Now let us look at another postulation by Althusser:

“You and I are always already subjects, and as such constantly practise the rituals of ideological recognition, which guarantee for us that we are indeed concrete, individual, distinguishable and (naturally) irreplaceable subjects”.

Being already subjects entails a certain givenness, an a priori formulation of our identity and subjectivity. Our subjecthood, our experience, or what we are going to experience as we enter the social arena, i.e., our social lives, are already demarcated for us.  

Further, “rituals of ideological recognition” implies that the whole process of recognizing or understanding any part of ideology is ritualized. Just like rites of passage, these rites of ideological recognition are available prior to our experience in culture. These are not unique or individualized.

Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner in Media and Cultural Studies: A Reader (2006) reiterate the significance of Althusser's formulations on ideology:

“Beginning with Marx's thesis that the mode of production determines the character of social, intellectual, and cultural life, Althusser sees ideology as an effect of the structure of society, a force in which economic, political-legal, cultural, and ideological practices are interrelated to shape social consciousness…. In Althusser's version of ‘structural Marxism', ‘ideological state apparatuses' (schooling, media, the judiciary, etc.) ‘interpellated' individuals into preconceived forms of subjectivity that left no space for opposition or resistance.”