On the Theory and History of Ideological Production

Book excerpt: On the Theory and History of Ideological Production promotes the existence of an ‘ideological unconscious’, understood primarily as a product of social relations, not of the Ideological State Apparatus. Attention focuses upon the transition from feudalism to capitalism, as theorised by the Spanish Marxist and former student of Althusser, Juan Carlos Rodríguez. Theorization of the ‘ideological unconscious’ presupposes a change of terrain from the individual/society opposition to a problematic based on the ‘social formation’. The present text assesses Rodríguez’s work alongside that of his contemporaries, Fredric Jameson, Noam Chomsky, Terry Eagleton, Roy Bhaskar, Slavoj Žižek, and others.