Louis Althusser

[seraphim]

What do you think of the work of Louis Althusser was he a madman who murdered his wife or a genius driven to the brink by the realisation that you cannot escape ideology?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

A radically confused french philosopher, but I may be praising him too highly.

[seraphim]

'Confused' maybe but a lot of what he says makes sense especially concering the ISA's. Ideology does infect our everyday lives, perhaps not to the extent sumised by Althusser but certainly more than could have been envisiged by Marx.

[Brownfist]

I have read some of Althusser's work and I find him to be an extremely intelligent theorist who makes some very useful contributions to the field of Marxism, especially with his contributions on anti-humanist Marxism, ideology and interpolation. I mean I disagree with some of his rigid structuralist beliefs, but they are very useful at the same time. He was definitely a theorist that was able to draw upon a wide variety of theoretical sources including Gramsci and Mao.

As for his killing of his wife. His theoretical work is not sullied by that event in his life. I am not saying that we should condone it, rather that we should look past it. Also, I do not think that Althusser would even ask the question as whether we could escape ideology (that wasn't his project), rather, he would argue that only through revolutionary praxis and the formation of counter-hegemonic ISA's can we achieve a new proletarian ideology which was not rooted in humanist morality.

[seraphim]

I agree that his beliefs may be a little rigid at times.

I do feel that many historians and and academics overlook his work due to the troubles at the end of his life.

I think his ideas and works furthering marxism have a huge relevance in modern society. I believe eventually that Althusser will rightly be hailed as one of the great modern thinkers it'll probably take a few generations but will get there in the end.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23, 2007 10:23 am
What do you think of the work of Louis Althusser was he a madman who murdered his wife or a genius driven to the brink by the realisation that you cannot escape ideology?
Why can't someone be both?

He killed his wife, this is a fact. He was psychotic when he did, seems to have been proven. His theorical contributions must be evaluated for what they are, not by the completely unrelated fact that he went mentally ill when old, and killed a person as a result of his disease.

He was too much schematic to my tastes, sort of having imported a lot of "structuralist" ideas into Marxism; as well, he relied too much on Spinoza. His analysis often have an "ultra-left" flavour. His adoption of Maoism sucks, but at least he tried to be an anti-Stalinist Maoist. He uphold many of the fundamental tenets of Marxism, in a time when it was rather difficult to do it. He was wrong about ideology, of course.

Some of his disciples have good contributions; I particularly like Poulantzas.

So, instead of black or white, I would say "light gray".

Perry Anderson's book on "Western Marxism" has a reasonable, critical but not slanderous, approach on Althusser's contributions.

Luís Henrique

[gilhyle]

I think he could be both. Anyone might kill their partner in a moment of irritation. Could happen to a bishop ;)

THe problem is I think he wasnt a genius. Not very well educated. Not very coherent. Not very clear. Very derivative.

But he was a catalyst and he knew that and his role had some good aspects to it.

[Brownfist]

I was wondering what gilhyle meant when he said that


THe problem is I think he wasnt a genius. Not very well educated. Not very coherent. Not very clear. Very derivative.

I would say that he was exceptionally well educated. I mean taught at the University of Paris VIII- St. Denis which was the most radical and prolific school for philosophy. Althusser also taught some of the most brilliant academics of all time including Michel Foucault, Etienne Balibar and Jacques Ranciere.

As for his coherency, if one has not read much Freudian and Lacanian theory, and is not familiar with the works of Lukacs and others, and is not accustomed to philosophical modes of writing then they will find Althusser incoherent. However, I find that he has some amazing insights into the questions that he deals with, and is very coherent.

As for derivative, I dont think so. I think that he combines the thoughts of numerous philosophers in some very interesting and innovative assemblages that developed Marxist theory.

[More Fire for the People]

I think the relevancy of Althusser's later madness and work is close to nil. I've even heard good reviews of his later Philosophy of the Encounter. My problem with Althusser is I believe in a existentialist approach to Marxism. I think his work on 'ideological state apparatuses' is nifty though.

[Spirit of Spartacus]

I found Louis Althusser's work very attractive when I was new to Marxism.

