ISAs and Interpellation

In Louis Althusser’s article titled, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses", he investigates the role of ISAs within society and analyzes the act of interpellation to further his inquiry. In doing so, Althusser is able to separate the common actions of society into intricate parts that function to label us as subjects in both the private and public spheres. We soon realize that we are being manipulated to act and believe certain things so as too instill conformity and to perpetuate the labels that society forces on us. As Althusser asserts, “Ideology interpellates individuals as subjects.”

Throughout his article, Althusser often uses Ideological State Apparatuses, or ISAs, as a vehicle for describing certain groups within society and their treatment of individuals as “subjects.” Within our society, examples of Ideological State Apparatuses include education, family, church, media, politics, culture, and law, among many other things. The function of these ISAs is essentially to use social practices as vehicles for labeling human individuals with certain roles and activities. Within our society, the human individual is generally regarded as a subject endowed with the property of being a self-conscious “responsible” agent. For Althusser, however, a person’s capacity for perceiving himself in this way is not innately given; rather, it is acquired within the structure of established social practices, which impose on individuals the role of a subject. Social practices both determine the characteristics of the individual and give him or her an idea of the range of properties he or she can have, and of the limits of each individual. Additionally, regarding Althusser’s use of the term “interpellation”, he is referring to the process by which ideology addresses the pre-ideological individual therefore effectively producing him or her as a subject. An example of this would be if a man is walking down the street and another man exclaims, “Hey you!” and the man turns around to address the other man. By turning around, the man simply becomes the “subject” within the context of the situation.

The structures of school and family can be used as primary examples for the act of “ideology interpellat[ing] individuals as subjects”, possibly because they are systems through which nearly everyone is forced to go through. These systems are known to instill the “know-how”, or essentially roles and expected practices in human individuals even starting at a very early age. An example of this “know-how”, is the simple ability of college students to sit in their seats without being restless or becoming distracting during a lecture. Starting in pre-school and kindergarten, we are trained to sit properly in our seats without leaving them and running around the classroom. We are told the former is right and the latter is wrong. As a result, these “beliefs” are subconsciously instilled in all of us, turning us into subjects by forcing us into certain roles. In terms of the family environment, an example is how the mothers are considered to be responsible for how the children of the family ‘end up.’ A few generations ago when womens’ primary jobs were to be caretakers and stay-at-home mothers, they were continuously held responsible for the ‘quality’ of their children. Even today, despite the changes in society that result in women often working just as much as their spouses do, women are still placed into this certain “role” because of these ritualistic beliefs that have been carried over through many generations. These descriptions and examples unfortunately illustrate our society as one based on ritualistic practices and beliefs that continue to label us not as individuals, but as subjects.