How does ideology work

Modern societies are concerned with non-ideological problem solving. They have become more moral, more liberal and only distantly connected with a class analysis of society. Francis Fukuyama, in The End of History and the Last Man , elaborated ideas he had previously published to argue that the end of the Cold War had shown the triumph of liberalism and liberal democracy to be the ideologies of modern scientific and technological societies.

Liberal democracy was of universal application and represented the ultimate objective of mankind. Ideological conflicts arising out of feminism, nationalism, environmentalism and anti-racism are merely representations of the fundamental worth of liberal-democratic values.

Indeed, they take place within a framework of liberal-democratic ideological assumptions. But they have been attacked for being propagandists for American economic and political domination of the planet. They have also been attacked for having ideas that are in fact highly ideological in themselves and for systematically ignoring evidence that challenges their thesis. We have observed that ideologies arise out of particular social circumstances and reflect the structures of power in society.

An ideology, however, is customarily presented as a natural and rational analysis of society. It will carry with it the assumption, overt or covert, that opposing ideologies are somehow unnatural and irrational. Ideologies claim they are universally applicable to all peoples in all societies and are not the product of a particular time and place.

They create a particular language of meaning and explanation to encourage the individual to develop a sense of being a full member of a major movement for social reform. As part of this, criticism of the ideology will be associated with negativity and can be dismissed as such by its supporters. These points may give the impression that one is talking about the restrictive ideological forms of ideology, but they also apply to the relaxed forms of ideology in society.

Ideological assumptions thus affect all aspects of society: family, political parties and pressure groups, local and national politics, and international politics. One must not, however, think that ideologies emerge as part of a conspiracy by a Machiavellian elite to brainwash the public.

This would be far too simplistic a view of how ideology develops. Members of the elite in any society rise from that society and generally share the ideological and cultural values of most of its members.

There is an ideological element to most aspects of culture. The elite themselves may not realise they are acting selfishly. They may genuinely believe that their views are in the interests of all in society. There are many vehicles by which ideological values are transmitted to society: they include family, work, friends, the mass media, political parties and other political and social institutions.

The family plays a crucial role in the socialisation of new citizens into the ideological values of their society. There are power relations between men and women, parents and children, all of whom are influenced by ideological concepts, often unthinkingly acted upon by the members of that family. Families have an enormous effect on the life chances of their members. Especially important are their occupational and social-class positions, which will play a major role in influencing the educational level of the children, their future occupations, their religious and moral values and their choice of friends.

All of these factors will have ideological messages that influence the political values of the individuals concerned. Most such ideological values will be of the relaxed kind, but some people will seek a more restrictive ideological expression of their political views and will join a political party. Political parties are clearly ideological vehicles, designed to fight elections by appealing to the electorate with a manifesto containing policy proposals that are shaped by ideological values.

By now the importance of ideologies in political discourse should be clear. But if there are any lingering doubts, the importance of ideology can be observed in the shaping of world history. The musings of thinkers have ideological content which, in a myriad of direct and indirect ways, influences the thoughts, policies and actions of politicians and people alike. We can only understand the world by reference to ideological points of view, while at the same time being aware of the limitations and distortions of our own deeply held ideological beliefs.

One can, therefore, gain some idea of the importance of this key link between ideology, thinkers, power and society by studying examples from history. Ideological debate was an important feature of political life before the twentieth century, but it has influenced politics during the twentieth century in ways that are different from previous times.

To begin with, governments and politicians seek clear ideological justifications for their actions and consciously attempt to carry out policies in line with an ideological agenda. Next, modern communications technology ensures that ideological debate and competition is now global in scope.

Furthermore, modern states buttress their power by manipulating public opinion along ideological lines by appealing to ideological principles shared by voters and rulers alike. Finally, sections of the intellectual classes in liberal societies adopt the ideological views and positions of extreme political parties and provide political and economic elites with powerful ideological tools for manipulation of the citizenry.

