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 i when an individual is being indoctrinated with fear by the system to act and think is a specific way, Althusser calls it because in this way the person faces a ‘punishment’ for not following what they are told, the most important thing here is to make the person not to reveal for example at schools they teach critical thinking but critical thinking nevers extends to the apparatus itself

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

=This one uses other methods to achieve the same objective but by ideological strategies where they are exposed to the same ideas constantly and making them think that is the idea the must follow too, we can see it in churches, schools, restaurants… they seem to work as ‘socially accepted’ so everybody is force to act the same way or else there will be any kind of consequence, also social pressure is there to ensure that kind of behave.

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 repressive state is based on fear and the ideological one based on social ideas, the repressive one has to do more with physical restriction of freedom and the ideological one is more a restriction of free thinking

This image is an example of ideological state, news are a good example of how we are constantly exposed to them, many times not knowing if they are true or not, the way they are easily manipulable makes it a source of misinformation which can lead to indoctrination if they wanted.