Ace Ventura, Marx and Althusser

Ideology, Hegemony, and the Ideological State Apparatus are some things that have been discussed since CMC-100, so I feel like I've got a pretty firm grasp on this reading. The first interesting point that was mentioned is the different between ideas and ideology. While ideas are something that is more of a personal opinion or a thought that is created by an individual, ideologies are widely accepted beliefs that reflect a general attitude. This creates somewhat of a chicken and the egg dilemma. Do our ideas only exist because of ideologies that we have already subconsciously accepted, or do your ideas create these socially accepted ideologies? This brings about the concept of hegemony; the idea that the ruling class of any society creates these ideologies for the rest of society. They started first with their ideas that were based off of their perception of things and then created these ideologies to be accepted by the masses. Their ideas and ideologies only reflect the way they think society should run. As Marx says, "The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relations, the dominant material relations grasped as ideas; hence of the relations which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance" (39). These ideologies are impressed upon the rest of society either by persuasion or force, if the former doesn't work. The idea of forcing these ideologies upon someone is what brings about the Repressive State Apparatus while the persuasion more leans toward the Ideological State Apparatus, as Althusser discusses. Institutions that function as the Repressive State Apparatus are put into place for those people that question the ideologies created by the ruling class. And the private Ideological State Apparatus are more along the lines of institutions where individuals who have accepted (either somewhat or fully) the ideologies can create their own ideas and interpretations based off of these ideologies.