I feel, however, that he has sadly misconstrued Marx's views on empirical evidence and empiricism.

[JimFar]

In regards to Althusser, there is I think a case to be made for the remarks that G.A. Cohen supplied in his foreword to his Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence. There after detailing some of the positive contributions of the Althusserians to Marxism (which for Cohen included the reemphasis on Marx's more mature writings like Capital rather than the earlier writings like the 1844 Manuscripts and the attention that Althusser and his followers paid to historical materialism) then Cohen proceeded to note what he regarded as some of their more negative attributes.

Writing thus:

"Above all, I found much of Lire Capital critically vague. It is perhaps a matter for regret that logical positivism, with its insistence on precision of intellectual commitment, never caught on in Paris. Anglophone philosophy left logical positivism behind long ago, but it is lastingly the better for having engaged with it. The Althusserian vogue could have unfortunate consequences for Marxism in Britain, where lucidity is a precious heritage, and where it is not generally supposed that a theoretical statement, to be one, must be hard to comprehend."

Alas, one consequence of Cohen's work was to revive the very sort of mechanical materialism that Althusser had rejected along with humanist Marxism, but which the young Jerry Cohen had imbibed along with his mother's milk, having been born and raised within the milieu of the Canadian CP. Cohen, himself, years later came to see the inadequacy of this type of historical materialism but seemed to draw the conclusion that the problem laid with historical materialism in general rather than with the specific variety of historical materialism that he had embraced.

Certainly there is some merit in certain ideas that the Althusserians came up with. The quest to create a anti-teleogical materialism was certainly a valid one, although it seems to me that it is perhaps people like Alan Carling, who have been influenced by Analytical Marxism, who have come closest to fulfilling this quest with the proposal that we analogize historical materialism with Darwinian biology, which in the natural sciences represents our best example of an anti-teleogical materialism. The kind of selectionist historical materialism that is advocated by people like Alan Carling and Andrew Collier seems to come closest to fulfilling Althusser's goals in this regard.

[Lamanov]

Madman or genius? None.

It's more like: douche or turd?

[seraphim]

Originally posted by DJ-[email protected] 27, 2007 12:20 pm
Madman or genius? None.

It's more like: douche or turd?
And isn't that an intelligent statement

[gilhyle]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26, 2007 10:42 pm
I was wondering what gilhyle meant when he said that


THe problem is I think he wasnt a genius. Not very well educated. Not very coherent. Not very clear. Very derivative.

I would say that he was exceptionally well educated. I mean taught at the University of Paris VIII- St. Denis which was the most radical and prolific school for philosophy. Althusser also taught some of the most brilliant academics of all time including Michel Foucault, Etienne Balibar and Jacques Ranciere.

As for his coherency, if one has not read much Freudian and Lacanian theory, and is not familiar with the works of Lukacs and others, and is not accustomed to philosophical modes of writing then they will find Althusser incoherent. However, I find that he has some amazing insights into the questions that he deals with, and is very coherent.

As for derivative, I dont think so. I think that he combines the thoughts of numerous philosophers in some very interesting and innovative assemblages that developed Marxist theory.
I think there are a small number of writers (not from within Marxism, but from within French Philosophy, structuralist sociology and Lacanian analysis) Althusser relied upon, excessively and one sidedly. Althusser admitted as much I think in his autobiography. I think his general knowledge in the history of philosophy was extremely weak and often wrong., hidden effectively by rhetorical techniques which rush to conclusions, which then become embedded assumptions without any process of critical analysis. He had all the schematic violence about his thinkking of a diligent student who had learned to make sweeping comments based on trite summaries with the aim of impressing and not exploring.

I am also convinced (personal view) that he wrote from within a Catholic theological perspective which remained a dishonestly hidden ground for his views....but that is another story.

Having said all that, I do quite like him.

[More Fire for the People]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 09:56 am
I am also convinced (personal view) that he wrote from within a Catholic theological perspective which remained a dishonestly hidden ground for his views....but that is another story.
You have to explain this. I don't think the old bloke [God] would subscribe to the notion of aleatory materialism.

[gilhyle]

Well as a young man Althusser was a convinced catholic and very close to a particular strand of catholicism that I can look up for you - I dont remember the name.

