Ideologies discover their subjects rather than subjects belonging inevitably to fixed ideologies.

Evidence

Thus, a theory of articulation is both a way of understanding how ideological elements come, under certain conditions, to cohere together within a discourse, a way of asking how they do or do not become articulated, at specific conjunctures, to certain political subjects. Let me put that the other way: the theory of articulation asks how an ideology discovers its subject rather than how the subject thinks the necessary and inevitable thoughts which belong to it; it enables us to think how an ideology empowers people, enabling them to begin to make some sense or intelligibility of their historical situation, without reducing those forms of intelligibility to their socioeconomic or class location or social position. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 736

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to economic thought: how does a given economic doctrine ‘discover’ its political subjects (e.g. austerity discovering a public) rather than simply reflecting class position. — connects to: Political types differ less in beliefs than in relations to those beliefs. — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 61; Commoner subjectivities emerge historically through practice rather than being fixed identities. — Yael Arbell, The Circle of Commoning:…, 47; Class consciousness functions as an artificial rallying device rather than a natural given.
• DEEPTHINKING: The inversion of the classical subject-ideology relation — ideology finds its people — is a paradigm-level point that resists quick summary.