Althusser – Competing Interpellations and the Third Text

With the exception of Nietzsche, no other madman has contributed so much to human sanity as has Louis Althusser. He’s cited twice as the teacher of someone. There could be no increased lapse: for 2 years (the 60s and the 70s), Althusser was at the eye of all of the important cultural storms. He fathered quite a number of them.

This newly-found obscurity forces me to outline his work before suggesting a few (small ) modifications on it.

(1) Society is composed of clinics: economic, political and ideological.

Althusser defines a clinic as:

“Any method of transformation of a determinate product, influenced
By a determinate human labour, with determinate means (of creation )”

The economic clinic (the historically specific mode of production) transforms raw materials into finished products using human labour and other means of production, all organized within defined webs of inter-relations. The political practice does the same. Ultimately, ideology is the transformation of the manner that a subject relates to his actual life conditions of existence.

That can be a rejection of the mechanistic worldview (replete with bases and superstructures). It is a rejection of the Marxist theorization of ideology. It is a rejection of the Hegelian fascist”social totality”. It is a lively, revealing, contemporary day version.

In it, the very existence and reproduction of their social base (not merely its own expression) is determined by the social superstructure. The superstructure has been”relatively autonomous” and ideology has a fundamental part in it see entrance about Marx and Engels and entrance concerning Hegel.

The structure is determinant yet another structure may be dominant, depending upon the historic conjuncture. Determination (currently referred to as over-determination – see Notice ) specifies the kind of economic production upon which the dominant practice depends. Put differently: the economic is determinant not because the clinics of the social formation (political and governmental ) will be the social formation’s expressive epiphenomena – however because it decides WHICH of them is dominant.

(2) Individuals relate to the conditions of life through the practice of ideology. Contradictions are smoothed over and (real) problems are available false (though seemingly true) solutions. Thus, ideology includes a realistic measurement – and a measurement of representations (myths, concepts, ideas, images). There is (harsh, conflicting) reality – and the manner that we represent it both to ourselves and others.

(3) To achieve the above, ideology should not be viewed to err or, worse, remain speechless. It, therefore, confronts and poses (to itself) only answerable questions. This way, it remains confined to some legendary domainname. It dismisses other questions .

(4) Althusser introduced the Idea of”The Problematic”:

“The objective internal reference… the system of questions
Controlling the answers given”

It decides which problems, questions and answers are a part of the game – and which should be blacklisted and never as far as mentioned. It is a structure of theory (ideology), a frame along with the repertoire of discourses which – finally – return a text or a clinic. The remainder is excluded.

It becomes evident that what is omitted is of no less importance than that which is contained in a text. The problematic of this text relates to the historic context (“second”) by incorporating either: Pairing as well as omissions, presences as much as absences. The problematic of the text fosters the generation of answers to questions that are posed – and of defective answers to questions.

(5) The job of”scientific” (e.g., Marxist) discourse, of Althusserian vital practice would be to deconstruct the debatable, to read through evidence and ideology the actual conditions of existence. That really can be a”symptomatic reading” of TWO TEXTS:

“It divulges the undivulged event in the text that it reads and, even in the
Same motion, relates to it a different textas a mandatory
Absence, in the initial… (Marx’s reading of Adam Smith) presupposes
The presence of two texts and the dimension of the initial against
The next. But what differentiates this reading in the older,
Is the fact that in the one, the text is articulated with the
Lapses in the initial text… (Marx measures) the debatable contained
In the event of an answer which does not correspond to any questions posed.”

Althusser is contrasting the attest text with a latent text that’s the consequence of their lapses, distortions, silences and absences in the prevailing text. The latent text will be the”diary of the battle” of the unposed question to be posed and answered.

(6) Ideology is a clinic with dwelt and material measurements. It has ways of believing, costumes, rituals, behavior patterns. The State employs Ideological Apparatuses (ISAs) to reproduce ideology through productions and practices: (organized) religion, the education system, the household, (coordinated ) politics, the media, the sectors of civilization.

“All ideology has the function (which defines it) of’constructing’
concrete individuals as subjects”

Topics to what? The answer: to the material principles of the ideology. This (the production of topics ) is accomplished by the functions of”hailing” or”interpellation”. All these are actions of bringing attention (hailing), forcing the individuals to generate meaning (interpretation) and allow them to engage in the tradition.

These theoretical tools were widely used to examine the movie industries and the Advertising.

The ideology of consumption (which is, undoubtedly, the most content of most practices) uses advertising to transform individuals to subjects (=to consumers). It uses advertising to interpellate them. The advertisements attract attention, induce individuals to introduce meaning to them , consequently, to eat. The most famous instance is the usage of”Individuals like you (purchase this or do that)” in ads. The reader / audience is interpellated both as an individual (“you”) and as part of a team (“people such as…”). He occupies the vacant (imaginary) space of the”you” in the ad. That can be ideological”misrecognition”. To begin with, many others misrecognize themselves as that”you” (an impossibility in the actual world). Secondly, the misrecognized”one” exists just in the ad since it was made with it, it doesn’t have any real world correlate.

The reader or viewer of the ad is transformed into the subject of how (and subject to) the material exercise of the ideology (consumption, in this case).

Althusser was a believer. The dominant mode of production in his days (and even more so now ) was capitalism. His suggested criticism of the substance size of ideological practices should be taken with greater than just a grain of salt. Interpellated from the ideology of Marxism himself, he generalized on his personal experience and described ideologies as infallible, omnipotent, actually profitable. Ideologies, to him, were impeccably functioning machines that may always be relied on to reproduce issues with all the habits and thought patterns required by the dominant mode of production.

