MAINTENANCE OF POWER – LOUIS ALTHYSSER'S IDEOLOGICAL AND REPRESSIVE STATE APPARATUSES
MAINTENANCE OF POWER – LOUIS ALTHYSSER'S IDEOLOGICAL AND REPRESSIVE STATE APPARATUSES

Summary/Abstract: Niccoló Machiavelli’s The Prince (1532), a great work on political and social philosophy, very minutely describes the ways in which one gains power. It also gives sound advice on ways in which that power is maintained. Building on that discussion we will consider Louis Althusser’s notion of Ideological and Repressive State Apparatuses (ISA and RSA). The ISA’s include ways in which a Party in power (or a Dictator) supplies the masses (Proles) with desirable information through: the mass media (TV, Radio, Internet, Technology, Newspapers, Magazines, etc), Art (Literature, Painting, Music, etc), Religion, Social Conventions and within the nucleus of the Family itself. The RSA’s include the Military and the Police. These are the necessary keepers of the Law, instituted and controlled by the leading few. Comparing the Totalitarian and Democratic ways of ruling (gaining and maintaining power), this paper will bring us closer to understanding how this process operates and support it with examples from literature, mainly dystopian fiction which deals chiefly with such issues.

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