The German Ideology. In: Arthur C J. (Ed.) Lawrence and Wishart: London. Poulantzas, N. (1973). Political Power and Social Classes. New Left Books: London.
Citation: Zajda, J. (2014). Ideology. In D. Phillips (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Educational Theory and Philosophy. Thousand Oaks: Sage
IDEOLOGY The term Ideology, refers to a system of dominant ideas, and beliefs affecting every sphere of human social interaction and organisation, be they political, economic, scientific, educational, and cultural, evolved during the last decade of the eighteenthcentury. The term has a wide range of epistemological, theoretical and historical meanings and interpretations. It is one of key terms in defining culture. The origins of the concept ideology can be traced to eighteenth-century French philosophical thought. The term idéologie (ideology) was coined by the French philosopher Destutt de Tracy (1795), to define ideas, to be used in clarifying and improving public debate. His aim was to define mental phenomena as a scientific method to provide the necessary rational foundation to the critique dominant intellectual and political traditions that defined his era. He created the term, by combining Greek ‘idea’ (form) and ‘logos’ (knowledge). During the nineteenthcentury, ideology was used by numerous philosophers and social thinkers in Europe. For Marx, the term was used to denote dominant ideas that consolidated a particular politico-economic system. The term ideology has numerous meanings and interpretations, ranging from a set of ideas, beliefs or values used to justify the system, systematic doctrines, cultural beliefs that legitimize particular social and political system, to hegemony, or dominant ideology used by the state to justify the use of power, control and domination. Eagleton (1991) refers to 15 possible definitions of ideology. According to him, the term ideology is difficult to define, since it can be perceived as a text, woven of a whole tissue of different conceptual strands. The multiplicity of meanings associated with the term ideology suggests that social theorists use these in different ways to explain the reality and social action. The concept of ideology is closely connected with power, since ideological symbols, represent, to use Max Weber’s ‘value-ideas’ (general cultural values that constitute social phenomena) construct, which serves to dominate, control, and justify social, economic and political systems. In Marxist and neo-Marxist writings, the term ideology, from a class-conflict and structural-functionalist perspectives, refers to a core set of ideas and values which consolidate and legitimate the existing economic system and social classes. The main function of ideology is to maintain the status quo of economically, socially and politically stratified society. In other social theories, the term ideology denotes any systematic and holistic doctrine, which is used to explain society, its complex social institutions, power, class, status, wealth, and education (and an unequal distribution of socially valued commodities). In this sense, ideology is used as a doctrine for social action, in order to change the system.
Ideology in Marx In the works of Marx and Engels, especially in German Ideology (written in 1845-6, but published for the first time in 1932 by the Marx-Engels Institute, Moscow). The term ideology was defined as the ‘production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness’, and dominant ideas of the ruling class: ‘The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas’. The term ideology was linked to ‘false consciousness’, or an erroneous perception of reality, and social systems and organisations. In a Marxian sense then, ideology signified a new way of thinking for explaining the structure of social classes and institutions, from a material perspective. Marx used the term to explain such concepts as class struggle, society’s modes of production and base/superstructure model of society, where the base represented means and relations of production, and the superstructure represented dominant ideologies defining organizations—political, religious, economic, legal, educational etc. Ideology in Gramsci Antonio Gramsci (1930), the Italian Marxist philosopher and political theorist, added to ideology, by introducing his concept of hegemony, where the political power ideology is based on consensus rather than force or coercion. Eagleton (1991) suggests that Gramsci was ‘an historicist Marxist who believes that truth is historically variable, relative to the consciousness of the most progressive social class of a particular epoch’ (p. 121). Nicos Poulantzas (1973), and other structuralist Marxists criticized Gramsci for committing the historicist error of reducing ideology to the expression of a social class, and reducing a dominant class to the ‘essence’ of the social formation. Poulantzas rejected the idea that the hegemonic class binds society together. Instead, he argued, that the unity of a social formation is a structural affair. Accordingly, historicist Marxism is ‘guilty of the idealist mistake of believing that it is a dominant ideology or world view which secures the unity of society.’ (p. 122). Poulantzas argues that the nexus between dominant ideology and a hegemonic class is indirect: it passes, through the mediation of the total social structure, where the dominant ideology reflects that unity, rather than constituting it. Ideology in Mannheim Mannheim (1936) used the term more systematically in his Ideology and Utopia, where he attempted to analyse the nexus between ideology and social relations, with reference to social classes. Mannheim used the term ideology to explain the ideas that support the status quo of a given society. Mannheim has shifted the meaning of the term, to include both ‘general’ and total’ ideologies, and argued that all ideologies derived from society and social interaction. Ideology in Adorno and Marcuse Theodor Adorno (1973), from the Frankfurt School (the Institute of Social Research) of critical theorists, attempted to find and locate the essence of ideology, by reexamining Marx’s theory of commodities and the concept of exchange value. By focusing on the self and identity, Adorno and other critical theorist at the Frankfurt School, maintained that identity was the ‘primal form’ of all ideology (Adorno,
1973:161). Similarly, Herbert Marcuse (1964) in his classic One-Dimensional Man, argued that commodities define one’s social identity, followed by ‘absorption of ideology into reality’ (p. 11) and that: ‘The people recognize themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level home, kitchen equipment.’ (p.9). Ideology in Althusser The French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser (1972) developed the term ideology further. In defining the term ideology, Althusser, influenced by Jacques Lacan, a noted French psychoanalytic theorist, suggested that ideology does not reflect reality as it exists, but represents ‘the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence.’ (Althusser, 1972:162). This implies that individuals, as social actors, receive their knowledge of who they are from how others respond to them. Lacan’s seminal principle of ‘the dialectic of recognition’ (between imaginary and real) influenced Althusser’s re-definition of the term ideology. He argued that ideology controls individuals and societies through Repressive State Apparatuses, or Ideological State Apparatuses, consisting of major agencies of socialization, and including political system education, religion, family, legal system, culture, and mass media. Ideology in Jameson The more recent and post-structuralist and post-modern re-interpretation of the term ideology is in the works of Fredric Jameson (1991). He, like other neo-Marxist theorists was influenced by Jacques Lacan’s distinction between reality and ‘the Real’, in order to understand ideology. He re-defines ideology as ‘the representation of the subject’s imaginary relationship to his or her real conditions of existence’ (Jameson, 1991:51). He argues that there are numerous ideologies or ideological dominants. Applying Raymond Williams’ (1977) typology of ideologies: residual (traditional) emergent (new) and dominant (existing), Jameson advocates such a model as necessary for a better and more coherent understanding of ideology as a
cultural dominant.