And that is really where Althusser fails, trapped by dogmatism and more than a bit of paranoia. He neglects to treat two side-by-side inquiries (his debatable may have not permitted it):

(a) What do ideologies look for? Why do they engage in their practice? What is the objective?

(b) What happens in a pluralistic environment abundant in rival ideologies?

Althusser stipulates the existence of two texts, hidden and manifest. Its white background is defined by the using the former, much as a black figure. The background can also be a guess and it is just re – the consequence of historic conditioning – which a status that is preferred is bestowed by us . By listening to the silences, the lapses and your absences in the prevailing text, the latent text can be extracted in the manifest one.

What orders the legislation of extraction? How do we know that the latent text thus vulnerable is THE right one? There should exist a process of the latent text of authentication, contrast and confirmation?

Compared to the resultant latent text into the manifest text where it was extracted will be useless since it would be recursive. This is not a method of iteration. It is teutological. There must exist a THIRD,”master-text”, a privileged text, historically invariant, dependable, unequivocal (indifferent to interpretation-frameworks), easily accessible, atemporal and non-spatial. This text is COMPLETE in the sense that it contains both manifest and the latent. Actually, it should contain all the probable texts (that a LIBRARY purpose ). The historic moment will decide which of them will be manifest and which latent, according to the needs of the mode of production and the several practices. Not all these texts will be aware and accessible to the individual but such a text will embody and dictate the principles of contrast between the manifest text along with ITSELF (the Third Text), function as the COMPLETE text.

Just via a comparison involving a partial text along with an entire text may the deficiencies of the text be vulnerable. A contrast involving partial texts will yield no specific outcomes and a contrast between the text and it self (since Althusser indicates ) is absolutely meaningless.

This Third Text is the individual psyche. We compare texts that we read to this Third Text, a replica of which most of us carry . We’re unaware of most of the texts. When faced with a manifest text which is new to us, we first”download” the”principles of contrast (engagement)”. We sift through the text that is . We determine which components are missing and compare it with our master text that is COMPLETE. All these include text. The text acts as a trigger which brings appropriate and relevant elements of the Third Text. Additionally, it generates the latent text in us.

If it sounds familiar it is because this routine of facing (the manifest text), comparing (with our grasp text) and keeping the results (the text that is manifold along with the manifest text are brought to understanding ) – can be used by mother nature . The DNA is this a”Guru Text, Third Text”. It comprises all of the texts some manifest, some latent. Only stimuli in its environment (=a manifest text) can excite it to generate its own (hitherto latent)”text”. The same will apply to computer applications.

The Third Text, hence, has an invariant character (it comprises all probable texts) – and, yet, is changeable by interacting with texts that are manifest. This contradiction is only apparent. The Third Text does not change – different parts of it are attracted as a consequence of the interaction with the text. We also can safely say that one does not need to be an Althusserian critic or engage in”scientific” discourse to deconstruct the debatable. It is instantly and always deconstructed by every reader of text. The first act of reading involves contrast.

And that is why some interpellations neglect. Every message is deconstructed by the subject even if he is not trained in practice. He’s interpellated or neglects to be interpellated depending on what latent message has been created via the contrast with the Third Text. And because ALL texts that were possible are included by the Third Text , the subject is given to numerous interpellations offered by many ideologies, mostly at odds with one another. The subject is in a surroundings of COMPETING INTERPELLATIONS (particularly in this day and age of information glut). The failure of a single interpellation – normally signifies the achievement of the other (whose interpellation is based on the latent text created in the comparison process or on a manifest text of its own, or onto a text generated text created by the other text).

There are competing ideologies in the most severe of authoritarian regimes. Sometimes, IASs in the formation that is same provide rival ideologies: the Party, the Church the Army the Civilian Regime. To suppose that interpellations are offered to the potential issues successively (rather than in parallel) defies experience (although it does simplify the thought-system).

Clarifying the HOW, however, does not shed light.

Advertising contributes to the interpellation of the subject to effect the substance practice of consumption. Put more simply: there’s money involved. Additional ideologies – propagated for example, through organized religions – lead to prayer. Could it be the substance practice that they are searching for? No manner. Cash, money – they are all representations of energy over human beings. The culture sectors, the business concern the party the media – all are searching for the same matter: influence, power, can. Interpellation can be used to secure a single paramount thing: the capacity to interpellate. Behind every substance clinic stands a mental clinic (much like the Third Text – the psyche – stands behind each text, latent or manifest).

The media may differ: money art, physical brutality. But everybody (even individuals in their private life) is seeking to hail and interpellate others and therefore manipulate them to succumb to their substance practices. A short view would say the entrepreneur interpellates so as to generate money. Nevertheless, the question is: what for? What pushes ideologies to set up material practices and to interpellate folks become matters and to take part in them? The will to power. The wish to have the ability to interpellate. It is this cyclical character of Althusser’s teachings (ideologies interpellate to be able to have the ability to interpellate) along with his dogmatic approach (ideologies never neglect ) which doomed his otherwise outstanding observations to oblivion.

Notice

In the writings of Althusser the Marxist conclusion remains as Over-determination. This can be a structured articulation of lots of contradictions and determinations (involving the clinics ). This Is Quite reminiscent of Freud’s Dream Theory and of Superposition in Quantum Mechanics’ Idea.