Date: Fri, 12 Aug 1994 11:06:14 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jonathan Beasley Murray <jbmurray-AT-csd.uwm.edu>
Subject: Re: Althusser


Here's another perspective on Althusser:

What really interested people about Althusser (at least in my 
field--literature/cultural studies) was what he had to say about 
subjectivity.  He appeared to make a little more sense of what British 
cultural studies called the "cultural" domain by theorizing 
overdetermination, and particularly by examining the role played by large 
institutions in constructing the subject through interpellation.

If nothing else, Althusser provided another handy theory as to why we 
should still be Marxists even though the revolution had failed once 
again.  But he also helped us understand why it was so damn important to 
read works of literature (which is what we were being paid for anyway).  
The entire notion of "reading" was clearly of great importance for 
Althusser anyway (_Reading Capital_), and he was clearly very interested 
in textual production, so we thus get Macherey and Eagleton.

But slowly there was the "realization" that this so-called subjectivity 
was no such thing at all--that Althusser's anti-humanism meant "history 
was a process without a subject" and there seemed no place for resistant 
readings, working class consciousness... apart from the brief faith in 
Theory (which looked pretty untenable from the start) this was a form of 
hyper-functionalism (hence some links with Bourdieu).

So the Birmingham School turned to Gramsci (where hegemony is always 
incomplete, there is the possibility of the war of position etc. etc.) 
and Althusser was unceremoniously "dropped" with only the "ISA" essay 
left as a monument to the movement.  Zizek says somewhere at the 
beginning of _The Sublime Object of Ideology_ that the supposed "failure" 
of the Althusserian school is a mystery indeed, because it was certainly 
not a theoretical failure.  Typical of Zizek, this is practically all he 
says.

Later the fact that he killed his wife didn't help old Louis' 
reputation--but again, this is no theoretical failure.

I happen to think the move to Gramsci was a mistake, and that Althusser 
was pretty much misrepresented all the way along--though much of this was 
his own fault, it must be admitted.  Frankly, if his own project was to 
remove all traces of Hegelianism from Marx, then it would be a useful 
project to excise all traces of Lacanianism from Althusser.  After all, I 
think, Lacan is so clearly behind what he has to say about subjectivity 
and reading that it's an almost nauseating attempt to transplant a 
psychoanalytic structure into the social domain--and one bound to failure.

The importing of reflections on subjectivity is precisely that--an alien 
presence in a theoretical system that never had any particular interest 
in the question, let alone the answer.

What cultural studies doesn't seem to get is that the S in ISA stands for 
the State--that this is not an essay about "culture" in the sense defined 
by British cultural studies.  To assume that this can be neatly slotted 
into Williams (or even be neatly opposed a la Eagleton--now what is that 
book called?  _Literature and Ideology_?) is disastrous.

Overdetermination was taken to mean that it was OK to elide the 
economic.  Interpellation was (amazingly) taken to mean it was OK to 
elide the State.  Clearly neither of these things are true.  Once 
Althusser seemed all to "pessimistic," Gramsci was held up as "practical" 
panacea, which further ignored the massive misappropriation of Gramsci 
that was going on (along similar lines--replacing the term culture for 
the term civil society) and also ignored the homage Althusser himself 
paid to Gramsci, as one of the few Marxist theorists who had begun a 
similar theoretical line to his own.

Jon's thesis on Althusser: Lacan was to blame.  No one was interested in 
Lacan, anyway, until Althusser (the "mirror stage" essay was first 
translated in _New Left Review_ so that Althusserians could understand 
what the master was going on about).  He scarcely did a fine job of 
psychotherapy, anyway, if we look at practical results.

Jon

Jon Beasley-Murray
Department of English and Comp. Lit.
U. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
jbmurray-AT-csd.uwm.edu




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