An ideology is a set of ideas In the most narrow sense, an idea is just whatever is before the mind when one thinks. Very often, ideas are construed as representational images; i.e. images of some object. In other contexts, ideas are taken to be concepts, although abstract concepts do not necessarily appear as images. Many philosophers consider ideas to be a fundamental that discusses one's goals The structure of a goal can vary widely from sport to sport. In sports where goals are the sole method of scoring, the goal is often a rectangular structure set in the center of each end of the playing surface. Frequently, there is a net to catch the ball or puck as it is sent into the goal. Some sports do not require the net within their rules, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things (compare worldview A comprehensive world view is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing natural philosophy, fundamental existential and normative postulates or themes, values, emotions, and ethics. The term is a calque of German Weltanschauung [ˈvɛlt.ʔanˌʃaʊ.ʊŋ] ( listen), composed of Welt, 'world', and Anschauung, '), as in common sense (see Ideology in everyday society below) and several philosophical Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. The word "philosophy" comes from the tendencies (see Political ideologies), or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to all members of this society (a "received consciousness" or product of socialization Socialization is a term used by sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, politicians and educationalists to refer to the process of inheriting norms, customs and ideologies. It may provide the individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within their own society; a society itself is formed through a plurality of). The main purpose behind an ideology is to offer change in society, and adherence to a set of ideals where conformity already exists, through a normative thought process. Ideologies are systems of abstract thought (as opposed to mere ideation Ideation is an emerging buzzword representing the creative process of generating, developing, and communicating new ideas, where an idea is understood as a basic element of thought that can be either visual, concrete, or abstract. As such, it is an essential part of the design process, both in education and practice) applied to public matters and thus make this concept central to politics. Implicitly every political tendency entails an ideology whether or not it is propounded as an explicit system of thought. It is how society sees things.
(For the Marxist Marxism is a particular political philosophy, economic and sociological worldview based upon a materialist interpretation of history, a Marxist analysis of capitalism, a theory of social change, and a view of human liberation derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The three primary aspects of Marxism are: definition of ideology, see Ideology as an instrument of social reproduction below.)
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History
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The term "ideology" was born in the highly controversial, philosophical and political debates and fights of the French Revolution The French Revolution was a period of radical social and political upheaval in French and European history. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years. French society underwent an epic transformation as feudal, aristocratic, and religious privileges evaporated under a sustained assault from liberal political and acquired several other meanings from the early days of the First French Empire The French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire, First French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I in France. It was the dominant power of much of continental Europe during the early 19th Century to the present. The word ideology was coined by Destutt de Tracy in 1796[1][2] assembling the parts idea In the most narrow sense, an idea is just whatever is before the mind when one thinks. Very often, ideas are construed as representational images; i.e. images of some object. In other contexts, ideas are taken to be concepts, although abstract concepts do not necessarily appear as images. Many philosophers consider ideas to be a fundamental (near to the Lockean John Locke , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work had a great impact upon the sense) and -logy -logy is a suffix in the English language, used with words originally adapted from Ancient Greek language ending in -λογία . The earliest English examples were anglicizations of the French -logie, which was in turn inherited from the Latin -logia. He used it to refer to one aspect of his "science of ideas". (To the study itself, not the subject of the study.) He separated three aspects, namely: ideology, general grammar and logic, considering respectively the subject, the means and the reason of this science.[3] He argues that among these aspects ideology is the most generic term, because the science of ideas also contains the study of their expression and deduction.
According to Karl Mannheim Karl Mannheim , or Mannheim Károly in the original writing of his name, was a Jewish Hungarian-born sociologist, influential in the first half of the 20th century and one of the founding fathers of classical sociology. Mannheim rates as a founder of the sociology of knowledge's historical reconstruction of the meaning-shifts of ideology, the modern meaning of the word ideology was born when Napoleon Bonaparte Napoleon Bonaparte , was a military and political leader of France and Emperor of the French as Napoleon I, whose actions shaped European politics in the early 19th century (as a politician) used it in an abusive way against "the ideologues" (a group which included[citation needed] Cabanis Pierre Jean George Cabanis was a French physiologist and materialist philosopher, Condorcet Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet , known as Nicolas de Condorcet, was a French philosopher, mathematician, and early political scientist who devised the concept of a Condorcet method. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he advocated a liberal economy, free and equal public education, constitutionalism, and equal rights, Constant Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque was a Swiss-born nobleman, thinker, writer and French politician, Daunou Pierre Claude François Daunou was a French statesman and historian of the French Revolution and Empire, Say Jean-Baptiste Say was a French economist and businessman. He had classically liberal views and argued in favour of competition, free trade, and lifting restraints on business. He is best known due to Say's Law, which is named after him and at times credited to him, but while he discussed and popularized it, he did not originate it, Madame de Staël Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein , commonly known as Madame de Staël, was a French-speaking Swiss author living in Paris and abroad. She influenced literary tastes in Europe at the turn of the 19th century and Tracy), to express the pettiness of his (liberal republican) political opponents.
