Education
Education is a tool used by the Accumulating Class to help them reproduce the labour requirements of The System. In Althusser's view,[1] education is not simply about knowledge acquisition or skill development but rather operates as the primary Ideological State Apparatus under capitalism. In other words, education (at all levels) teaches individuals how to be good little workers within the extant Regime of Accumulation.
Mechanisms of Reproduction
Mechanisms of Reproduction > State Apparatus, The State, Toxic Socialization
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Notes
Education, within this framework, does not just impart practical knowledge but instills in individuals an acceptance of their position within the social hierarchy, implicitly teaching obedience to authority and compliance with existing social structures. Althusser argues that this Hidden Curriculum in education contributes to forming individuals who unconsciously support and perpetuate the existing power dynamics, as they are subtly guided to see these structures as natural and unavoidable.
In his essay, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, Althusser emphasizes that the educational system plays a pivotal role in reproducing the dominant ideology. It does so by:
- Assigning roles: Education stratifies individuals, often directing them toward social positions in ways that align with class expectations, effectively sorting students by social hierarchy.
- Reinforcing ideology: Through curriculum, discipline, and authority structures, the education system implicitly teaches that existing social roles and structures are natural, justified, and meritocratic.
- Establishing compliance: By instilling rule-following behaviors and promoting submission to authority, education fosters a compliant workforce and citizenry more likely to conform to societal norms without questioning them.
Althusser’s analysis implies that education, rather than being neutral or universally beneficial, is deeply embedded in the fabric of societal control mechanisms
"Hence I believe I have good reasons for thinking that behind the scenes of its political [[Ideological State Apparatus]], which occupies the front of the stage, what the bourgeoisie has installed as its number-one, i.e. as its dominant ideological State apparatus, is the educational apparatus, which has in fact replaced in its functions the previously dominant ideological State apparatus, the Church. One might even add: the School-Family couple has replaced the Church-Family couple."[2]
"To my knowledge, no class can hold State power over a long period without at the same time exercising its hegemony over and in the State Ideological Apparatuses. I only need one example and proof of this: Lenin’s anguished concern to revolutionize the educational Ideological State Apparatus (among others), simply to make it possible for the Soviet proletariat, who had seized State power, to secure the future of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the transition to socialism."[3]
"Nevertheless, in this concert, one ideological State apparatus certainly has the dominant role, although hardly anyone lends an ear to its music: it is so silent! This is the school. It takes children from every class at infant-school age, and then for years, the years in which the child is most vulnerable’, squeezed between the family State apparatus nd the educational State apparatus, it drums into them, whether it uses new or old methods, a certain amount of know-how’ wrapped in the ruling ideology (French, arithmetic, natural history, the sciences, literature) or imply the ruling ideology in its pure state (ethics, civic instruction, philosophy). Somewhere around the age of sixteen, a huge mass of children are ejected ‘into production’: these are the workers or small peasants. Another portion of scholastically adapted youth carries on: and, for better or worse, it goes somewhat further, until it alls by the wayside and fills the posts of small and middle technicians, white-collar workers, small and middle executives, petty bourgeois of all kinds. A last portion reaches the summit, either to fall into intellectual semi-employment, or to provide, as well as the ‘intellectuals of he collective labourer’, the agents of exploitation capitalists, managers), the agents of repression (soldiers, policemen, politicians, administrators, etc.) and the professional ideologists (priests of all sorts, most of whom convinced ‘laymen’)."[4]
"But besides these techniques and knowledges, and in learning them, children at school also learn the ‘rules’ of good behaviour, i.e. the attitude that should be observed by every agent in the division of labour, according to the job he is ‘destined’ for: rules of morality, civic and professional conscience, which actually means rules of respect for the socio-technical division of labour and ultimately the rules of the order established by class domination. They also learn to ‘speak proper French’, to ‘handle’ the workers correctly, i.e. actually (for the future capitalists and their servants) to ‘order them about’ properly, i.e. (ideally) to ‘speak to them’ in the right way, etc.
To put this moreTo put this more scientifically, I shall say that the reproduction of labour power requires not only a
reproduction of its skills, but also, at the same time, a reproduction of its submission to the rules of the established
order, i.e. a reproduction of submission to the ruling ideology for the workers, and a reproduction of the ability to
manipulate the ruling ideology correctly for the agents of exploitation and repression, so that they, too, will provide
for the domination of the ruling class ‘in words’. In other words, the school (but also other State institutions like the Church, or other apparatuses like the Army) teaches ‘know-how’, but in forms which ensure subjection to the ruling ideology or the mastery of its ‘practice’. All the agents of production, exploitation and repression, not to speak of the ‘professionals of ideology’ (Marx), must in one way or another be ‘steeped’ in this ideology in order to perform their tasks ‘conscientiously’ – the tasks of the exploited (the proletarians), of the exploiters (the capitalists), of the exploiters’ auxiliaries (the managers), or of the high priests of the ruling ideology (its ‘functionaries’), etc" Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag
Quotes
=Aldous Huxley on new education systems
"We can take adults and children as they are and give them a much better training than we are giving them now. Or, by appropriate biochemical methods, we can transform [everybody--all of] them into superior individuals. If these superior individuals are given a superior education, the results will be revolutionary."[5]
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Footnotes
- ↑ Louis Althusser, On Ideology (New York: Verso, 2008).
- ↑ Louis Althusser, On Ideology (New York: Verso, 2008).
- ↑ Louis Althusser, On Ideology (New York: Verso, 2008).
- ↑ Louis Althusser, On Ideology (New York: Verso, 2008).
- ↑ Aldous Huxley, “Chapter Twenty-Four: 1961 Letters,” in Moksha (Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 1999).