Political ideology now, more than ever before, is very closely linked to state power whatever the political system. The twentieth century, and one sees little hope that this will change in the twenty-first, was one in which ideological falsification, exaggeration and simplification held sway. It seems as if this form of ideological politics is a natural product of the mobilisation of millions of voters in a mass democracy. Societies shaped by liberalism dominated the international system at the start of the twentieth century, although a strain of pessimism seemed to be in the ideological and intellectual air, despite a previous century of great economic, social, political, technological and cultural progress.

A belief that the onward march of liberal civilisation would not last was a theme among many thinkers as dawned. The First World War was a greater shock than people could possibly have imagined. It badly disrupted the global economic system that had been created by Britain in the nineteenth century and wrecked the liberal assumption of inevitable progress.

During the two decades after pessimism deepened as liberalism appeared discredited and out-dated to millions of Europeans. Many therefore turned to fascism and communism, which they envisaged as offering youthful, optimistic and more effective ideologies of renewal and progress. One could hardly say that ideology does not matter when one considers its impact on the domestic politics of Italy, Germany and the USSR under Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin, respectively.

Fascism and communism contained the most extreme elements of ideology found among the many forms of twentieth-century ideological thought. Complex realities were simplified into one fundamental truth of a struggle of good and evil, right and wrong, with a chosen group based on class, race or belief leading the way to a better world.

Common also to both fascist and communist movements was the hatred and contempt for liberal values and parliamentary democracy, which supposedly betrayed the nation or the class. The consequences for the international balance of power were very great. Nazi foreign policy was formed by an aggressive ideology of expansion. Western liberal democratic suspicions of communist Russia suspicions that were reciprocated by Stalin dogged attempts to create a united diplomatic front in the face of the Nazi threat and contributed to the slide into war in the late s.

The Nazi—Soviet Pact of August was shocking not only in terms of its strategic implications, but also in the breathtaking implausibility of two ideological enemies making a non-aggression treaty. Equally implausible was the alliance between liberal democracy and communism that arose during the war that followed. The Second World War was an ideological struggle with several military dimensions. Nazism fought another war against Soviet communism in the East, a war in which there could be no ideological compromise, no end other than the total defeat of side or the other, a war of incredible levels of ferocity and brutality.

A third ideological conflict, that between the liberal West and Soviet communism, was suspended while Nazi Germany still posed a threat. But even before fighting in Europe had ended, the conflict that was to lead to the Cold War was well under way, with growing suspicion and hostility between the Anglo-Americans on one side of a divided Europe and the Soviets on the other.

The Cold War was the second great ideological struggle of the century. The planet divided into a bi-polar world of liberal-democratic nations under the leadership of the USA and a communist world under Soviet leadership. Only the possession of massive conventional forces and nuclear weapons by both the USA and the USSR prevented the deep ideological animosity between the two superpowers from erupting into war during the many crises that punctuated their struggle.

By the mids the Cold War was coming to an end and the ideological conflict was winding down. However, nothing prepared the world for the dramatic end of the Soviet Union and the communist regimes in Eastern Europe between and The post-Cold War world seemed to be one in which the ideological struggles of the previous seventy years had come to an end. Liberal democracy appeared triumphant, with the last of its totalitarian enemies gone.

However, the end of communism did not mean the end of ideology. Virulent nationalism erupted in Yugoslavia, tearing the state apart, and again in Chechnya, Georgia and other parts of the former Soviet Union. Fascism began to march again in many of the previously communist nations of the East and gained new supporters in the West.

Finally, as the new century dawned, virulent Islamic fundamentalism offered a massive challenge to the smug ideological assumptions of the West of a decade earlier. Ideology was not dead. It had never been absent even in the supremely pragmatic politics of Britain.

Ultimately, ideology determines how we make sense of things. It provides an ordered view of the world, our place in it, and our relationship to others. As such, it is deeply important to the human experience, and typically something that people cling to and defend , whether or not they are conscious of doing so. And, as ideology emerges out of the social structure and social order , it is generally expressive of the social interests that are supported by both. Terry Eagleton, a British literary theorist, and intellectual explained it this way in his book Ideology: An Introduction :.

