Jessica Guinea Chamorro-Repressive and Ideological
According to Althusser, repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs) are state institutions whose primary role is to ensure that the ruling class remains dominant through force or the mere demonstration of force. These include the police, military, and courts since they are assigned to maintain law and order, sometimes by resorting to violence against public protests. Althusser uses the term ‘repressive’ to make a point that these apparatuses operate directly and forcefully, for example, through violence, arrest, or imprisonment. In the 1st YouTube video, RSAs are mentioned when describing the military or police that crackdown on protests. A real-life example is the suppression of civil rights protests,where the state hired the police to suppress demonstrations, which is an aspect of repressive control, according to Althusser. This fits into Althusser’s definition of RSAs since these actions use force to compel individuals to comply with the established norms.
Ideological state apparatuses (ISAs) are institutions such as schools, churches, the family, and media that impact the ideologies of individuals. Unlike RSAs, which operate by force, ISAs work through persuasion whereby the subjugated integrate the ruling ethic. ISAs operate based on the socialization of the people in such a way that they are made to embrace a given status within society without force. In the second YouTube video, an example of an ideological state apparatus (ISA) is the media, which helps nurture the notion that success is predicated on individual merit, thus erasing systemic concerns such as societal poverty. This complies with Althusser’s theory that ISAs implant ideologies throughout daily practices to ensure compliance. The PDF further illustrates this by highlighting that media and religious institutions that are funded by conservative elites disseminate ideas that reproduce capitalist relations of power, such as the ‘religious right.
The significant difference between RSAs and ISAs relates to control measures. The RSAs employ direct force and violence to perpetuate the hegemony of the ruling class. They work covertly, by force, as evidenced by the use of police or military force to quell dissent, as in the 1st YouTube video where the state cracks down on protesters, according to CrashCourse (2019). On the other hand, Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) influence people’s admitted attitudes without force through institutions such as media and schools. The second YouTube video shows how media as ISA perpetuates ideologies of success and individualism, consequently legitimizing the capitalist system softly (Think Media, 2022). The PDF also depicts how ISAs like religion and media retain power in the ideological domain, for instance, by portraying poverty as idleness. While RSAs employ the utilization of repression, ISAs employ the use of persuasion to compel people to embrace the roles assigned to them.
This is an example of the Ideological State Apparatus (ISA). Instead of forcing the population to conform to the existing structures of powers as Althusser’s Ideological State Apparatuses, it encourages people to accept those structures by influencing their perceptions about reality.
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One thought on “Jessica Guinea Chamorro-Repressive and Ideological”
Hey Jessica, I love that you included your sources to support your arguments. The example for the last question is also very fitting to the point you’re making.
Hey Jessica, I love that you included your sources to support your arguments. The example for the last question is also very fitting to the point you’re making.