thestig, Marx/Engles, Althusser

“Ideology is a ‘representation’ of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence”

In breaking down this quote, I’m interpreting the relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence to be their relationship with others in society. Why then, would Althusser suggest that this is an imaginary relationship. In Ed Royce’s class, Sociological Theory, we have just started to study Emile Durkheim’s conception of sociology. He suggests that in order to understand individuals, we must understand “social facts.” These social facts are to say that the individual lives in a society, which shapes our being. This is not to say that our intentions do not have an effect on society, but we cannot explain society through these intentions. This is similar to Marx’s critique: that “It is not the consciousness of people that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.” So what makes this relationship imaginary?

A Marxist would argue, and Althusser touches upon this, that the relationship is imaginary because of alienation, the process in which people are detached from their being, which takes place among the working class through capitalism [“What is represented in ideology is…relations in which they live” (44)]. I think this helps to explain why the relationship is imaginary. It isn’t actually imaginary, but it is as if their life is imaginary because of the social forces that shape the individuals life. This force is ideology because it is the force that creates the “illusion” that individuals shape their own lives.

What Althusser touches upon as what “the subject” makes of this ideology is interesting to me because I’ve always wondered how other “products of ideology” consider themselves amongst other members of society. His example this, “Hey, you there!” helped to clarify what others may be thinking. We’ve been raised in a society with standards (like, as Althusser points out, shaking someone’s hand as a gesture to make an agreement/say hello, what have you) that we do not challenge, but accept as true. After all, everyone’s doing it.