3a. Concept of Ideology
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25th May 2018
How do differing ideologies view the concept of “ideology”?
There exists no objective standard of truth against which ideologies can be judged. Ideologies cannot be deemed to be either true or false, and each broad ideological group has a different perspective on the concept of ideology.
YOUR TASK:
- Identify which ideological groups hold the following different perspectives on the concept of ideology.
- Either colour code them appropriately, or connect the heads and tails with arrows.
| LIBERALS | … are often dismissive of ideology as an over-systematic, dry and intellectualized form of political understanding that is based on mere reason rather than passion and the will. The Nazis preferred to portray their own ideas as a Weltanschauung or ‘world view’, not as a systematic philosophy. |
| CONSERVATIVES | … have viewed ideology as an officially sanctioned belief system that claims a monopoly of truth, often through a spurious claim to be scientific. Ideology is therefore inherently repressive, even totalitarian; its prime examples are communism and fascism. |
| SOCIALISTS | … have tended to regard all conventional political doctrines as part of a super-ideology of industrialism. Ideology is thus tainted by its association with arrogant humanism and growth-orientated economics – liberalism and socialism being its most obvious examples. |
| FASCISTS | … have traditionally regarded ideology as a manifestation of the arrogance of rationalism. Ideologies are elaborate systems of thought that are dangerous or unreliable because, being abstracted from reality, they establish principles and goals that lead to repression or are simply unachievable. In this light, socialism and liberalism are clearly ideological. |
| ECOLOGISTS | … have treated key religious texts as ideology, on the grounds that, by expressing the revealed word of God, they provide a programme for comprehensive social reconstruction. Secular ideologies are therefore rejected because they are not founded on religious principles and so lack moral substance. |
| RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISTS | … have seen ideology as a body of ideas that conceal the contradictions of class society, thereby promoting false consciousness and political passivity amongst subordinate classes. Liberalism is the classic ruling-class ideology. Later Marxists adopted a neutral concept of ideology, regarding it as the distinctive ideas of any social class, including the working class. |
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