Anyway there is a much later strange encounter between Althusser and the Pope - in which Althusser was very impressed.

None of this is evidence, of course. But I ask myself why Althusser was so determined to develop a form of Marxism which had no ethics within it. He wanted the motivation to come from outside the theory....why ? .... I suspect his motivation came from his personal religious motivation.

Can I prove it ? No. But I think I could show some significant similarities between his approach and some modern catholic theology.

Its speculation.

[Hit The North]

Can I prove it ? No. But I think I could show some significant similarities between his approach and some modern catholic theology.

Go on then.

[hoopla]

Yeah, I quite like the idea of a bit of anti-humanism at the moment. So I've bought For Marx, and Reading Capital. Seeing the woods for the trees, iyswim

<_<

(E.g. I&#39;ve been happiest when I&#39;ve "thought" of something bigger than me, not God or nature or anything like that, but it just feels_good to decentre yourself a little)

I mean, as A. is a anti-humanist, what exactly is "it".

[hoopla]

gilhye: nah. Why would he need faith in God?

And he would have to be very pious to include Her (implicitly) in his theories, especially without mentioning it - most religous people may only fantasize about being that devoted to God.

:mellow:

[hoopla]

Sorry to go on... but I&#39;ve had religous "delusions" before. And, thos I think its possible that someone with psychosis could keep it to themsleves, I assume he would have had an "unconventional" relationship with God, in which case why is it important what private beliefs he had, in that he would not be reproducing and real religous ideology.

I have no real idea what his work is about, tbh <_<

[gilhyle]

He joined the Communist Party at the same time as he linked up with the Jeuness d&#39;Eglise movement led by the Dominican Priest Maurice Montuclard, one of the worker priest movements banned by the Pope in 1953.

the point is not that he snuck God in, but that he built his theory to leave space for someone with religious faith outside the theory.

Religious radicalism was not unknown at the time given the strength of the CPs....whats her name, the semi-trotskyists: Simone Weil

[Brownfist]

I think gilhyle that you make an interesting argument about the relationship between Althusser and catholicism, and I guess that I must ask what do you think about the parallels between marxism and religion. I mean I think that it would also be necessary than to extricate Marx from his own religious sensibilities as well. I think that much Marxist practice is very similar to religious practice, including the use of "preaching", the relationship between us and the Father, Son and Holy Ghost (Marx, Lenin and Engels) etc.

I think that Althusser&#39;s discussion of anti-humanism actually allows for a much more secular Marxism than what is currently practiced by most. I mean it is interesting because I was recently reading the draft program of the RCP(USA) and it was interesting because it was completely filled with humanist politics, and often could be easily changed into a religious tract with a few word substitutions and so forth. This can be not only seen in their program, but in numerous parties.

I know that Rosa has talked about the religious mysticism that is utilized in dialectics, and I am sympathetic to an undialectical method, but I think that could be effectively replaced with discursive analyses, and machinic assemblage and network theory.

[Hit The North]

the relationship between us and the Father, Son and Holy Ghost (Marx, Lenin and Engels) etc.

And Rosa (either Luxemburg or Lichtenstein) as the virgin Mary :lol:

[Brownfist]

Well I had Rosa Lichtenstein in mind, when discussing dialectics. However, I do think that Rosa Luxemburg would play the role of the Virgin Mary quite nicely.

[hoopla]

Originally posted by Citizen [email protected] 29, 2007 12:48 am

the relationship between us and the Father, Son and Holy Ghost (Marx, Lenin and Engels) etc.

And Rosa (either Luxemburg or Lichtenstein) as the virgin Mary :lol:
Not very likely :lol:


;)

[Brownfist]

I was wondering what people think about the renewed interest in ideology in recent years by people like Slavoj Zizek? Do you think that we need a return to ideology as compared to discourse analysis?

[hoopla]

I must admiit that I didn&#39;t leanr much about Zizek, apart from that he is nterested in "the thing".

What is emancipatory about discourse analysis. We were taught it in psychology class (tho it escapes me what exactly it is), the lecturer mentioned marxism a couple of times but that is all. Seemed formulaic too (pseudo) academic and a little dull tbh.

