Louis Althusser

LOUIS ALTHUSSER builds on the work of Jacques Lacan to understand the way political orientation functions in society. He thus moves away from the earlier Marxist taste of ideology. In the earlier model, ideology was believed to create what was termed false consciousness, a false understanding of the way the world functioned (for example, the suppression of the position that the products we purchase on the open market are, in fact, the outlet of the exploitation of laborers). Althusser explains that for Marx Ideology is [...] thought as an imaginary aspect whose status is exactly like the theoretical status of the ambitiousness among writers before Freud. For those writers, the dream was the purely imaginary, i.e. null, result of the days residues\ (Lenin 108). Althusser, by contrast, approximates ideology to Lacans understanding of reality, the world we construct around us later our entrance into the symbolic order. (See the Lacan mental faculty on the structure of the psyche.

) For Althusser, as for Lacan, it is impossible to access the corporeal conditions of reality due to our assurance on language; however, through a rigorousscientific approach to society, economics, and history, we can come close to perceiving if not those Real conditions at least the ways that we are inscribed in ideology by complex processes of recognition. Althussers understanding of ideology has in turn influenced a number of important Marxist thinkers, including Chantalle Mouffe, Ernesto Laclau, Slavoj Zizek, and Fredric Jameson. (See, for comparison, the Jameson module on ideology.) Althusser posits a series of hypotheses that he explores to clarify his understanding of ideology: 1) Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence (Lenin 109). The traditional way of thinking of ideology led Marxists to launch how ideologies are false by pointing to the real world conceal by ideology (for example, the real economic base for ideology).... If you command to get a full essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com

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