Ideology

Conceptual Overview and Discussion

The first strain of ideology is closest to the original usage. The concept of ideology was first developed by the French Enlightenment philosopher Destutt de Tracey in Elements d'Ideologies (1801–1805) as part of an all-embracing system of ideas, or general “science of ideas,” that would rely strictly on the analysis of sense impressions to uncover the sources of bias and prejudice. In this conceptualization, ideology would serve as a mechanism to promote positive social change. This is the most archaic and least common usage.

The second strain is commonly found in politics and refers to an openly recognized and cohesively organized group of beliefs that promote particular value orientations, such as communism, fascism, liberalism, and certain types of nationalism. These types of ideologies are often oppositional and develop into political reform movements. Studies of this type of ideology often investigate the type of personalities most likely to adopt such ideologies. An example is Theordor Adorno's investigation of the “authoritarian personality” and its relationship to the rise of totalitarianisms such as fascism. Other studies in this strain may examine the social consequences of an ideology, for example, how neo-liberalism furthered the globalization of transnational capitalism, decertification of labor unions, and the deskilling of labor as a result of promoting free trade agreements such as the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement. In the arts, this strain of ideology characterizes and promotes certain artistic movements: cubism, futurism, romanticism. Some artistic movements are more explicitly ideological than others; Dadaism, for example, was an openly ideological movement sympathetic to the political ideology of anarchism and geared toward fomenting radical social change. These types of ideologies, whether or not they are accepted and adhered to, are commonly recognized and often openly contested in social and political forums and debates. The first two types of ideologies are open to public scrutiny and share the common goal of social reform, these features are reversed in the third usage.

The third form of ideology refers to a set of false beliefs that serve to legitimate social inequalities. This conceptualization originates with the posthumous publication of Karl Marx's German Ideology[Page 450](1927) and Karl Mannheim's Ideology and Utopia (1929/1936). Throughout the 20th century, in concert with communism and socialism, this form of ideology enjoyed wide dissemination in Marxist, social science, and other academic literatures. Marx postulates that the character of ideas in any society are related to material conditions and furthermore that economic conditions have historically been ones of subordination and exploitation and that such inequitable relationships have been legitimated by certain ideas that consciously and unconsciously originate in and are promoted by dominant groups. Marx's classic definition of ideology is that “the ideas of any epoch are the ideas of the ruling class.” In capitalist society, the dominant group controls the production of ideas because the labor process, which is the fundamental source of human essence and dignity, is alienated or wrested away from the control of workers, who form a degraded and socially fragmented mass. This degradation is maintained over time through an ideology that fosters false consciousness among workers as to their “real” human essence and collective interest. In class societies such as capitalism, class membership influences ideology, and ideologies are thus partial and biased or false and support the status quo and social stability.

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