German philosopher Karl Marx is considered the first to provide a theoretical framing of ideology within the context of sociology. According to Marx, ideology emerges out of a society's mode of production.

In his case and in that of the modern United States, the economic mode of production is capitalism. Marx's approach to ideology was set forth in his theory of base and superstructure.

According to Marx, the superstructure of society, the realm of ideology, grows out of the base, the realm of production, to reflect the interests of the ruling class and justify the status quo that keeps them in power. Marx, then, focused his theory on the concept of a dominant ideology.

However, he viewed the relationship between base and superstructure as dialectical in nature, meaning that each affects the other equally and that a change in one necessitates a change in the other. This belief formed the basis for Marx's theory of revolution. He believed that once workers developed a class consciousness and became aware of their exploited position relative to the powerful class of factory owners and financiers—in other words, when they experienced a fundamental shift in ideology—that they would then act on that ideology by organizing and demanding a change in the social, economic, and political structures of society.

The working-class revolution that Marx predicted never happened. Nearly years after the publication of The Communist Manifesto , capitalism maintains a strong grip on global society and the inequalities it fosters continue to grow. Following on the heels of Marx, the Italian activist, journalist, and intellectual Antonio Gramsci offered a more developed theory of ideology to help explain why the revolution did not occur.

Gramsci, offering his theory of cultural hegemony , reasoned that dominant ideology had a stronger hold on consciousness and society than Marx had imagined. Gramsci's theory focused on the central role played by the social institution of education in spreading the dominant ideology and maintaining the power of the ruling class.

Educational institutions, Gramsci argued, teach ideas, beliefs, values, and even identities that reflect the interests of the ruling class, and produce compliant and obedient members of society that serve the interests of that class. This type of rule is what Gramsci called cultural hegemony. Many feminists other than radical feminists take a similar view regarding the idea that women have been brainwashed by patriarchal ideology and therefore do not know what they want.

Arguably, the suggestion that ideology leads to false consciousness is just a convenient explanation for not being able to persuade people of the strength of their arguments! The suggestion in traditional Marxist approaches to this is that there is just that one ideology in society, but some neo-Marxists argue that this is just the dominant ideology. There are other competing sets of ideas in society, some of which can be developed in opposition to the ruling class.

This idea is developed particularly by Antonio Gramsci and his concepts of hegemony and counter-hegemony. Our subjects Our Subjects. Explore Explore. Contact Contact. Back to top. Thus, a so-called ideology of superior achievement is not ideological thinking in my sense of the word unless and until it has particular effects, and then only to this extent. It is at that point that they become forms of ideological thought. Above all, this approach does not view ideology as something separate from cultural understanding.

The mechanisms of what we call ideological thinking are no different in kind from the ordinary forms of thought. The mechanisms of ideology are the mechanisms of everyday thought, which in particular contexts produce effects that are both unfortunate and unjust. The tools of our understanding can be alternatively advantageous and disadvantageous as they are applied in new situations and new contexts.

Then their limitations become apparent in the same way that many other disadvantages of tools may suddenly surface. The temptation to identify ideology with a sort of pathology may stem from the familiar notion that ideology is false or distorted belief.

Given this assumption, it seems natural to think of falsity or distortion as a kind of illness or malady, especially if it has harmful effects. For example, we often speak of racism or anti-Semitism as a sickness or a disease.

In fact, the metaphor of disease is not completely unreasonable, as I shall discuss momentarily. From the standpoint of causal mechanisms, the question is whether the effects that people have traditionally assigned to the ideological are due to 1 a special mechanism different from the ordinary mechanisms of social cognition; 2 the extension or employment of cognitive mechanisms into contexts for which they are not well adapted; 3 a spontaneous malfunction in cognitive processes; or 4 the invasion of some external force into normally and properly functioning cognitive processes that causes them to malfunction.

I reject 1 and suggest that many ideological effects are produced by 2. This leaves cases 3 and 4 , both of which explain ideological effects in terms of malfunctions. Obviously, there is some overlap between the notion of overextension and the notion of malfunction. Nevertheless, the concepts arenot identical: we would not say of an airplane that it malfunctions because it is a poor vehicle for traveling on land. Then to the extent that they failed to do so, we would say that they were malfunctioning.

