Pour nous sauver de nous-même

The individual in question behaves in such and such a way, adopts such and such a practical attitude, and, what is more, participates in certain regular practices which are those of the ideological apparatus on which “depend” the ideas which he has in all consciousness freely chosen as a subject. If he believes in God, he goes to Church to attend Mass, kneels, prays, confesses, does penance (once it was material in the ordinary sense of the term) and naturally repents and so on. If he believes in Duty, he will have corresponding attitudes, inscribed in ritual practices “According to correct principles.” If he believes in Justice, he will submit unconditionally to the rules of the Law, and may even protest when they are violated, sign petitions, take part in a demonstration, etc.

Throughout this schema we observe that the ideological representation of ideology is itself forced to recognize that every “subject” endowed with a “consciousness” and believing in the “ideas” that his “consciousness” inspires him and freely accepts, must “act according to his ideas,” must therefore inscribe his own ideas as a free subject in the action of his material practice. If he does not do so, “that is wicked.”

Indeed, if he does not do what he ought to do as a function of what he believes it is because he does something else, which, still as a function of the same idealist scheme, implies that he has other ideas in his head as well as those he proclaims, and that he acts according to these other ideas, as a man who is either “inconsistent” (“no one is willingly evil”) or cynical, or perverse.

In every case, the ideology of ideology thus recognizes, despite its imaginary distortion, that the “ideas” of a human subject exist in his actions, or ought to exist in his actions (however perverse) that he does perform…