Talk discourse analysis with me <_<

[Hit The North]

There&#39;s nothing intrinsically emancipatory about discourse analysis. However it is useful as long as it is linked with a notion of ideology as a symbolic manifestation of underlying material inequalities.

So I don&#39;t see much point in counter posing it to a study of ideology.

[More Fire for the People]

Speaking of Zizek, he&#39;d say Lenin was St. Paul. Trotsky could be John.

[gilhyle]

Iused to know = still know - a guy who was a serious revolutionary marxist who, unknown to all his comrades was actually a christian. He believed that his religion was an entirely private matter, had a dualist view of human nature and for all practical purposes advocated an entirely anti-humanist, strictly materialist marxism. In all the years I knew him, the only issue on which I ever noticed something odd about his politics was his insistence on the imprtance of supporting decriminalisation of abortion rather than the legalisation of abortion. It was a fine point, but it was salving his conscience unknown to the rest of us. In all other matters he was an entirely orthodox - and well educated - marxist (and a vigorous militant) in the classical mode.

Now the simplistic version of ideological analysis would suggest this should not happen. At the very least it would sugest that a religious person attracted to Marxism will try to interpret Marxism as a humanism. But this comrade - and I suspect Althusser - achieved a more intellectually agile stance.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnomethodology

[JimFar]

Althusser was certainly known to have been a very devout Catholic when he was a young man. And I have heard rumors concerning his continuing relationship with Catholicism in his later life. In his last years he was said to be very close to a community of nuns in Paris. He was always on very friendly terms with France&#39;s leading Catholic intellectuals. And after the great brouhaha that occured following his killing of his wife, it was these Catholic intellectuals who came to his defense. The idea that he attempted to formulate his Marxism so as to leave room for religious faith on the part of believers seems not implausible to me. His long time philosophical rival in the French CP, Roger Garaudy became openly religious, having converted to Catholicism in the late 1960s. And later on around 1980, some years after he had been expelled from the Party, famously converted to Islam and reinvented himself as a Muslim philosopher). The French CP during the 1960s and 1970s generally tried to be accomodating towards religious believers, and went out of its way not to alienate them.

[hoopla]

Conspiracy nuts&#33;

[Brownfist]

Hmmm, I guess I just don&#39;t see the Christian impulse within Althusser&#39;s work, but it is possible that he may have been Christian in his private life. But does that really denigrate his work? I mean I think that the more serious issues that I have with Althusser&#39;s work is his emphasis on psychoanalysis. I agree that some theoretical contributions by Lacan like "interpolation" are useful, however, I do not think that Althusser just limits himself to some of these contributions, but adopts a much more psychoanalytic model. That is why I tend to enjoy my Deleuze and Guattari.

[gilhyle]

No, it does not &#39;denigrate&#39; his work. Any critic of Althusser&#39;s unusual way of restructuring Marxism as theory of the moment (in which structure contextualises choice which it doesnt &#39;explain&#39;) has to stand up their criticisms on their own two feet - but that Althusser might have been religious would help to explain certain things.

For example, the type of psychoanalysis that attracted Althusser was Lacanian, not its great rival Kleinian analysis. This preference for ego-centred Lacanian analysis rather than drive-focused Kleinian analysis is typical of Catholic views. ITs not about building conspiracy theories, its about placing the theorists of &#39;Western Marxism&#39; in context, rather than treating them uncritically as revolutionary thinkers.

But in any case standing up criticisms of Althusser is not difficult, because so often his most interesting ideas dont add up.

So what is interesting is to explain how he got where he got to. (Granted the history of the CP, the Mao/Stalin split, the persecution of his wife within the party and many other things also help to explain that) Just thought I&#39;d add in a bit of old time religion to spice up the mix &#33;

[Brownfist]

Gilhyle,
I am sorry but as someone who has studied psychoanalysis in a critical sense, especially in conjunction with Marxism and post-structuralism, I have never heard of Kleinian psychoanalysis. What is it? I mean was it really that great rival considering the fact that most marxists till today who utilize psychoanalysis still work within a lacanian framwork?

