will
be a concept we must necessarily keep returning - or rather, turning around - to.
Bibliography

Althusser, Louis. (1970) "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes

towards an investigation.", tr. Ben Brewster, 1971, from ​On the Reproduction of
Capitalism, ​Verso Books, 2014.

Hall, Stuart. (1985) "Signification, representation, ideology: Althusser and the

post-structuralist debates." Critical Studies in Media Communication 2, no. 2
(1985): 91-114.

Felluga, Dino. "Modules on Althusser: On Ideology." ​Introductory Guide to

Critical Theory​. Last updated 31/1/2011. Purdue U. Accessed on 20/03/2017.
<http://www.purdue.edu/guidetotheory/marxism/modules/althusserideology.ht
ml>.