Ideology

[coberst]

The patterns we observe in nature convince the natural sciences to search for the immutable laws that guide these patterns. Society displays patterns but immutable laws do not guide these patterns. The patterns of society are man made. I am interested in understanding these patterns as a means for understanding who determines these patterns and why.

Those pattern makers, those public policy makers, determine and maintain the dominant ideology that functions as the laws of society. Every society, to some degree, is set upon a path of development and maintained on that path by a small group of individuals.

Everything is influenced by the dominant ideology and every society has a dominant ideology. “Marx’s Theory of Ideology” is a great source for an understanding of this very important concept.

It appears that ideology became in the nineteenth century a major concept of epistemology as a result of the work accomplished by Karl Marx. It was a distinct form of reasoning about human society that was historical and universal in form. Ideology became an epistemological category designed to conceptualize a distinctive form of thought. Ideology refers to a systematically biased and self-contained study of ideas.

Most of us have been influenced to conceive our society as a natural evolution that is not to be questioned fundamentally any more than we question the sun rising in the east each morning. Society is a structured reality in which we all are naturally related to one another in a naturally determined position. Such is not the case, members of the society structure society and to understand it we must learn to understand what structure informs our thought, the categories in which we perceive and interpret the social world.

To view a society is to view it from a perspective and that perspective is formed by the assumptions taken. This represents the boundary of comprehension. A worldview “cannot transcend its condition of existence any more than a man can leap out of his skin.”

We are all constantly bombarded with ideological propaganda and our intellectual balance is dependent upon our ability to judge well. Such ability is the purpose of Critical Thinking as is being taught in our schools and colleges. Critical Thinking is an attempt to teach youngsters how to think, which means how to make good judgements.

Ideology is like a gentle almost indiscernible mist that nourishes constantly and unobserved by the people. Ideology has a source and a target.

I seek to understand the who, what and why of these policy makers. To do so I seek to understand ideology and human nature.

I think that the bullfight is a useful analogy for my view of society. The matador is the policy makers, the cape is the ideology and the bull is the people.

[MRJ]

Hi. I think some ideological forces are blatant and explicit however some ideologies are insidious and tend to creep up on us. By that I mean that if we accept that human instituitions, such as the state, religion, corporation, family etc. represent patterned, goal-orioented behaviour, then in my opinion, we should understand that these patterns of behaviour all, in some way, restrict our lives. Of course I don’t believe it s so simple, because they also generate choices in their own ways too. It’s the fact that patterned behaviour ‘can’ indeed restrict our lives in ways we don t always foresee.

That’s why I’m always suspicious regarding political-economic ideologies which tend to attack mainly one form of institution; for example the political right in Western countries tend to seek diminished state influence while the left tends to attack private influence. My own sympathies are on the left however because there’s a tendency in modern times for the private sphere to increasingly evolve into what I referred to above as that insidious, creeping kind of ideological influence. In fact, I would go so far to say that business institutions, together with their lobbies hold a kind of de facto political power which is in many ways not responsive to the usual democratic safeguards which we’re suppose to have in place.

One thing I would like to add is that practical freedom to me involves leaving open the broadest scope of strategies for both individuals and government. In practise, that s easier said than done of course. Ideologies are inherently constricting. The fact is that such belief systems and the attendant ideologues who adhere to them do indeed block-off entire areas of strategies. A ‘free-market’ ideologue for instance will automatically eliminate certain governmental strategies and policies or at least, make them less likely to see the light of day. For me, that’s antithetical to freedom. Adhering to an ideology means at some point, closing off the cycle of mutual justification between state and citizen. The process of political and economic justification, that is, justifications for the political and economic policies of the state, even it’s fundamental premises, should remain perpetually open to review.

Freedom involves having the widest scope of possible responses to the contingencies and exigencies to which we are presented in our lives, both personal and political. Putting in place the kinds of social and poltical institutions to effect that is a whole other matter.
Cheers, MRJ

[coberst]

MRJ

It seems to me that ideological propaganda permeates every corner of our life. And because it is ubiquitous we find it to be as pervasive as the sun rising in the morning. We become so habituated to it that we assume it is natural and thus universal and not to be questioned.

If we accept something that is man made to be god made then we are not inclined to examine it or certainly not question it. When such a thing happens some part of being free is lost. Until we develop the ability to understand the reality that is all about us we shall continue milling about like a herd of cows.

Self-enlightenment when we learn how to learn, how to think and how to understand will be the time when we begin to recapture the freedoms that are quickly disappearing.