ABSTRACT
The use of the notion of ideology is persistent in Slavoj Zizek's writings. Quite obviously, Zizek's use of the concept draws an Althusserian "line of demarcation" against a large number of other efforts in philosophy and cultural theory. Most ideology exists in a "practical" form: in rituals, forms of behaviour, and customs organised in "ideological state apparatuses" such as schools, political parties, churches, sports clubs, and subcultural groups Ideology fulfils a function completely different than that of knowledge. The structure of ideology is, with this regard, that of illusion. What marks an illusion, according to Sigmund Freud, is the fact that it is the effect of a wish. The fact that ideology substitutes its true object by a seeming object is what Althusser has designated by his complex formula "ideology is a 'representation' of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence". Since ideology is practical in most cases, it can coexist with completely different theoretical formations.