IDEOLOGY AND ITS FUNCTIONS Due to the pace of economic, political and social change, when society is in flux, individuals experience a sense of identity crisis and they look for people or symbols that offer security, safety, and a sense of belonging. In such cases, the ideology can offer such individuals a new sense of identity and belonging, as for former citizens of the USSR, when it collapsed in December 1991 (as in function number 5, below). 1.The first and defensive function of ideology, as the process of legitimation, and ‘meaning in the service of power’, and the ‘ways in which meaning serves to establish and sustain relations of domination’ (Thompson, 1990: 5), is to legitimate, justify, and consolidate the power of a dominant social group or class. 2. The second function, in terms of Marxist and neo-Marxist reproduction theories, is the continual reproduction of economic relations, to maintain the continuous dominance of the ruling class.
3. The third function, as an ‘articulated sets of ideals, ends, and purposes, which help the members of the system to interpret the past, explain the present, and offer a vision for the future’ (Easton, 1965: 290) is to offer individuals a sense of identity and belonging. Easton explains, that ideology can be used as ‘ethical principles that justify the way power is organized, used, and limited and that define the broad responsibilities expected of the participants in the particular political relationship.’ (p. 292). 4. The fourth function of ideology as ‘the integrated assertions, theories, and aims constituting a politico-social program’ (Geertz 1964: 47) is used by leaders to justify their actions and policies, and to imbue them with the values of truth and justice. 5. The fifth function of ideology as political, economic and cultural beliefs is to offer a universal set of core values that help to create a sense of consensus in the nationbuilding process, and a sense of shared identity, and of preferred way for the people—professing to be true and the only way. 6. The sixth critical and future-oriented function of ideology is to give meaning and a sense of purpose to alternative groups challenging the state. IDEOLOGY AND ITS USES: EXAMPLES Economy: The neoliberal ideology of global economy, and the process of economic globalization is driven by the ideology of neoliberal economic globalization. Education: The ideology of vocationalism and human capital, or perceiving the goal of education is for employment. Equality of opportunity is an ideology that aims to eliminate discrimination based on class, race, gender, education, ethnicity, age and religion. Medicine: The ideology of science, progress and technology is central to medical theories that hold that medicine, based on scientific knowledge, is necessarily good. Politics: In pluralist democracies, the dominance of the ideology of democracy, human rights and social justice. In politics in general, the spectrum of political parties, divided by ideologies, ranging from socialism, totalitarianism to liberal ideologies. Sociology: The role of ideology in all cultures Mass Media: The ideology of individualism, materialism, the consumer individual and conspicuous consumption, is promoted by the ubiquitous symbols of advertising. Literature: The role and functions of ideology in literature, be they romantic, realist or modernist. Science: The ideology promoting the power of science as a technoderminist stage of society. Religion: The ideology of the ‘Grand Narratives’, such as creation. (Grand Narrative, or ‘master narrative was coined by Jean-François Lyotard, as a critique of the institutional and ideological forms of knowledge).
FURTHER READINGS Adorno, T. (1973). Negative Dialectics. Routledge Chapman & Hall: London. Athusser, L. (1972). Lenin and philosophy, and other essays. Monthly Review Press: New York. Destutt, de Tracy (1801). Éléments d'idéologie (published in 1970). J. Vrin: Paris. Jameson, F. (1991).Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Duke UP: Durham. Eagleton, T. (1991). Ideology: An Introduction. Verso: London. Easton, D. (1965). A Systems Analysis of Political Life. John Wiley & Sons: New York. p. 290. Geertz, C. (1964). Ideology as a cultural system. In D. Apter (Ed.), Ideology and discontent (pp. 47–76). New York, NY: Free Press. Mannheim, Karl (1936). Ideology and Utopia. Routledge: London. Marcuse, H. (1964).One-Dimensional Man. Beacon: Boston Marx, K, & Engels, F. (1974). The German Ideology. In: Arthur C J (Ed.) Lawrence and Wishart: London. Poulantzas, N. (1973). Political Power and Social Classes. New Left Books: London. Thompson, J. (1990).Ideology and Modern Culture: Critical Social Theory in the Era of Mass Communication. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. Williams, R. (1977). Marxism and Literature. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
