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Location: VII: Marx/Althusser
Discussion: Althusser & The Matrix (yeah... I know)
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GinaS |
Althusser & The Matrix (yeah... I know)
Mar 14 2007, 10:43 PM EDT
When I told a friend I was reading Althusser, his response was “oh, I’ve never read his work, but I’ve seen The Matrix.” While referring to The Matrix in a discussion about theory has gotten cliché, I’ve never thought about it from the perspective of ISAs. Thinking of ‘The Matrix’ as the ultimate ideology, a metaphor for ISAs, made the concepts more digestible. Humans function in ‘The Matrix’ just as unconsciously as we function within our individual ideologies; it seems “obvious” (or natural) as one does not question it. It also carries over to how if you claim that you don’t subscribe to a specific ideology, it is the most dangerous as you are not aware of it. It also produces a subject (in both forms of the term), and even is necessary for the reproduction of the means of production. It is also not an imaginary relation between man and his real conditions, but more the relation of the relation. The place where this becomes interesting is the internal/external idea of being “in an ideology” (pg 175) How similarly to the myth, you can’t function within in it if you know that it exists. While Neo explicitly got to choose whether or not he wanted to be aware of the ideology he was function within, I wonder how much Althusser feels we can ‘free’ ourselves from our ideologies once we acknowledge their existence? Also, is there a certain “ignorance is bliss” quality as well? The pleasures of firmly believing in something and not having to question its appearance as ‘obvious? ‘The Matrix’ example also brings into the forefront of how many other ‘obvious’ things in our lives may actually be an ‘apparatus’ of some sort.
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