Althusser Post

For tomorrow's class we were instructed to read Louis Althusser's "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus". This reading coincides very well with one of the electives i'm taking this fall called Ideology and Mass Culture.

In his work, Althusser talks a lot about social practices, ideology, and ISA's (family, media, religious organizations, and our education system)/RSA's (repressive state apparatus). One particular ideology that has thrived in our society is the notion of the American dream: since we were young social institutions and those around us have influenced our desire to live a comfortable, successful life. Hoschchild claims that "the American dream implies reaching some threshold of well-being" (12). Because social mobility is next to impossible in our communities, few people are ever actually able to reach a higher standard of living and our 'surrendering' to the idea that there's nothing we can to do better our lives just legitimates the social system and reinforces the dominant ideology in place. Those in the upper class want these ideologies to function that way...it's in their best interest for us to keep reinforcing that popular way of thinking.

All in all I thought that this reading was a little hard and at times I wondered why he had to word particular sentences in such weird ways instead of just saying what he really meant. I'm not sure if I got the full message out of this piece but I think that because it relates so well to the stuff i'm learning in Van Sickle's class I was able to figure out the gist of what Althusser was trying to say. I remembered that  the ISA's and the RSA's were important terms (I think that was CMC 100) and I believe that the reading also could be compared to the writings of Habermas and Lyotard.