Sally, Althusser

I was trying to get into our reading assignments and was having little success until I reached page 46. Finally, I could relate! To be true to the essay written by Althusser, I had a moment of "obviousness-ness." He writes that the ideological recognition function is one of the two functions of ideology. As I read further, his examples were clear and concise - more descriptions of moments we all have experienced but probably have never analyzed in the manner in which he does. I loved the person who hears the knock on the door and asks, "Who is there?" The answer comes "It's me" and the person opens the door and it is he or she that corresponds to the "me" - what a great example! "Me" represents an entity - a person of familiarity and personality that is so much more than the 2 letters of the alphabet used as its signifier, "me". The person hearing the knocker identify his/herself as "me" was in the obviousness moment - the "of course!" moment of which Althusser speaks.

It was interesting how Althusser peruses this notion of obviousness to the extent that he does. It is ideological in nature and can certainly be political, as well. I then had an Aha! moment whereby I pictured an old commercial that was a big hit. There was a group of children holding hands on a mountain top singing, "I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony..." ... the ad was promoting Coke and appealed to the humanism in us all - drink coke, sing, and the world will be at peace! It became well-known and probably gave most people a warm, familiar feeling - at least initially. I realized this was an example of "obviousness" followed by another view also described by Althusser whereby he states, "Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individiduals to their real conditions of existence." (44) Is that all it would take to achieve world peace? Ok, everyone hold hands, sing on a mountain top, and drink coke and the world will tranform into one gigantic peace symbol. Obviously, that's not gonna happen! So, here we had ideology representing an imaginary relationship that would be nice, but has no relation to real life.

The second thought I had is one that has resided in the recesses of my mind and heart for some time. The scenario goes like this: if you gathered individuals from all walks of life, cultural backgrounds, and ages into an assembly hall or stadium, could you find common areas of interest? In other words, are there viewpoints that are inherently consistent among individuals no matter what their background or culture may be? For example, a difference would be that most cultures honor their elders, but some cultures (native Eskimos) allow and encourage their elders to drift off into the great beyond in a small boat to die when they reach a certain age. Hmmmmm, truly self-disposal, I guess. Each culture has its norms and believe strongly in their positions. Infants are viewed differently around the world, work ethics differ, relationships differ, and the list goes on. But, surely there must be "obviousness" to be discovered; I wonder what it would be? In a sense, it would be pure universal truth -a purity that embodies the essence of who we truly are as human beings bridging that gap between the imaginary and the real. If that ever happens, I'll bring the coke and we'll all head for the mountain top....