Althusser!
I tend to teach this essay in grad. literary theory courses as an example of Marxist theory. More and more, I am deeply irritated by Althusser's argument, which is basically that the "subject" is interpellated by ideology. In other words, when we think we are most ourselves (when we are subjects, agents, captains of our own fate, etc.--what Althusser would call the whole fantasm of western individualism), we are most subject to ideology and thus, I guess, more easily controlled by the "State Apparatus."
Now, there's some truth to that. For instance, when I first got into Baseball and watched a Tiger's Game, I was struck by how we were constantly instructed from a super large screen--to sing the anthem, to clap our hands, to buy food and drink, to stand up, to sit down, etc. Really, I thought to myself, how does that differ from the Soviet propaganda that I remember from visiting East Berlin: red flags on houses that praised the communist party and the thriving economy. With one difference: East Germans knew they were coerced. They knew the flags and slogans were state-imposed propaganda. In America, we don't think of consumerism as a state-imposed ideology, necessitated by capitalism. Should we? Afer all, we love the apparent choices a consumer society offers and define our individuality in many ways by what we buy. We are, Althusser would say, perfectly subjected by thinking of ourselves as subjects.
But here's what bothers me about Althusser. For him there cannot be a genuine subject. We cannot ever really know ourselves, never make decisions that are not shaped by hegemonic, that is dominant, ideologies. In other words, we cannot be "critical" subjects. And that is simply too pessimistic a view for me. What, if we hold Althusser's point of view, is the point of teaching?
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