This seems to ask too much of our tools of understanding, though; after all, no tool exists that is equally well adapted to all tasks. Much of the distortion that we see in ideology involves the side effects of tools of understanding that become prominent and maladaptive in particular contexts. Ideological effects are usually the unexpected and unpleasant side effects of conceptual bricolage.

But this malfunction would have to appear in many individuals at once in order to qualify as an ideological phenomenon. A simultaneous malfunction by members of a culture is unlikely. This leaves the possibility that if some ideological phenomena are due to a malfunction in our cognitive processes, it is a malfunction brought on by some external force that affects many people at once.

One possibility is that when individuals are placed in situations with which their cognitive systems cannot cope, they break down or malfunction, just as we say that a car malfunctions when it is forced to drive through water, or a vacuum cleaner malfunctions when it is forced to deal with too great a quantity of dust. If many individuals face the same type of experience, this malfunction would be similar for all of them. But it is hard to imagine that this explains most ideological effects.

The idea of a long-term breakdown in cognitive processes seems implausible. A computer virus is just a special kind of computer software that is able to spread and reproduce itself in other computers. In fact, this model of ideological effects is the model of memetic evolution through cultural communication.

Memes are reproduced in individuals through a social network of communication and transmission. The spread of ideological viruses is merely a special case of the basic mechanism through which cultural software is written, transmitted, and modified. All cultural software can be thought of as a kind of informational virus, transmitted from person to person; or, put another way, what we might call an ideological virus is just another kind of cultural software.

Our devices for understanding the social world are constituted in large part by idea-programs that were able successfully to be transmitted to us and absorbed into our cultural software. As the example of European versus Japanese anti-Semitism demonstrates, an ideological virus can produce very different effects when it is introduced into different environments. If an informational virus produces no such harmful effects—just as there are many viruses in the human body that are relatively benign or harmless—then it does not produce an ideological effect.

Fantasies about people in far-off lands may be distorted and false, but they do not become ideological until there are conditions of justice between the two peoples-that is, until there is communication, trade, and the possibility of war, conflict, struggle, economic exploitation, or colonization. Then these fairy tales which may already have had certain ideological effects within a culture take on a more serious and harmful tone.

Fantasy becomes ideology when justice is at stake. The power of ideology over our imaginations is a special case of the power that all cultural software has over our imaginations. The power of ideology within this picture is quite different from the picture underlying a more traditional Marxist theory of ideology. In the traditional account, ideas have power because they present a distorted picture of reality to the minds of the persons holding them, causing these persons to act against their objective interests.

From the standpoint of the theory of cultural software, the power of ideology is the power of the culturally produced capacities of our minds to shape social reality for us, and thus simultaneously to empower and to limit our imaginations. This approach makes considerable use of concepts like usefulness, ade quacy, and suitability. But these concepts can hardly be considered inherent properties of the tools of understanding.

Adaptability is a judgment made aboutthe operation of a tool in a particular context. It is also a judgment made by an observer who assesses the operations and effects of mechanisms of thought. This means, among other things, that the study of ideology is necessarily an interpretive endeavor, although this fact makes it no less useful. This raises problems of self-reference, which are discussed more fully in the next chapter. The study of ideology necessarily has a normative dimension.

It cannot be value free but must presuppose a view about what is good and bad, advantageous and disadvantageous, just and unjust. She must make interpretive judgments about what social conditions are like, and she must also make judgments about whether a way of thinking is adequate or inadequate to serve particular ends and whether social conditions are just or unjust.

It must ask how this falsity or distortion might create or sustain unjust social conditions or unjust relations of social power.

Because I define ideological effects in terms of actual or potential injustices rather than the presence of hegemony or domination, it may be helpful to contrast my approach with that recently offered by John Thompson. Thus while Thompson argues that the essential feature of ideology is the creation or preservation of domination, I have argued that it is the creation or preservation of unjust power or unjust social conditions.