What is Ideology PSIR 401 An organization of

What is Ideology PSIR 401

• "An organization of opinions, attitudes, and values-a way of thinking about man and society. We may speak of an individual's total ideology or of his ideology with respect to different areas of social life; politics, economics, religion, minority groups, and so forth" (Adorno et al. 1950: 2).

Neighbouring terms • "belief-system” • Worldview, attitude, symbol, myth, value, philosophy, rhetoric, culture, etc. • But, ideology is a concept that is well-settled. • In Social Science Citation Index, in 1992, roughly 800 citations under the subjectheadings "ideological, " "ideologies, " and "ideology were listed.

History of the term • . Machiavelli, Bacon, Locke, Condillac, Comte, Feuerbach, Hegel, Pareto, Sorel, Durkheim, Lukacs, Gramsci, Weber, Mannheim, Kuhn, Freud (and later psychoanalytically oriented theorists like Ricoeur and Lacan), Marx, the Frankfurt School, and a whole range of neo- or post-marxists (e. g. , Castoriadis, Lefort, Habermas), structuralists (e. g. , Levi Strauss, Kristeva, Barthes), and poststructuralists (e. g. , Bourdieu, and the Tel Quel crew)

Usage of the term • Gramsci: ["philosophies, " "conceptions of the world, " "systems of thought, " "forms of consciousness"] • " Sorel: "political myth" • Lukacs: "class consciousness“ • Castoriadis: "social imaginary"

A framework • 1. Location: Where is ideology located-in the mind, in behavior, and or in language? – Thought – Behaviour – Language: . Ideology is "the medium in which men and women fight out their social and political battles at the level of signs, meanings and representations” (Eagleton 1991: 11) – "a verbal image of the good society. “ (Downs 1957: 96) – "the lan guage of everyday life is the very locus of ideology and the very site of the meaning which sustains relations of domination" (Thompson (1984: 89 -90)

• 2. Subject Matter: What is ideology about? – Politics – Power – The world-at-large (social relations of production) • “…the material transformation of the economic conditions of production. . . and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic-in short, ideological-forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out” (Marx and Engels) • "the total structure of the mind of an epoch or class” (Mannheim) • "maps of problematic social reality and matrices for the creation of collective conscience. " (Geertz: (1964/1973: 218 19)

• 3. Subject: Who has ideologies? Who are the "ideologists"? – Social class: (Marxism) – Any group: specific, socially sig nificant group or class" (Eagleton 1991: 29). – Any group or individual:

• Position: hallmark of a group in a particular strategic position within society. – which status is more ideological-an "in-group" whose ideology legitimates a relationship of domination, or an "out-group" whose ideology is a protest against an exclusionary or discriminatory social hierarchy.

• (Position continues): – Dominant: "The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i. e. , the class which is the ruling material force in society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force “ (Marx and Engels 1970: 64) – "structures of domination”: Ideology "bolsters stable institutional arrangements by explaining, justifying, and prompting support for a particular stratification system whose failure or demise will lead to the disintegration of a particular pattern of control" (Wilson 1992: 19).

• (Position continues): – Subordinate: movements of the extreme left or right – ie groups or individuals protesting the existing sociopolitical order (e. g. , Feuer 1975). – Ideologists are commonly described as "Alienated" and "Extremist. " – Shils (1967: 66), in the same vein, writes: "Ideologies. . . entail an aggressive alienation from the existing society. ”

• 5. Function: – Explaining – Repressing – Integrated – Motivating: "The significance of ideology, " Mullins (1972: 509) states succinctly, "is not that it causes one to do but that it gives one cause for doing” – Legitimating: • the legitimation function of ideology is understood to be illegitimate

• 6. Motivation: Motivation to be in some way determinative of ideology – Interest-based: "The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships. "

• (Motivation continues): – Non-interest based: – Non-expedient:

• 7. Cognitive/Affective Structure: – Coherence (internal) – Contrast (external) – Abstraction: – Specificity: – Hierarchy: – Stability: – Knowledge – Sophistication – Facticity – Simplicity – Distortion – Conviction – Insincerity – Dogmatism – Consciousness – Unconsciousness