In his revisions of the expression ‘ideology’ and his proposal for a theory of ideology ‘in general,’ Althusser makes two assertions. First he says ideology is a representation of “the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence.”

Imagine an old flatbed projector that is capable of producing a complete image of an essentially incoherent reality – the “real conditions of existence.” This complete experience could then be projected onto a wall (the wall and the projector are both within the projection as constituents of the world, but we will ignore this paradox for purpose of abstraction). To make sense of these incoherent real conditions, every individual and institution creates a map – a transparency to lie down on the projector bed that will then connect and explain the real world. Each individual may have his or her own transparencies or may prescribe to a institutional transparency – religions, corporations, schools of thought, governments, et al., all have their own transparencies or ideologies to put forth and explain the world (the nihilist throws his transparency onto the ground, blindly struggles to open the nearest door, walks out, and finds himself back in the same room complete with projector and wall – the lack of an ideology is, after all, an ideology). These “world outlooks,” according to Althusser, are imaginary because we can admit – partly due to the number of potential ideologies – that they do not exactly “correspond to reality” but instead structure the way we perceive the world.

Second, Althusser presents the notion that these ideologies have a material existence. It isn’t a difficult leap; each individual has his or her own transparency (the nihilist reluctantly pulls his from the trashbin) that takes hold in the material world through the action and practice of an individual’s prescribing ideology.

Where do I find problems with this?

In his ideological apparatus, Althusser fails to account for how the actions of an individual or group do not always reflect its imaginary representations of what is real, thus losing its asserted “material” holding. How is an individual’s ideology represented when external forces narrow options and harrow the opportunity to express? Does ideology instead morph like silly putty might into whatever you next want it to be? What happens to ideology when it encounters a thought experiment—does it implode? How many revisions can you make to a transparency before it becomes unusable?

An individual with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder acts outside of an intended action by means of inescapable thought patterns. Does failure to act as intended—in accordance with an ideology—morph that ideology (i.e. when a throat massage gets out of hand)? Or is the individual simply being “possessed” by another, divergent ideology? What of individuals that cannot move, cannot act? Do they still have ideologies?

Althusser might argue that there is an environment—a context—for ideology: The interaction or existence of other ideologies. Each ideology and holder of that ideology (are they distinguishable?) is subject to the existence of another ideology. An individual can then becomes a constituent and subject of any ideology.

It seems that Althusser suggests the individual cannot look at the real conditions of experience without ideology. From this develops his always-interpellated subject. As an individual approaches the projected world, s/he creates his/herself in their own ideology – thus transforming him or herself and others as subjects. This opposes most other philosophical thought, which creates the subject first. Instead Althusser says that an ideology constitutes individuals as subjects. This not only confounds where the individual/subject begins, but also where the ‘real’ begins.

We could imagine that Althusser’s conditions of experience are essentially without meaning once the ideological apparatus has been put forth; if ideology is essential to being human, then can individuals know anything beyond their ideologies – can they see these conditions without ideology? Individuals use their ideologies to relate to the real conditions of experience but additionally the creation of the individual in their own imaginary or artificial world, thus creating a loop of imaginarily relating to the imaginary. Foundation in this logic would be endlessly filled with ideologies and no reality even though it was from these supposed ‘real conditions’ that ideologies are to relate.

Althusser’s thought can be neither confirmed nor rejected, as he states himself in the beginning of his section “On Ideology” from Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, except by “thorough study and analysis”—the prospect of which is ludicrous given the cyclical nature of the ideas he has put forth.