Ideology In Everyday Society Political Ideologies

Every society has an ideology that forms the basis of the "public opinion" or common sense, a basis that usually remains invisible to most people within the society. This dominant ideology appears as "neutral", while all others that differ from the norm are often seen as radical, no matter what the actual vision may be. The philosopher Michel Foucault wrote about this concept of apparent ideological neutrality.

Organisations that strive for power influence the ideology of a society to become what they want it to be. Political organisations ( governments included) and other groups (e.g. lobbyists) try to influence people by broadcasting their opinions, which is the reason why so often many people in a society seem to "think alike".

When most people in a society think alike about certain matters, or even forget that there are alternatives to the current state of affairs, we arrive at the concept of HegemonyHegemony is the dominance of one group over other groups, with or without the threat of force, to the extent that, for instance, the dominant party can dictate the terms of trade to its advantage; or more broadly, that cultural perspectives become skewed, about which the philosopher Antonio GramsciAntonio Gramsci ( January 22, 1891 April 27, 1937) was an Italian writer (ethnic Albanian by his father) and a politician, a leader and theorist of Socialism, Communism and anti- Fascism. Gramsci was born in Ales, Italy, on the island of Sardinia, a relat wrote. The much smaller-scale concept of groupthinkGroupthink is a term coined by psychologist Irving Janis in 1972 to describe one process by which a group can make bad or irrational decisions. In a groupthink situation, each member of the group attempts to conform his or her opinions to what they believ also owes something to his work.

Modern linguists study the mechanism of conceptual metaphorConceptual metaphor In cognitive linguistics metaphor is defined as understanding one conceptual domain in terms of another conceptual domain, e. one person's life experience versus another's. A conceptual domain is any coherent organization of experience, by which this 'thinking alike' is thought to be transmitted.

2 Political ideologies

There are many different kinds of ideology: political, socialThe adjective social implies that the verb or noun to which it is applied is somehow more communicative, cooperative, and moderated by contact with human beings, than if it were omitted. That is, it implies that larger society has played some role in defi, epistemologicalEpistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature, origin and scope of knowledge. Definition of knowledge Justified true belief Plato's Theaetetus''. defined knowledge as justified true belief. One implication of this definition is that, ethical, and so on.

The popularity of an ideology is in part due to the influence of moral entrepreneurs , who sometimes act in their own interests. A political ideology is the body of ideals, principles, doctrine, myth or symbols of a social movement, institution, class, or large group that references some political and cultural plan. It can be a construct of political thought, often defining political parties and their policy.

2.1 Epistemological ideologies

Even when the challenging of existing beliefs is encouraged, as in science, the dominant paradigm or mindset can prevent certain challenges, theories or experiments from being advanced. The philosophy of science mostly concerns itself with reducing the impact of these prior ideologies so that science can proceed with its primary task, which is (according to science) to create knowledge.

There are critics who view science as an ideology in itself, called scientism. Some scientists respond that, while the scientific method is itself an ideology, as it is a collection of ideas, there is nothing particularly wrong or bad about it.

Other critics point out that while science itself is not a misleading ideology, there are some fields of study within science that are misleading. Two examples discussed here are in the fields of ecology and economics.

A special case of science adopted as ideology is that of ecology, which studies the relationships between living things on Earth. Perceptual psychologist J. J. Gibson believed that human perception of ecological relationships was the basis of self-awareness and cognition itself. Linguist George Lakoff has proposed a cognitive science of mathematics wherein even the most fundamental ideas of arithmetic would be seen as consequences or products of human perception - which is itself necessarily evolved within an ecology.

Deep ecology and the modern ecology movement (and, to a lesser degree, Green parties) appear to have adopted ecological sciences as a positive ideology.

Some accuse ecological economics of likewise turning scientific theory into political economy, although theses in that science can often be tested. The modern practice of green economics fuses both approaches and seems to be part science, part ideology.

This is far from the only theory of economics to be raised to ideology status - some notable economically-based ideologies include mercantilism, social darwinism, communism, laissez-faire economics, and " free trade". There are also current theories of safe trade and fair trade which can be seen as ideologies.

3 Ideology as an instrument of social reproduction

Karl Marx proposed a base/superstructure model of society. The base refers to the means of production of society. The superstructure is formed on top of the base, and comprises that society's ideology, as well as its legal system, political system, and religions. Marx proposed that the base determines the superstructure. It is the ruling class that controls the society's means of production - and thus the superstructure of society, including its ideology, will be determined according to what is in the ruling class' best interests. On the other hand, critics of the Marxist approach feel that it attributes too much importance to economic factors in influencing society.

The ideologies of the dominant class of a society are proposed to all members of that society in order to make the ruling class' interests appear to be the interests of all, and thereby achieve hegemony. To reach this goal, ideology makes use of a special type of discourse: the lacunar discourse , as discussed by Althusser. A number of propositions, which are never untrue, suggest a number of other propositions, which are. In this way, the essence of the lacunar discourse is what is not told (but is suggested).

For example, the statement 'All are equal before the law', which is a theory behind current legal systems, suggests that all people may be of equal worth or have equal 'opportunities'. This is not true, because the concept of private property over the means of production results in some people being able to own more (much more) than others, and their property brings power and influence (the rich can afford better lawyers, among other things, and this puts in question the principle of equality before the law).

The dominant forms of ideology in capitalism are (in chronological order):

and they correspond to the stages of development of capitalism:

extensive stage
intensive stage
contemporary capitalism (or late capitalism, or current crisis)

4 References

Louis Althusser, Reading Capital ('Pour lire le Capital')
Antonio Gramsci, Prison notebooks

5 See also

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations by or about .

Ethics Marxist theory Political theories Politics Social philosophy

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1 Ideology in everyday society