"So Althusser found himself hit in the back by the accusation 'we know only too well why you are against humanism. That's because you defend brutal policies, dictatorial regimes, inhuman concepts of politics, [...] so he struggled to explain that the theoretical anti-humanism he had been talking about was not of course a practical anti-humanism.."

from:
Critique 5/13: Louis Althusser | Reading Capital
   • Critique 5/13: Louis Althusser | Read...  

Excerpt from Louis Althusser, ideology and ideological state apparatuses:
⁠
"Why is the educational apparatus in fact the dominant Ideological State Apparatus in capitalist social formations, and how does it function? For the moment it must suffice to say:
⁠
1. All Ideological State Apparatuses, whatever they are, contribute to the same result: the reproduction of the relations of production, i.e. of capitalist relations of
exploitation.
⁠
2. Each of them contributes towards this single result in the way proper to it. The political apparatus by subjecting individuals to the political State ideology, the ‘indirect’ (parliamentary) or ‘direct’ (plebiscitary or fascist) ‘democratic’ ideology. The communications apparatus by cramming every ‘citizen’ with daily doses of nationalism, chauvinism, liberalism, moralism, etc, by means of the press, the radio and television. The same goes for the cultural apparatus (the role of sport in chauvinism is of the first importance), etc. The religious apparatus by recalling in sermons and the other great ceremonies of Birth, Marriage and Death, that man is only ashes, unless he loves his neighbour to the extent of turning the other cheek to whoever strikes first. The family apparatus ...but there is no need to go on. "

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