Deep Thunder- Althusser

“an ideology always exists in an apparatus, and its practice, or practices. This existence is material.” –Althusser

There we have it. Last weeks positing by my nicely smiled, curve-busting classmate has been explored by the next theorist. According to Althusser, the existence of ideology can manifest itself in the physical or concrete. It is, at the least, material. God (within his Abrahamic forms) is the ultimate ideology of western civilization .Perhaps it is through the subjects that this ideology is manifested. Through the works of the minister, for example, God is summoned and made material. This could probably be explored in the simple realm of energy and transference but we’ll save that.
Further to my hypothesizing last week, lets examine (thanks to Althusser) hypothesis three: our instructor is leading us down an ideological yellow brick road.
To examine this hypothesis we must revert to deSaussure, signs, the signifying chain, and its breakdown. It could be that the questions and ideas posited by my classmates are not so much the result of a collective consciousness, but rather, they are being led down the same signifying chain (our yellow brick road). The referent in question: the world as we know it.
Take each theorists name as a sign (which it is) and then look for its determiner/s. For example, the sign Baudrillard makes me think of the referent (if it can really be one) of Simulacra. So we are presented within this course, with signs (theorists) and their meaning we inject in our minds through the lectures, index cards, and whatever other madness that was needed to cram for the mid term from hell. These signs are being strung together by ROG and crotched into a signifying chain, with each sign carrying a referent assigned by our reading, interpretation, and discussion, most of which we do together. The referents (forgive me Derrida) are somewhat stable because they are assigned by the instructor and each other (the subjects).
Unlike Beaudrillard, I do not attach good or evil to my theories (or hypothesis) so I will posit that ROG is neither trying to save nor destroy us. Nevertheless, there is an ideology, an ideology that we have come to learn this week through our new sign Althusser, which is now manifested, and made material in us, our questions, and through our actions. Viva las signifying chain!