Ideology

The term ideology is etymologically divergent. A derivation from the rarely transmitted Greek ideología (opinion, discourse) must be denied due to the extremely differing meanings of the term today. Ideology rather derives from a combination of the Greek nounseídos (appearance, form, term, imagination, idea, archetype) or eído-lon (picture, illusion, idol) and lógos (speech, doctrine, reason) and hence represents a scientifically sound examination of human ideas, which are naturally imperfect. Francis Bacon's “theory of the idols” is founded in the human mind, with its idols (pictures, imaginations) that are innate or input, although it has not much in common with the modern term ideology. With ideology in the broadest sense, we mean system of conceptions or ideas that are not based on revelation, but made by man. Therefore, ideology can in that sense mean a “system of ideas or history of ideas.”

Terry Eagleton characterizes ideology in general as

Ideology does not necessarily signify “the dominant forms of thought in a society,” but it is the fundament of thinking and therefore constitutional for “a particular social group or class.” Consequently, Eagleton centers in his definition of the term its power to integrate, which in most cases aims at political rule or social dominance.

Ideology therefore pursues worldly aims mostly on a political or economical level. In that, it demands ideological neutrality and represents itself as objective theory; it does not actually want to be ideological. Ideology does predominantly serve a certain weltanschauung (worldview), though. This can be seen quite clearly in the modern development of the term ideology since the French Revolution and the times of Napoleon I: With Antoine L. C. Destutt de Tracy in 1801, it meant a certain philosophical or political doctrine for the very first time. Ideology often connects secular interests with religious language and symbols, in order to strengthen its own position and to have an effect on people without losing the secular context completely. The unlimited realization of its purposes, while not thinking about the moral value of its methods, is the aim of ideology. It strives for a realization of salvation, in order to win people's favor with their doctrine.

Time and world and man are to be changed by ideology and to be seen in a different light. In that, a field of tension between present and future becomes discernible, which releases powerful, sometimes even revolutionary energies. Ideologies often have totalitarian features, as no totalitarian regime can live without ideology or without ideologization of its political ideas. The expectation of salvation and the benefactor in such systems prove to be a political messianism that gives people the strength to believe in the ideology of these political systems. With this kind of devoutness to ideologies, many people are monopolized, won totally, whereby such political systems develop totalitarian effects and become totalitarianisms.

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