Perhaps the most accessible source for the near-original meaning of ideology is Hippolyte Taine Hippolyte Adolphe Taine was a French critic and historian. He was the chief theoretical influence of French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism, and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism. Literary historicism as a critical movement has been said to originate with him. Taine is particularly remembered for his's work on the Ancien Regime Ancien Régime refers primarily to the aristocratic, social, and political system established in France under the Valois and Bourbon dynasties (14th century to 18th century). The term is French for "Former Regime," but rendered in English as "Old (or Ancient) Regime", "Old Order," or "Old Rule" (first volume of "Origins of Contemporary France"). He describes ideology as rather like teaching philosophy by the Socratic method The Socratic method , named after the Classical Greek philosopher Socrates, is a form of inquiry and debate between individuals with opposing viewpoints based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to illuminate ideas. It is a dialectical method, often involving an oppositional discussion in which the defence of one, but without extending the vocabulary beyond what the general reader already possessed, and without the examples from observation that practical science would require. Taine identifies it not just with Destutt De Tracy, but also with his milieu, and includes Condillac as one of its precursors. (Tracy read the works of Locke and Condillac while he was imprisoned during the Reign of Terror The Reign of Terror , also known as The Terror (French: la Terreur) was a period of violence that occurred for one year and one month after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of the revolution." Estimates vary.)
The word "ideology" was coined long before the Russians coined "intelligentsia", or before the adjective "intellectual" referred to a sort of person (see substantive A noun can co-occur with an article or an attributive adjective. Verbs and adjectives can't. In the following, an asterisk in front of an example means that this example is ungrammatical), i.e. an intellectual An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity. Thus these words were not around when the hard-headed, driven Napoleon Bonaparte Napoleon Bonaparte , was a military and political leader of France and Emperor of the French as Napoleon I, whose actions shaped European politics in the early 19th century took the word "ideologues" to ridicule his intellectual opponents. Gradually, however, the term "ideology" has dropped some of its pejorative sting A euphemism is a substitution of an expression that may offend or suggest something unpleasant to the receiver with an agreeable or less offensive expression, or to make it less troublesome for the speaker, as in the case of doublespeak. The deployment of euphemisms is a central aspect within the public application of political correctness, and has become a neutral term in the analysis of differing political opinions.[citation needed] Ideological references are important to many people throughout the world. Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, political economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist, communist, and revolutionary, whose ideas played a significant role in the development of modern communism and socialism. Marx summarized his approach in the first line of chapter one of The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848: " used the term in his own context often throughout his works.
Analysis
Meta-ideology is the study of the structure, form, and manifestation of ideologies. Meta-ideology posits that ideology is a coherent system of ideas, relying upon a few basic assumptions about reality that may or may not have any factual basis, but are subjective choices that serve as the seed around which further thought grows. According to this perspective, ideologies are neither right nor wrong, but only a relativistic intellectual strategy for categorizing the world. The pluses and minuses of ideology range from the vigor and fervor of true believers to ideological infallibility. Excessive need for certitude lurks at fundamentalist levels in politics and religions.
The works of George Walford Systematic ideology is a study of ideologies founded in the late 1930s in and around London, England by Harold Walsby, George Walford and others. It seeks to understand the origin and development of ideologies, how ideologies and ideological groups work together, and the possibilities of guiding the development of ideologies on a global scale. The and Harold Walsby Systematic ideology is a study of ideologies founded in the late 1930s in and around London, England by Harold Walsby, George Walford and others. It seeks to understand the origin and development of ideologies, how ideologies and ideological groups work together, and the possibilities of guiding the development of ideologies on a global scale. The, done under the heading of systematic ideology Systematic ideology is a study of ideologies founded in the late 1930s in and around London, England by Harold Walsby, George Walford and others. It seeks to understand the origin and development of ideologies, how ideologies and ideological groups work together, and the possibilities of guiding the development of ideologies on a global scale. The, are attempts to explore the relationships between ideology and social systems.
David W. Minar describes six different ways in which the word "ideology" has been used:
- As a collection of certain ideas with certain kinds of content, usually normative;
- As the form or internal logical structure that ideas have within a set;
- By the role in which ideas play in human-social interaction;
- By the role that ideas play in the structure of an organization;
- As meaning, whose purpose is persuasion; and
- As the locus of social interaction, possibly.
For Willard A. Mullins, an ideology is composed of four basic characteristics:
- it must have power over cognition
- it must be capable of guiding one's evaluations;
- it must provide guidance towards action;
- and, as stated above, must be logically coherent.
Mullins emphasizes that an ideology should be contrasted with the related (but different) issues of utopia and historical myth.
The German philosopher Christian Duncker called for a "critical reflection of the ideology concept" (2006). In his work, he strove to bring the concept of ideology into the foreground, as well as the closely connected concerns of epistemology Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions: and history. In this work, the term ideology is defined in terms of a system of presentations that explicitly or implicitly claim to absolute truth.
Though the word "ideology" is most often found in political discourse, there are many different kinds of ideology: political Politics , is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics has been observed in other group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions. It consists of "social relations involving authority or power" and refers, social The term Social refers to a characteristic of living organisms . It always refers to the interaction of organisms with other organisms and to their collective co-existence, irrespective of whether they are aware of it or not, and irrespective of whether the interaction is voluntary or involuntary, epistemological Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions:, ethical Ethics is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality — that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, justice, virtue, etc, etc.
Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:32:26 GMT+00:00
president Salon "But if you listened to the way he and his campaign discussed policy, it was always clear that they preferred a relatively pragmatic, non- ideological ...
