A bit of cultural theory
The best—and most succinct—definition of ideology I’ve ever come across is this:
Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence.
The definition comes from an influential work of political analysis published in 1970 (see here) by the French Marxist thinker Louis Althusser (1918-1990). In his analysis, Althusser examines how ideology, although an illusion, it is also an allusion. By this he means that ideology simultaneously leads to our misdiagnosing the world around us and to our having a fictional view of the world put before us. That is, in order to mask the way things really are, ideology also alludes to an alternative and invented view of the world for us to believe instead.
What is that invented view, that imaginary relationship we’re provided to our real conditions of existence? Basically, that the current social system, the status quo, works for our own good.
For Althusser, then, ideology is the means by which a state perpetuates itself—reproducing, generation after generation, its social, political, and economic structure. Such social reproduction is a vital element in the staying power of any Regime—from the Principality of Liechtenstein to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) to the United States of America.
Important to understand is that Althusser does not conceive of ideology as a mere airy ideal drifting abstractly through our social fabric. On the contrary, ideology is a material practice meant to convince us. A ritual producing a belief (not the other way around). An apparatus aimed at us in order to mold the kind of citizens needed to sustain the status quo of the state.
In other words, ideology has moving parts—a machinery of Power, so to speak. Althusser proposes three such instruments:
1) Repressive State Apparatuses (RSA): These mechanisms operate via the threat of violence. The police, the military, the courts, prisons. In terms of The Republic of Hoops we discussed last week, the RSAs of basketball are the referees, the coaches, the league officials, the bench. RSAs mandate and force our compliance to the status quo—or else.
2) Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA): These mechanisms operate via coaxing. Schools, family, religions, legal systems, political parties, unions, country clubs, Girl Scouts, social media, advertisements, movies, TV shows, literature, and so much more. In terms of The Republic of Hoops, the ISAs of basketball include team cultures, basketball camps, youth leagues, NBA and WNBA stars as role models, March Madness, team merchandise, ESPN, and so much more. ISAs charm and motivate and assure and convince us to comply to the status quo—because, it is claimed, doing so works in our favor and brings rewards.
3) Interpellation: This ideological act operates via the constant calling out to or hailing the individual, in innumerable ways, to come join the status quo. An occurrence can be as simple as a police officer saying, “Hey, you there,” or a teacher saying, “Please take your seats,” or a basketball ref saying, “Sorry, son, but that’s traveling,” or a coach saying, “Nice shot, Sue!” Interpellation can be as elaborate as the national anthem played before a sports event or the pledge of allegiance recited at the start of the school day or hymns sung in church or military parades in Red Square. The individual is constantly summoned to become a member of what’s portrayed as the normal. We are both recruited and demanded to recognize ourselves as citizens of the state.
Again, according to Althusser, ideology is designed to disguise our actual social conditions—e.g. non-living wages, systemic racism, patriarchy—and to bring us into the fold, instead, of make-believe social conditions—overall prosperity, equal opportunity—that pretend to work for our benefit.
Applying this bit of cultural theory
Commonly, people assume that a powerful state preserves itself by way of its RSAs. The threats of violence and punishment are seen, after all, as robust and direct means to maintain and pass on the status quo. The authoritarian leaders of such governments often are described as “strong men.”
In fact, these states are quite weak.
If your police and military are in the streets busting heads, if your courts and prisons are packed with violators, that means your population is not buying into the ideology you’re selling. Your Regime may not be, quite yet, teetering on the brink of collapse—but it’s heading in that direction.
Such is the case, I would argue, of the Florida governorship of Ron DeSantis. He talks a big game—all for the sake of his presidential bid—but he’s resorting to repressive tactics to carry it out. As a result, he’s gradually running his state into the ground. Let’s just take a look at one of his pet projects: ruining primary, secondary, and higher education in Florida.
DeSantis and the Republican-controlled state legislature have signed into law a series of bills designed to squash ideas that they don’t like. The “Parental Rights in Education Act” (House Bill 1557), also commonly called the “Don’t Say Gay” law, became state policy in March 2022 and is now fully in force. Among other restrictive measures, it prohibits or severely limits any consideration of gender identity or sexual orientation from kindergarten to 12th grade (see here).
Similarly, the “Individual Freedom Act” (House Bill 7), commonly known as the “Stop-WOKE Act,” was signed into law in April 2022. Although not yet fully in force, this policy constrains the teaching in schools and the training in workplaces of issues related to racism and social privilege (see here).
My purpose here is not to explore in detail these retrograde actions, but simply to point out how DeSantis is engaging these cultural issues not on the level playing field of open and honest debate and persuasion, but by the tactics of legalistic bullying and bully-pulpit demagoguery. In other words, DeSantis is resorting to using RSAs because he knows that the ideologies he’s selling aren’t doing the job he wants them to do—namely, convincing enough people that Christian Nationalism, white supremacy, and wholesale bigotry is a status quo that works for their own good.
Another way to think about this situation, in Althusserian terms, is that DeSantis finds the ISA of the Florida school system out of line with the ideology he wants to impose. So he’s using the RSAs of the police and the court (and potentially even the prison) to retool that piece of sociopolitical machinery—meaning Florida state education—to suit his conservative agenda.