I also found Althusser&#39;s relationship to Maoism fascinating. Has there been any work done on that angle? I know that some of his students put out a book entitled, "For Mao".

[gilhyle]

Sad state of affairs.....never heard of Melanie Klein, arguably the true inheritor of Freud - though his daughter would not have agreed; but where Lacan is patently a gloss on Freud taking him in a direction he would never have gone himself, Klein developed Freuds theory in its weakest area - childhood.

Wow, studied psychoanalysis never heard of Klein....I&#39;m staggered, your teachers have a lot to answer for..... I can understand it if you have yourself studied the relattionship between psychoanalysis and Marxism IN FRANCE. The history of psychoanalysis has a significantly national characteristics and in France klein was always a minority taste. But in England, for example, she was a major influence.

As to the Mao connection, I have read nothing any good on it. I have never been able to understand Althussers project other than as an attempt to radicalise the CP in the wake of the Moscow-Peking split. I have seen vigorous denials that he sympathised with Peking and I think that is correct. But he also undoubtedly saw the Kruschev leadership as seriously mistaken in promoting humanist marxism

[Brownfist]

Well I think that most of my teachers teach the relationship between marxism and psychoanalysis in France, and thus perhaps they did not feel that it was important to look at Klein&#39;s contributions on childhood. But, then again I have read some of the recent work on childhood and commodification, and there is little reference to Klein there as well. I am very confused why this Klein person seems to have dropped off the psychoanalytic map (at least in the humanities and social sciences, perhaps he is till a mainstay in psychoanalytic practice).

Could you tell me where you saw these denials that Althusser was sympathetic to the PRC? I mean he does cite Mao in his work, and he was sympathetic (from what I have heard) to the Maoist sections of the May &#39;68 uprising, along with other notable intellectuals like Foucault, Godard, Deleuze and Guattari. But yeah, his attacks on Kruschevism are pretty clear and his attacks on the "Soviet man" are very interesting.

[gilhyle]

Wish I could remember...might have been in Althusser&#39;s letters on the Italian CP.....but it might have been something Balibar wrote.....no, maybe it was Ranciere.....senility is setting in ....got ...yes thats it Ranciere in an article in Radical Philosophy in 1974

As to the great Melanie Klein...a &#39;she&#39; btw.....if you want to read some serious pschoanalysis you could not do better, except reading the man himself.

[Brownfist]

I will look for the Ranciere citation in Radical Philosophy. Thank you for providing it. It does seem that your mind hasnt been that effected by senility. Well I have read some Freud and Lacan, as I have said before, I am not that sympathetic to psychoanalysis in general (save some concepts like interpolation) and tend to come from an anti-psyche science politics.

[gilhyle]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 07:59 am
I am not that sympathetic to psychoanalysis in general (save some concepts like interpolation) and tend to come from an anti-psyche science politics.
To be sympathetic to psychoanalysis, a teacher of mine once explained to me, you have to be sympathetic to theory as play.....another thread maybe.

[SPK]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28, 2007 02:22 pm
... I ask myself why Althusser was so determined to develop a form of Marxism which had no ethics within it. He wanted the motivation to come from outside the theory....why ? .... I suspect his motivation came from his personal religious motivation.
Very intriguing, and, I think, insightful. Can you recommend a short text or two that goes into the relation you mentioned between his approach and modern catholic thought? I&#39;m not familiar with theology at all.

Althusser&#39;s systematic evacuation of ethics from his political theory was -- for me and, I think, other politically aware people influenced by his thinking during the Althusserian vogue in the usa -- one of the central elements of his work. It allowed one to circumvent historically problematic questions about the foundation of ethics, primarily bogus theories of human nature (for example, in one classical Marxist schema, that human essence is to labor and work upon the surrounding natural world) -- and other false essentialisms. Which meant that different motivations or drives – implied ethical notions, political struggles, etc. -- could be accommodated in such a Marxist framework.

Althusser’s removal of ethics also allowed for his proposal of a decentered subject, one that was structured or determined by multiple forces -- rather the traditional view of the subject as some unitary whole that could will itself into action, unfettered by the world around it. This basic idea was obviously taken much further by his successors, such as Foucault, and most notably by the so-called new social movements, which developed our understandings today of the different vectors which constitute a subject: race, gender, sexuality, and other factors.

