Louis Pierre Althusser: Self
Quotes
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Renato Parascandolo : How did you become communist?
Louis Pierre Althusser : I became communist because I was a Catholic. I didn't change my faith, but I found there... I found that... in a sense I remained a Christian, deep down. I don't go to mass, but what does going to church mean today? But I remained a Catholic, by which I mean universalist, internationalist... But I thought that the Communist Party had more adequate means for bringing about universal fraternity. There was the influence of my wife, who'd had a terrible time in the Resistance. She taught me a lot.
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Renato Parascandolo : In books on Marxism and Marxist philosophy, you are credited with the invention of the term overdetermination.
Louis Pierre Althusser : I got it from Freud. I used it to mean that whatever the social reality or event, it's never pure. It is never singly determined, it is always over- or underdetermined.
Renato Parascandolo : Meaning?
Louis Pierre Althusser : Meaning that it isn't single but in plural. And that this plurality is either more or less than the determination that we think, that we believe, that we think we isolated in our research.
Renato Parascandolo : An example?
Louis Pierre Althusser : Take the case of Stalin. A very overdetermined case. The explanation given by Khrushchev was that, in short, Stalin was insane. Or that he went mad. That's a determined explanation. But this explanation is clearly not enough. This explanation is not enough to understand the personality and role of Stalin.
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Louis Pierre Althusser : [to Parascandolo] As a general rule, we're a good way behind reality. But sometimes, as in the case of poets, musicians, utopian philosophers and so on, we can be ahead of reality.
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Renato Parascandolo : Is the term self-determination the same thing as communism?
Louis Pierre Althusser : I don't think so.
Renato Parascandolo : What is the difference?
Louis Pierre Althusser : The term self-determination doesn't yet... It can have a content, but up until now it doesn't. Whereas communism exists. Self-management doesn't exist. Communism does. It exists between us, here on this terrace in Rome.
Renato Parascandolo : In what sense?
Louis Pierre Althusser : In the sense that communism is a means of production in which there is no economic relationship of exploitation, no political relationship of domination or submission, no ideological relationship of intimidation or repression, and no ideological enslavement. Between us there is no such relationship.
Renato Parascandolo : As of this moment?
Louis Pierre Althusser : Yes, as of this moment. There are islands of communism all over the world. In the church, for example. Or in certain unions. Even in certain cells of the Communist Party. We have a cell that is communist. This means communism has been realised. When you play football, what happens? There's no marketplace rapport, no political domination, no ideological intimidation... The teams playing each other, respect the rules, and respect each other. Communism is respect for human beings.
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Louis Pierre Althusser : [to Parascandolo] I think that, in certain cases, in order to put right the error you have to persist in the error. Why? Because it's a problem of the people. If you, as an intellectual, discover an error, you put it right, then you start to proclaim: I've understood that there's been an error. I've put it right, and you must all do the same! If you give that order to put it right, that's a mistaken way of going about it. The people have to understand things by themselves. Otherwise, it's just an order that's come from above, and it changes nothing.
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Louis Pierre Althusser : In the end, Marx could only become himself by freeing himself, and all his work testifies to this, from the philosophical temptation, in the sense of humanist philosophy, to develop the fundamental human values, freedom, equality, the positive human values, and apply these values as a critical norm against the empirical reality of history.
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Louis Pierre Althusser : Marx was well aware that he was founding a new scientific discipline. In the preface to Capital he mentioned Galileo. It's not an exact parallel. But what is certain is that in Marx's mind, and in what I'd call his theoretical practice, Marx created a new way of thinking about these themes and objects which had hitherto been the property of what we can call philosophy. Marx founded, as regards objects, history, the laws of political economy, the historical development of social forms and revolutions... Marx founded what we can consider, if we wish to get the essence of his thought, a sort of scientific discipline.
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Louis Pierre Althusser : [from a letter to Franca] Wednesday, 11 p.m. Franca, my love, I'm going to bed, totally worn out. I've spent three days in discussion with my students about their movement. As in other things, I'm the only one able to untangle the contradictions, simply because I know what Marxism is.
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Louis Pierre Althusser : [from a letter to Franca] I've elaborated a technique for going from artisanal to industrial production in the domain of theoretical practice, for me and those who work with me. Tape recorder, recordings and so on. Marx, in 1853, started working systematically on Das Kapital. My great work, if God grants me life, will be Theory and Ideology, or something like that.
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Louis Pierre Althusser : [from a letter to Franca] Franca, I'm finally managing to write to you. I've been having sleep therapy at the clinic. I'm gradually getting back in touch with real life, with some serious setbacks.
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Louis Pierre Althusser : [from a letter to Franca] Let the water run if it will. May the time rush past. May my students leave me behind, thinking they've worn me out and are still doing so. It's my decision not to run.
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Louis Pierre Althusser : [from a letter to Franca] The summer was theoretically rough. I mean as regards theory. Something started to change, and I understood several phenomena which had been mysteries to me. I became aware of two things. First: philosophy has an organic relationship with politics. And second: I don't know what politics is. You see? Platitudes. The bitter effort of noting things, then living.
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Louis Pierre Althusser : [from a letter to Franca] Franca, I haven't written sooner because I was, and still am, but less so, terribly shaken by what happened in the school over the weekend. An anarchist-leaning left-wing group, which for months had been carrying out political actions, arranged a people's party with the slogan bring food and wine. Fuelled by alcohol, it almost ended in catastrophe. I'm amazed the school didn't burn down, not just because of all the fires lit, but because of all the debris in the pillaged cellars. On the top of the shock of that night, what still bothers me is how I felt this coming, how my fantasies have become reality. These fantasies, now that they've became reality, still haunt me, because it isn't over. This is why I am unable to resign myself to this, to accept that I can't make contact with the youngsters who unleashed it. They're so caught up in their anti-repression reaction that there's no common language in which we could communicate. Forgive this letter, which still stinks of the ashes. As distant as I am, and not only in space, writing to you gives me some peace.
