>>5513913Hehe, I have not really ever studied marxist philosphers like Althusser, I mainly pursued the vampire sorcery rampant capitalism muahahaha though I do read a lot of art and literary criticism and inevitably encounter marxist or structuralist interpretations, and I have read that Althusser essay on ideology being a form of imaginary or illusory reality.
I think that duality of abstraction you mention goes back at least to the Charioteer fable from Phaedrus,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariot_Allegoryof the White Horse of rational thought / moral impulse and intellect (akin to Abstraction), versus the Black Horse of passion and lust and appetite (akin to the Real, "Nature", or what you might call the animal or beast instincts etc).
In his essay Althusser is trying to illustrate how ideology exists outside of history, because it narrates and determines the historical perspective; he does also entertain the notion that ideology like Left Wing Right Wing etc is real and tangible (eg political lobbying etc), but he gives that the nomenclature of State Apparatus etc.
So what I am alluding to from Althusser's notion as I understand it, is that when you say read Tolkien or play a videogame or watch a film, you are inevitably recognising and sublimating a set of ideological values and aesthetic orientations which inescapably influence your enjoyment and acquiescence to the worldview that shaped its authorial creation.
This is exceptionally noticeable in fantasy sci fi speculative fiction genres, because in these genres theoretically ANYTHING is possible, yet authors often unconconsciously just perpetuate and reproduce the same political or economic power structures and conventions of their era, as opposed to worldbuilding something more convincing or even just stealing / importing the conventions of an analogous historical phenomenon.
So for instance there is that well-cited analysis of how dnd is closer to a Western frontier cowboy world than a medieval feudal one etc. There is that critique that all superhero narratives are essentially conservative and disguised reactionary (the basic plot is an "evil villain" has a plan and tries to change the world = radical revolution. The best that a superhuman can do is to return the world back to its unaltered and unacknowledged flawed state before intervention etc).
I think it is interesting to be able to detect and deconstruct these value systems being conveyed, it may or may not affect your enjoyment of various films, videogames and literature.
