Obviousnesses - lydgate/mindmeld GitHub Wiki

Logos: Ideology imposes obviousness

From Althusser's Ideological State Apparatuses. Highlight here. (You need to be logged into hypothesis.)

As St Paul admirably put it, it is in the ‘Logos’, meaning in ideology, that we ‘live, move and have our being’.

It's in Acts 17:28, though it does not specifically refer to Logos as far as I can tell. Section here. Seems overall to be a section about Paul's dislike of iconography.

  • 12/232b30 Iconoclasm instills consciousness

It follows that, for you and for me, the category of the subject is a primary ‘obviousness’ (obviousnesses are always primary): it is clear that you and I are subjects (free, ethical, etc....). Like all obviousnesses, including those that make a word ‘name a thing’ or ‘have a meaning’ (therefore including the obviousness of the ‘transparency’ of language), the ‘obviousness’ that you and I are subjects – and that that does not cause any problems – is an ideological effect, the elementary ideological effect.[16] It is indeed a peculiarity of ideology that it imposes (without appearing to do so, since these are ‘obviousnesses’) obviousnesses as obviousnesses, which we cannot fail to recognize and before which we have the inevitable and natural reaction of crying out (aloud or in the ‘still, small voice of conscience’): ‘That’s obvious! That’s right! That’s true!’

All obviousnnesses are ideological effects. This includes things as basic as "words name something" or "words have a meaning" or that "language is transparent." The obviousness that you and I are subjects is also ideological. Ideology imposes obviousnnesses. This obviousness makes it hard to see that there is an ideology. This is like Kuhn's worldview: you can't see outside of it.

Interesting about this "still, small voice of conscience."

In Bryan's ZK...