- What is a Repressive State Apparatus? Why does Althusser call it “repressive”? Can we explain his choice of words here. Give an example.
The Repressive State Apparatus consists of the higher authorities: the army, the police, and the prison system. So basically it’s the act of persuading someone to do something unwillingly through force or threat. Althusser calls it “ repressive” because its acted on violence. Repressive meaning restricting the freedom of an individual or group.
2. Let’s do the same for the Ideological State Apparatuses. What are they, how do they seem to work?
The ideological state apparatuses works according to ideology. This is guaranteed by the ruling class ideology. The ISA prevents changes to the status quo, which includes schools, politics and the mass media. ISA uses calmer ways to accomplish what they need done instead of using violence.
3. Important: this question will appear on our exam: How are the Repressive and Ideological State Apparatuses different from each other? What is the difference between the two?
The difference between the two is that the ideological state apparatuses works by ideology and the repressive state apparatuses works using violence. As the RSA takes more of a threatening and forceful approach, the ISA is calmer.
4. Post an example of ideology. This could be a piece of writing, an image, video, pdf document, visual art, or music, clip from a movie. Next to your example, specify if this is an example of repressive or ideological apparatuses at work.
This is an example of repressive state apparatuses. Instead of the police trying to figure out whats going on in a calm manner, he threatens and aggressively approaches these people
