Page 102 - Decoding Culture

SITUATING SUBJECTS 95

upon distortion, viewing ideology as a departure from truth, as
something which can be, even must be, transcended. Althusser's
conception is much more comprehensive in the social function
that it affords to ideology, so much so that, for him, social life is
inconceivable without it. Even before his 'ideological state appara­
tus' essay he was making such substantial claims: 'ideology (as a
system of mass representations) is indispensable in any society if
men are to be formed, transformed and equipped to respond to the
demands of their conditions of existence' (Althusser, 1969: 235).
He grounds his account in two basic propositions. Ideology, he
says (Althusser, 1977: 153) 'represents the imaginary relationship
of individuals to their real conditions of existence' and, secondly,
'ideology has a material existence' (ibid: 155), it exists not in some
ideational domain but in social practices and apparatuses. An indi­
vidual caught within ideology lives it out through the practices
which give it material form. S/he is rendered a 'subject' in and
through those practices which articulate his/her imaginary rela­
tionship with real conditions.
This is the heart of Althusser's theory: 'all ideology has the
function (which defines it) of "constituting" concrete individuals as
subjects' (ibid: 160) . In other words, the fundamental category
through which human beings are incorporated within ideology is
that of the subject. Although it may seem obvious to us that we are
individuals with a certain kind of identity, it is precisely this trans­
parency which is so important to the operation of ideology. 'It is
indeed a peculiarity of ideology that it imposes (without appearing
to do so, since these are "obviousnesses") obviousnesses as obvi­
ousnesses, which we cannot/ail to recognize and before which we
have the inevitable and natural reaction of crying out (aloud or in
the "still, small voice of conscience"): 'That's obvious! That's right!
That's true!'" (ibid: 161). Recognition of ourselves as subjects, how­
ever, is a product not of a natural state of being (identity, soul,

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