310MC Research & Development

Louis Althusser (16th October 1918 – 22nd October 1990)

Louis Althusser was an Algerian Marxist philosopher. Althusser had a complicated life and it all began from the moment he was born. He was named after his paternal Uncle, who had been killed in the First World War. Althusser alleged that his Mother had intended to marry his Uncle and married his Father only because of the brother’s demise, he also claimed that his Mother treated him as a substitute for his dead Uncle and he claimed that this caused him to have psychological damage. After a childhood full of psychological trauma he was eventually enlisted into the French army at the start of the Second World War, however like most French soldiers after the Fall of France he was put into a German POW camp and remained there for the rest of the war. This experience further more added to his lifelong mental instability.

He approached power in the form of ideology, and to me more precise his argument of power consisted of two apparatus; Ideological State Apparatus and Repressive State Apparatus.

Ideological State Apparatus in Althusser’s own words are a certain number of realities that which present themselves to the observer in the form of distinct and specialized institutions.

Repressive State Apparatus again in Althusser’s words, functions massively and predominantly by repression, while functioning secondarily by ideology.

A quote I found from Thomas Hobbes that seems to sum up what Althusser is effectively telling us about what ideology has upon people; “We are not controlled by force, but by ideas”.

Althusser argues that ideology is merely an illusion/allusion and therefore it is imaginary and not real. For example in Religion, there is a God and there is no real solid proof that a God exists so therefore it is an idea/ideology.

Ideology is linked to reality as this is where the ‘ideal’ idea materialises from.

Ideology is all around us and comes from all sources and in all shapes and sizes. One example of where ideology is used to gain power etc, is through the government and political parties, who base their policies and solutions around the ideologies held by the voters to allow them to obtain the majority of the public votes in elections.

The way I have interpreted Althusser’s theory into our current world, is that State can use power and organisations cannot. The classification of the State would be forces, such as the army, police etc. The organisation is then formed by the public. This means that whatever the organisation does the state always has the power to stop and prevent it through being the commanding force.

There is also the question, Why does the state have so much power? This is simply because we give up our force to the state to obtain rules. This therefore results in us being in a more controlled society and although we don’t like it, we know that there I nothing really we can do about it.

How does and organisation form?

1. An ideology is started as an individual idea.
2. Others then buy into the idea.
3. This then turns into a group/organisation.

This type of ideological recruitment can either be deliberate or accidental. A prime example of accidental recruitment can be seen in the media. By reporting terrorism and other strange or minority behaviour, this can then appeal to some members of the public who then take these stories as an ideology and recreate them e.g. copycat murderers etc.

In conclusion Althusser theory is solely focused on the classification and structure of ideology, using the two State apparatus models to signify between the power that ideology has over the organisation and the State.

Guy Debord (28th December 1931 – 30th November 1994)

Guy Debord was a French Marxist theorist. Debord was married twice in his lifetime, his first wife, Michele Bernstien and his second wife, Alice Becker-Ho. Throughout his life Debord had a steady love for alchol and this eventually contributed to his death. It is said that Debord suffered from polyneuritis (damage to the nerves) which was directly linked to his drinking and on 30th November 1994 he committed suicide, shooting himself through the heart at his home.

Debord was a well known theorist of his time and produced many theoretical books, his most well known being, Society of the Spectacle and Comments on Society of the Spectacle. For the purpose of this module we are concentrating on Debord’s book, Society of the Spectacle, which he also released as his first featured length film.

The Society of the Spectacle (originally wrote in French, 1967) is a book that is a series of short paragraphs divided into nine chapters, “The spectacle is not a collection of images, it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images” – Guy Debord. The key ideas that Debord brings through in the book are, Degradation of human life, mass media and commodity fetishism, comparison between religion and marketing.

This book was a difficult read and i did not find it very clear in the understanding of the literature so i did some researching on the internet and came across the website called bopsecrets.org (http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/index.htm). This website provides a breakdown of the whole text in a more understandable way and allowed me to grasp the main points and ideas Debord was putting across.

