What is an Ideology? (or Althusser was crazy?)

Writer Douglas Lain discusses Althusser's concept of the Ideological State Apparatus with his daughter Emma.
-
Pick Your Battle book on Amazon - http://amzn.to/lSt96r
Pick Your Battle book free PDF- http://douglaslain.net/?page_id=742
Althusser and the Rosary Explained on Youtube by oxymediastudies (set to the theme to the Price Is Right): http://youtu.be/NJVLSHa0n8M
Zizek on How we are embedded in ideology: http://youtu.be/FdzMCUaJQ6g

Essay at Thought Catalog: Five Steps for Understanding Althusser Without Going Insane
http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/five-steps-for-understanding-althussers-concep...

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• ideology
• philosophy
• althusser
• thinking
• politics
• hegemony
• crazy
• funny
• marxism
• capitalism
• montage

[honestyrocksu]

cool I didnt know you could download the book I'm just starting to read it thanks/

At this point, I don't see how wage relationships are inherently repressive or necessarily repressive, I hadn't thought about it,. I suppose they could be, it just strikes me as a negative way to put it. I mean the idea of economics and free markets is that people are free to go out and find more more money right? I mean extremely high paid people aren't repressed because their rich from it, so at what point

[douglain]

@honestyrocksu I suggest you watch Brendan Cooney's video Manufacturing Consent. But I will say that the "free market" relies on the presence of a mass of people who have nothing to sell but their own labor. While there are rich workers if all workers were rich enough to become Capitalists then the free market would become impossible.

[honestyrocksu]

Plato also said people need a myth to explain their place in the social hierarchy. I wonder how altusser's claim is "new" ? What is the justification for the need? to keep them from rebelling? geez that was the freud family too, oh and Leo Strauss..maybe even hobbes.

Also just because the money/payment can be taken away it doesnt justify calling repressive does it? I mean by that definition every economic relationship is repressive -- except charity, oh wait that can be taken away too!

[douglain]

@honestyrocksu The wage relationship is one where one must work for another in order to survive. What can be taken away is one's means to survive and therefore that apparatus is a straight-up repressive apparatus. The threat of having your life taken away is a repressive threat.

Althusser's concept of myth as necessary is on a different order than Strauss and Plato because it is necessary in order for any understanding to arise and not necessary because the mass of me have no understanding.

[douglain]

k1ssinger: all of my kids are tolerant of my tendency to indoctrinate them into whatever philosophy I'm exploring. Also, I aim at dialogues rather than debates.

[douglain]

Thanks for commenting and reading. Love to hear what you think of the book.

[Leighsus]

LOL @ mentioning his time in a mental hospital but not saying why.

[stevenson66666666]

@k1ssinger I wish my parents where knowledgeable in other fields, and different ways of thinking, rather then raising me to believe one thing "the American dream". Luckily I was fortunate enough to travel (a luxury many cant do because of the chase towards the dream) and was able to learn on my own, and realize that there are thousands of ways to look at the world. Wish I knew what I did know, when I was 15, would have made my life a lot more understandable.

[chandlerblancaflor]

at :27 I was like, "really, are you serious?" But I watched the rest. Good informative video.

[k1ssinger]

I'm sure your daughter just loves being roped into a debate on Marxist state theory.

[lensherr82]

Excellent video!