These authoritarian mechanics are glaringly obvious when it comes to DeSantis’s campaign to bring to heel public colleges and universities in Florida. The state government is working hard to dispossess those institutions of the core of higher education: Academic Freedom.
The primary target of the “Higher Education” bills in Florida (House Bill 999, Senate Bill 266) is to eliminate the practice and the concept of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in all state institutions of higher learning (see here, here, and here). As assessed by the ACLU, the measures in these bills amount to government censorship and control of Florida colleges and universities (see here). Academic fields dealing with gender and race studies will be prohibited. Faculty hiring and tenure decisions will be taken away to be exercised, instead, by appointees of the governor. Spending on all DEI initiatives will be barred. And, as a kind of cherry on top of this shit pie, new general education course requirements will be levied—courses concentrating on the Western European tradition (the Dead White Man curriculum).
Yes, DeSantis has set out to Make Education Great Again.
Although only the slightly toned-down Senate Bill 266 was signed into law in May 2023 and is due to go into effect in July 2023 (see here), these policies are all heavy-handed acts of repression intended to rig the system in favor of the worldview favored by DeSantis and the Republican Party. There has been a lot of student, faculty, and parent protest against these measures (see here, here, and here). Along with these disruptions to teaching and research, mounting evidence shows that such draconian laws targeting diversity and tenure are starting to undermine the quality of higher education in Florida—as well as in other Republican states, such as Texas, that enact similar directives (see here).
Clearly, Republican governors and legislators are not bothered in the least about damage done to Academic Freedom and higher education. Who needs a socially aware, civically astute, and critically thinking population anyway? Such a citizenry is not easy to herd.
Finally, with regard to Althusser’s concept of interpellation, this tends to be a subtler device of ideological habituation that DeSantis, while swinging the wrecking ball of RSAs, cannot employ overly much to his advantage. Much of the calling out to or hailing the individual he does involves rightwing dog whistles. That is, calls for “parental rights” or “individual freedoms” or “traditional American values” that obscure the biases and injustices motivating them. But only rightwing listeners heed these summons to be included among the “normal.”
In an effort to recruit-cum-demand more people enter his ideological orbit, DeSantis has glommed onto the concept of WOKE. In a perfect example of the Battle for the Signified, he’s tried to remake that term—which means basically alert to racial prejudice and discrimination—into a dirty word. With his whinging, ever-complaining intonation, DeSantis endlessly derides “the WOKE-mind virus” and ballyhoos his own “anti-WOKE” policies. The problem is—in large part due to the educational efforts of teachers similar to those the governor seeks to muzzle—most Americans have a positive view of this social stance (see here).
As a result, when DeSantis declares proudly that Florida is where WOKE goes to die, all he’s really pointing out is that Florida is where Fox News viewers go to die.
So what?
There’s a lot more to discuss when it comes to RSAs, ISAs, and interpellation as social structures that determine individual agency. For example, what about a high-functioning Regime where the ISAs and interpellation do most of the work of ideological persuasion? Within such a social construct, RSAs fade into the background to do their jobs unnoticed. Social reproduction, then, can occur far more effortlessly.
One could argue that The Republic of Hoops is a high-functioning Regime. The RSAs of basketball work mainly undisturbed. The rules of the game and the consequences for violating them are not major issues of contention. No one is calling for players to have to hop on one leg or shoot on 15-foot baskets or be publicly flogged when they foul out. This kind of social stability happens when the coaxing mechanisms of, say, youth basketball leagues successfully accomplish their task of early acclimatization.
ISAs normalize and make natural-seeming the construct of RSAs.
Interpellation is also powerful when it comes to Hoops. Who doesn’t want to answer the call of and be hailed as a Sports Hero?
In future posts, we’ll consider further these cultural mechanisms theorized by Althusser, particularly how subsequent thinkers have used and expanded upon them. To conclude this post, I’ll simply put into Althusserian terms an obvious and urgent threat to American democracy as it struggles to continue to emerge.
If your viewpoints can’t compete in the Marketplace of Ideas, RSAs become your only option for keeping a grip on power.
I have in mind, of course, Trumpism and the MAGA movement.
Conservative and far-right media and social media outlets, such as Fox News and Breitbart News, are loud and well-funded. Not doubt these rightwing ISAs and voices of interpellation have a significant impact on our body politic. However, because the Republican voter base is dwindling in numbers (see here), these non-violent means of ideological training—of disguising actual social conditions and huckstering instead contrived ones—are becoming increasingly less effective for the Trump-MAGA devotees.
Big surprise, but it’s difficult to convince people of color that white supremacy works in their own best interest; to tell workers unable to earn a living wage or find adequate health care or buy a house that funneling money to the top 1% via tax cuts is a worthwhile economic arrangement; to lecture parents whose children have been shot in school that the gun industry deserves special protection; to assure the next generation that climate change is absolutely nothing to worry about.
Thus, nationwide, Republicans at the state, federal, and judicial levels are resorting to the strongarm machinery of gerrymandering, voter suppression, abortion restrictions, lackadaisical gun laws, book bans, criminalizing non-binary gender identity, and more. In other words, they’re working overtime to manipulate in their favor all the RSAs they can get their hands on.
Their ideological goal?
Well, the only “Great” the MAGAistas want to get back to is the antithesis of democracy: minority rule.