Firstly in "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" Althusser revisits Marxism to bring to light the Apparatuses and class struggles that exist in all levels of reality and how our understanding of these is the key to realizing the role we play within the State Apparatus and how we can recognize the "obviousness" and "truth" of our existence. He begins by separating and defining the differences and connections between an Infrastructure and Superstructure; "the infrastructure, or economic base ([...] productive forces and the relations of production) and the superstructure, which itself contains two "levels" or "instances": the politico-legal (law and the State) and ideology ([...] religious, ethical, legal, political, etc)." The first of the two "levels" of the superstructure is that Repressive State Apparatus which entails "the Government, the Administration, the Army, the Police, the Courts, and the Prisons, etc.; the "public" sphere that "functions by violence." The second instance is what Althusser calls an Ideological State Apparatus, it is the private and institutionalized aspects of society which include (but are not limited to) the religious, educational, family, legal, political, etc. The main differences between these two apparatuses lies in singularity of the Repressive verses the plurality of the Ideological and the fact that one is in it's essence about violence while the other is concerned with ideology; "a 'Representation' of the Imaginary Relationship of Individuals to their Real Conditions of Resistance." What struck me the most in this reading was the cyclical nature of this relationship between Superstructure and Infrastructure and then again between Repressive and Ideological. The Ideological State Apparatus is what we see the proletariat as having most control over and yet is nothing more than an illusion to an allusion which the Repressive Statue Apparatus directly influnces through the control that Infrastructure or economic base (in which the ruling class holds the power to) has upon the Repressive SA and thus the Ideological SA as well. Value systems, ethics, cultural norms that we hold as individual expressions and ideals are then set not by a universal whole, but by the ruling class that currently holds power over the Repressive State and controls the economic base.
In the seemingly opposite political and social instance in Theodor Adorno's "Culture Industry Reconsidered" this idea of the power belonging to the ruling class that the "masses" are oblivious to and that all things done, even the most meaningful selfless actions, are merely a means for profit; "...they sought after profit only indirectly, over and above their autonomous essence." I believe that Adorno is speaking of the ruling class when he talks of the "culture industry" and its concern and functioning in relation to the "cultural masses." Again nothing of the individual is free from the culture industry, not even our entertainment; for this example he cites of American Film Industry as producing pictures which "take into consideration the level of eleven-year-olds...[and] in doing so they would very much like to make adults into eleven-year-olds."
So are we then being actively dumbed down to the level of children? And for what means? Is it to keep us "asleep" in an "illusion of an allusion" to what reality really is and who exactly is pulling the strings within "true" reality and to what end does this realization give us? I am intensely interested in the possibility of being free from these Apparatuses, these cultural industries, but as anyone-ever-in the course of history been completely void of a "ruling class" or at the very least their influence on individuality and reality. Is that a possibility or is it something ingrained in our nature; much like hunger, sleep, and breathing. For me this is a very scary thought and it brings me finally to the last reading "The Social Bases of Art" by Meyer Schapiro.
Throughout my reading of Schapiro I was most concerned with his most clear and important point through the paper where "he brings a social-historical form of explanation to bear on the current conditions of artistic practice." Questions of whether or not art is a true form of individuality in this "imaginary" construct of reality began to intrigue me and I wondered on what level does art fall into and can it transcend beyond the apparatuses and cultural industry to give pure autonomy. I know that in many instances that have and are occuring in the art world have a direct relationship to an economic base and are part of the Ideological State Apparatus through private institution, i.e. museum, galleries, collectors, etc., than in at least on some level art cannot be separated from this overpowering illusion and fake reality of the destruction of the individual. But, should art be completely separate from it? It appears to me that to do the most good for the individual and maybe in at least to fight back against the bourgeoisie oppressive state that art would have to function, on one level or another, within the oppressive industry, apparatuses, etc. Do I believe that some art is created particularly for the oppressive ruling class as a means to generate a similar instance that culture industry projects upon the masses, like a tool of illusion and allusion? Yes. But, can some works of art be made to combat this? Is there a photograph, painting, performance, etc. that while remaining completely aware of it's relation to the cultural industry, social base, and state apparatus can function as a means to "shake us awake" from the enslavement that we are, on so many levels, unconscious of? I'm not sure I have witnessed this possibility, but I hope others have.
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