"What is represented in ideology is
therefore not the system of the real relations which govern the existence of
individuals, but the imaginary relation of those individuals to the real
relations in which they live"
Ideology is a reflection of the best
possible reality. Key word: reflection.
I idealize my puppy. She never chews shreds the paper towels I clean up her pittle spills with. Ever. I didn't come home this morning to my mother yelling "Elizabeth, you need to clean up blah blbha blaha blahghgaghghghghgh" ***that was sarcasm, in case you missed it.
Marxy (Karl and I are old friends) says that ideologies are deceptive because they represent a world that does not really exist. Althusser takes a similar, yet different approach. It is a sort of expansion of the Marxist idea: He describes ideology as “a ‘representation’ of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence”. Just like Marxists, he claims that ideology is not a true reflection of the real world, but it’s not a really reflection of the world at all. Ideologies instead “represent” the “imaginary relationship of individuals” to the real world.
I idealize my puppy. She never chews shreds the paper towels I clean up her pittle spills with. Ever. I didn't come home this morning to my mother yelling "Elizabeth, you need to clean up blah blbha blaha blahghgaghghghghgh" ***that was sarcasm, in case you missed it.
Marxy (Karl and I are old friends) says that ideologies are deceptive because they represent a world that does not really exist. Althusser takes a similar, yet different approach. It is a sort of expansion of the Marxist idea: He describes ideology as “a ‘representation’ of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence”. Just like Marxists, he claims that ideology is not a true reflection of the real world, but it’s not a really reflection of the world at all. Ideologies instead “represent” the “imaginary relationship of individuals” to the real world.
The
thing that ideology represents, or rather misrepresents, is already removed
from what is real. We cannot truly
understand what is real because we are hindered by language (Lacan), and
therefore we cannot escape ideology because of our reliance on language. Language cannot truly represent what is real
and therefore binds us to ideology. Language
is just a symbolic representation of reality.
We are forced to use ideology to try to understand or explain what is
real. We use language to show the
relationship between people and the world.
Althusser
explains that even if we understand that ideologies are “illusions”, we must
admit that they do make allusions to reality.
Those allusions need only be interpreted in
order to understand reality.
Ideology is an illusion, yet an allusion to reality at the same time. While referencing reality, [...______...] cannot truly
represent it because our reality cannot be based on social constructed
ideologies. The ideological state
apparatus includes institutions such as family, education, religion, politics,
and the arts. These ideologies are not
true representations of what is real.
They are imaginary representations of individuals to reality. The ideal family consists of a mother,
father, and children. The institute of
family does not always follow this pattern.
It is a concept created to represent a "truth". I would not go so far to say that
family is not real. It is, according to
Althusser, an ideology used to represent the relation of the members of a
family to the concept of the family itself.
In
conclusion, ideologies are the attempts to portray “reality”. They are the illusions we use to allude to
the “real” world. They are imaginary and
will always fail because we are bound to language.
