On Althusser's Ideology Theory

Althusser is one of the leading representations of Structuralistic Marxism. Since the book named"For Marx"was published, Althusser's thought led to an uproar in the west, especially inside the European Communist Party. His theory of ideology is full of controversy .After summarization and absorption the theory of ideology of Marx, Gramsci and Spinoza, Althusser gave ideology a new meaning .He thought that , ideology was a representation ( image, myth, idea and concept ) system which had its unique logic and law . Ideology existed in a particular society, historically, which played an important part as history. Even though its performance may change in various forms, but there was a fundamental economic activity. One political organization and some ideology forms (religion, ethics, philosophy and so on). Therefore, ideology was an integral part of all societies. A lot of facts indicated that, if there was not the particular ideology, and these representation systems of ideology, the human being would not survive.Althusser's ideology theory was based on the background that humanitarian thoughts were popular and the political outcome of the 20th congress of the Soviet Communist Party. His theory had clear political intention and goal point, which was keeping Marxism from being polluted by humanitarian thought. Althusser took society forms of"surdetermination"as a precondition, took"lecture symptomale"as a tool to explain ideology. He thought that, ideology was a kind of unconscious structure which was objective, ideology had no history but existed for ever, and ideology was material existence, ideology was individual illusion about whose living condition. Ideology emphasized individuals as the subject, which had the nature of duplicating the mirror and succumbing automatically. To sum up, we can see that, Althusser's ideology theory can provide us useful inspiration to research in ideology theory and socialist core values.