Michael Foucault (15th October 1926 – 25th June 1984)

Born Paul Michel Foucault in Poitiers, France. Michael Foucault was a French philosopher who is best known for his critical studies of social institutions. His major works were based around psychiatry, medicine, the human sciences and the prison system. He focused mainly around the concept of power and in particular the relationships between power, knowledge and discourse.

His father, Paul Foucault had hoped that his son would follow in his footsteps and become a surgeon, but after his early education passed by without spectacular results until he attended Jesuit College Saint-Stanislas where he achieved great results. After World War 2 Foucault progressed onto the prestigious Ecole Normale Superieure which was a traditional gateway to an academic career in the humanities in France. However when at Ecole Normale Superieure Foucault’s personal life was extremely difficult and he suffered from acute depression. During this time he became deeply interested in psychology and by the time he finished at Ecole Normale he came out with a degree in philosophy and psychology.

From 1950 – 1953 Foucault was a member of the French Communist Party after being inducted by his mentor Louis Althusser. However he began to become disillusioned with the politics and the philosophical stance of the party. Foucault began lecturing at Ecole Normale Superieure before moving onto Universite Lille Nord De France where he taught psychology. It was 1954 when Foucault released his first book, Maladie mentale et personnalite. After he released this book he became disillusioned with lecturing and moved onto to become France’s Cultural delegate to the University of Uppasala, Sweden. In 1960 Foucault returned to France to complete his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, here he met fellow philosopher Daniel Defert. This is the point where we can discuss Foucault’s sexual orientation, Foucault was a homosexual and when he returned to France to complete his doctorate he met Daniel Defert who became his lover for 20 years. During his relationship, Foucault contracted HIV and this eventually led to his death in 1984, which saw Foucault become the first high-profile French personality who was reported to have AIDS, when Foucault’s death was reported on the front page of Le Monde it stated that he died from a massive infection and there was no mention of AIDS. Before Foucault died, he destroyed many of his manuscripts and in his will had prohibited the publication of what he might have overlooked.

One of the studies the Foucault conducted was based on how society has become controlled and in particular how power is an action upon others to interfere with them. He argues that just one person can change the thoughts of others which in turn starts a chain reaction therefore starting new societies. Foucault focuses his theory around social groups which makes his theories so relevant as everyone through life has to make decisions and all join different social groups and are influenced by others in nearly every stage of life, whether its by family, friends or acquaintances.

With Foucault’s theory in mind his view is shown through a number all walks of social groups in terms of internal power and influence. Many movements in history have been recognized as a serious power, such as the gay rights, suffragettes and African-American Civil rights etc. All of these groups have stemmed from someone demonstrating their views on what they think is right, and then selling their view/message to others and the movement begins. Whatever situation in the world or in life, there will be someone that doesn’t agree or “rebells against the system” in an attempt to have the majority power.

The simple conclusion of this theory is thinking of a chain reaction and when one person says something it has an effect on another and as the word of mouth gets about a movement is formed. The power of speech is key to the success of creating a movement and the following video of Martin Luther King Jr. illustrates one of the most famous motivational movement speeches in history.

Another key study that Foucault conducted and we have been in direct contacted with is Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison. The book starts with an extremely graphic description of a public execution in 1757 of Robert-Francois Damiens who attempted to kill Louis XV. After this Foucault presents a prison timetable from just over 80 years later. The key points that Foucault draws through this study is Monarchical punishment and disciplinary punishment. Monarchical punishment involves the the repression of the population by the public display of execution and torture. Disciplinary punishment gives professionals the power over the prisoner, ie the professional has the power over the length of stay of the prisoner. Through this study, Foucault also uses another theorists work to compare modern society. using Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon which was specifically designed for prisons. In the Panopticon, a single guard can watch over many prisoners while remaining out of sight. Foucault argues that visibility is a trap and that modern society exercises its controlling systems of power and knowledge. The increasing use of visible power leads to an increasing rise in an individual level of coverage, giving the governing power the possibility to track individuals throughout their everyday lives. Foucault suggests that modern society has a “carceral continuum” from a maximum security prison to our everyday lives, therefore suggesting that we are all connected through surveillance and supervision at all kinds of levels.