I must admit, it never occurred to me that his ideas had been set up in such a way as to allow for religious belief. Though I agree with you, structurally that possibility is there.

[gilhyle]

I dont think anyone has ever written about it - in my arrogance, I had it in mind at one stage to write about it...but...anyway,...I think you articulate very well the liberating sense many had when reading Althusser in the late 60s and even more so in the early 70s. What is interesting is how he got rejected. In particular people read the works of Hind, Hindess, Hurst and Cutler (have I got those names correct ?) and were increasingly horrified by a tendency which had initially been the very thing that attracted many.

What switched as the 70s progressed (leaving aside the obscurantism of many althusserians and the dying away of ALthusser&#39;s own intellectual capacity) is that what was sought in radical left theory changed. What had initially been desirable (as you express it very well) became the very sign of unacceptability as the left academics moved increasingly in search of a new ethics. It is interesting to note the whole range of writings on &#39;Marxist Ethics&#39; that emerged in the late 70s and which went hand in hand with the emergence of analytical Marxism as part of a movement to put ALthusser aside, just as Eurocommunism reached its short lived peak and as Trotskyism fragmented and Maoism disintegrated in the face of the emergence of the new right - even though (and I am describing the UK mainly here) the major struggles of the 79-85 period were still ahead.

[SPK]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2007 03:53 pm
What switched as the 70s progressed (leaving aside the obscurantism of many althusserians and the dying away of Althusser&#39;s own intellectual capacity) is that what was sought in radical left theory changed. What had initially been desirable (as you express it very well) became the very sign of unacceptability as the left academics moved increasingly in search of a new ethics. It is interesting to note the whole range of writings on &#39;Marxist Ethics&#39; that emerged in the late 70s ...
I’m not familiar with those theoretical moves towards a Marxist ethics in the late seventies. I was initially politicized towards the end of the eighties in the new social movements (queer, AIDS, women’s, and reproductive rights), and the intellectual currents around them did, as I noted earlier, have Althusser as one of their foundations. The dualism he had proposed between ethics and a structuralist understanding of the world remained very strong in those currents. Perhaps the disconnect or contradiction between what was occurring elsewhere in Marxism (Hind and co.) and what was occurring in the movements indicates that concrete, on-the-ground activity can be the primary driver of theoretical developments, at least during periods of upsurge. In any case, the lack of a foundational ethics never hindered those movements’ normative, even moralistic charge or prevented them from practical, material actions against the state and so on – despite the commonplace charges of nihilism and passivity leveled by Marxists during those endless debates around postmodernism.

On a related note, I only recently read Althusser’s Philosophy of the Encounter – along with Alain Badiou’s shorter works. That made me reconsider the whole idea of the conjuncture, i.e. conceptualizations of a historical moment as a site for possible political intervention, rather than as a static, given thing. Specifically, it made me realize that this idea had not, in the struggles I mentioned or in the intellectual currents around them, ever really been understood in an explicit and articulated way (this whole element of Althusser’s thought had totally escaped me for years). Only his structuralist analysis had been taken up. Obviously, these movements were busy changing the world and generally did a good job of it, but this was done without a fully developed theory of political struggle a la the conjuncture, aleatory materialism, and so on. Those ideas and practices, as with ethics in general, came from other, outside sources.

[gilhyle]

Im working my way through Badiou&#39;s Being and Event off and on at the moment. I havent studied him enough.

Yes I think the concept of the conjuncture was somewhat misunderstood and structuralism was not understood as - in Althusser at least - a concommitant of the concept of the conjuncture in Althusser&#39;s perspective - traceable back to Bachelard&#39;s critique of Bergson, as I have mentioned before on this site. to be fair to Althusser, he was very clear on this, particularly in his writings on Lenin who he saw as adopting this approach (quite wrongly in my view).

Snap, Im not familar with the way Althusser&#39;s influenced late 80s new social movement politics (sounds kinda interesting) - in terms of theoretical developments what kind of theoretical work would you say that on-the-ground work led to that bears Althusserian traces ?