“A Heap of Splinters on the Floor”. Ideology and Disinterpellation in Althusser
by Stefano Pippa
pp. 124-144 Issue 13 (7,1) – January-June 2020 ISSN (online): 2539/2239 ISSN (print): 2389-8232 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14718/SoftPower.2020.7.1.6
Abstract
One of the most persistent allegations levelled against Althusser’s theory of ideology is that it does not permit to think the moment of resistance to the grip of “interpellation”, not allowing any space for the possibility of the subject to disentangle herself/ himself from its power. Challenging this widespread view, this article aims to bring to the fore the widely unrecognized presence, within Althusser’s own theorization, of an implicit theory of “disinterpellation” ante litteram, which Althusser develops in his 1962 essay “The ‘Piccolo Teatro’: Bertolazzi and Brecht. Notes on a Materialist Theatre”. The article will argue that Althusser’s text, if read “symptomatically”, permits to define the general conditions of possibility of a “break” with and within one’s own subjectivity, i.e., with the endless circle of ideological recognition. This break, which I interpret as a “metapolitical moment” of de-subjectivation, constitutes the necessary premise for the transformation of a spectator into an “actor”. As such, it represents the still incomplete but necessary starting point for the constitution of a new political subjectivity.