What is a Repressive State Apparatus? Why does Althusser call it “repressive”? Can we explain his choice of words here. Give an example.

Repressive state apparatus is the act of convincing someone to do something using threat or force.One or multiple people are in charge but disobeying or disrespecting thus person or people would result in the ‘force or threat’.One example would be a warrant. You did something that was illegal so now the police now have the right to break down your door, barge into your house and forcefully detain you.Or another example could be if you steal from a store the threat would be going to jail or having the police called on you.I believe he called it repressive because, as the word implies, it restricts someone’s freedom, which is exactly what this oppressive strategy is doing because you have some control over the individual getting the RSA treatment.

 Let’s do the same for the Ideological State Apparatuses. What are they, how do they seem to work?

 Althusser claims that ISA uses strategies other than physical force to accomplish the same goals as RSA. They could be the family, media sources, churches, social , and educational institutions.One example would be one mentioned in the video about school, coming late to class would result in the teacher threatening to call your parents.Or not showing up for work would later integrate into you manager telling you, you might not have a job tomorrow.

 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 two are different because Ideological State Apparatuses operate by ideology itself whereas the Repressive State Apparatus operates by violence. ISA takes a more softer approach where RSA is more aggressive and fearful.

 Post an example of ideology.

This is definitely an ideological apparatus at work because it shows the LITERAL hypocrisy world we live in. We live in a world where we can not have an opinion because ‘we want to be considerate to everyone’s feelings’ or whatever nonsense people want to believe. And if you do speak your voice and someone doesn’t agree with what you say, it’s “ How could you?!?!?!?! YOU GONNA GET CANCELED”. Like the clip 2:10, it shows a person upset over a tv show so they create a hashtag so that the show gets canceled… just because they found it “offensive”. He states how people shouldn’t, in this case shouldn’t attack and terrorize a tv show company because of their sensitivity.We live in a day and time where you have to satifise everybody or else you’re wrong.