thestig, 3/22

“That author and the reader … both live … ‘naturally’ in ideology’” (46).

When we discussed this in class, Dr. Rog used an example that I could relate to easily to explain what it was that Althusser is saying here. Althusser means that we don’t’ question ideology because it seems normal. With ideology comes consistency, and what is consistent is normal. Dr. Rog’s exemplified the baseball hat as being an item that once signified “you are a baseball player.” If you played baseball, then you wore a baseball hat. If you didn’t play baseball, you wouldn’t wear a baseball hat (at least one with a teams logo on it), and wouldn’t be able to buy one, either. Then, the hat became available to the public, so the people who would buy them are fans. And in recent years, the hat has been commodified to be a fashion item. We see everyone walking around wearing hats with baseball team logos on them, and you’ll find that some people are wearing them because they “like the hat,” not because they identify with the team at all. I can identify with this story because my dad told me this story as I was growing up. He has been a Yankee fan many, many years, and he’s had many baseball hats. There is one particular hat that he had, and still has, that is ‘unique.’ It is unique because it was only available to people who played for the Yankees; it was different from hats available to the consumer because the stitching were raised. When we walked it to a hat store in Coopers Town, NY, the woman who owned the store erupted! She was shocked that my dad had the hat. Nowadays, you could walk into her store and buy the exact same hat that Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter will be wearing when they take the field. What we have seen here is an evolution in what is natural, what is normal.