Ideology: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) by Michael Freeden
Authors: Michael Freeden
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of the land, to fear, revenge, and hostility towards others. Invoking the emotions is ahighly useful short-cut for ideologies; it is an efficient and undemanding way of obtaining a response. The spread of passion through a group can be swift, and it may have a longer shelf-life. Witness the power of national struggles over language or land that invoke the strongest reactions. Witness also the power of religious fanaticism as a tool of ideological and political dispute. And witness the constant use of rhetoric, even among moderate politicians, as a means for whipping up support or denigrating opposing points of view. ‘Give me liberty or give me death’, ‘back to basics’, ‘workers of the world, unite’ are some examples. I shall return to this theme in Chapter 9 .
In short, we need to appreciate that an ideology is a rather different intellectual venture than a political philosophy. It is, above all, a political tool situated firmly within the political domain. Its generators and publicizers have a far keener sense of the political than do most political philosophers. Ideologies are not models of what political thinking should be – a characteristic of political philosophies, especially of the Anglo-American variety – but embrace the patterns of political thinking actually produced by social groups for the consumption of social groups. Ideologies must therefore be judged on a host of criteria. Are they relevant to their temporal and spatial contexts? That must be measured by the degree to which they relate to the vital issues a society confronts and whether their solutions are regarded as workable by significant groups. Are they capable of having an impact on the direction a political system will take? That relates to the degree to which they command respect, wield authority, and permeate decision-making circles. Are they efficient in recruiting devotees and advocates? This relates to the language they employ and whether the messages they send and the manner in which they are conveyed and packaged elicit the desired responses. Are they attractive as doctrine and argument? Most ideologies are sensitive to moral standards, and entertain some aim of bettering social life or at least of protecting its existing values. There are of course exceptions to this among right-wing and totalitarian ideologies, though even they may containsome warped notion of bettering the lives of a few by creating abject misery for others.
Finally, I wish to make an observation not about ideology, but about its students. Studying ideologies is not the same as producing them. It is an attempt to understand and analyse them, just as any student of social and political phenomena would do with respect to his or her area of interest. The first question the student of ideologies needs to pose does not relate to the qualitative substance of the ideology, to its ethical stance or its intellectual weight. It is rather:
‘What has to hold
in order for this utterance to make sense/be true/be right for its producers and consumers?’ We have to understand the assumptions contained in an ideology prior to appraising them. We need to put ourselves into the shoes of the ideological promoter, and that requires a sympathetic, or at least impartial, reading of their words and phrases. Were we to direct the full power of philosophical and logical analysis and of ethical evaluation at most ideological material, that material would collapse under the pressure. But instead of concluding that the ideological arguments were hopelessly flawed, we might more wisely decide that we were using the wrong investigative equipment and consequently missing the point.
Nationalism, for example, has been judged by some philosophers to be a mess of shallow and primitive arguments that does not bear serious philosophical scrutiny. This leads to a dead end for anyone who wishes to comprehend the political impact of nationalism as an ideology. Before we proceed any further, we
In short, we need to appreciate that an ideology is a rather different intellectual venture than a political philosophy. It is, above all, a political tool situated firmly within the political domain. Its generators and publicizers have a far keener sense of the political than do most political philosophers. Ideologies are not models of what political thinking should be – a characteristic of political philosophies, especially of the Anglo-American variety – but embrace the patterns of political thinking actually produced by social groups for the consumption of social groups. Ideologies must therefore be judged on a host of criteria. Are they relevant to their temporal and spatial contexts? That must be measured by the degree to which they relate to the vital issues a society confronts and whether their solutions are regarded as workable by significant groups. Are they capable of having an impact on the direction a political system will take? That relates to the degree to which they command respect, wield authority, and permeate decision-making circles. Are they efficient in recruiting devotees and advocates? This relates to the language they employ and whether the messages they send and the manner in which they are conveyed and packaged elicit the desired responses. Are they attractive as doctrine and argument? Most ideologies are sensitive to moral standards, and entertain some aim of bettering social life or at least of protecting its existing values. There are of course exceptions to this among right-wing and totalitarian ideologies, though even they may containsome warped notion of bettering the lives of a few by creating abject misery for others.
Finally, I wish to make an observation not about ideology, but about its students. Studying ideologies is not the same as producing them. It is an attempt to understand and analyse them, just as any student of social and political phenomena would do with respect to his or her area of interest. The first question the student of ideologies needs to pose does not relate to the qualitative substance of the ideology, to its ethical stance or its intellectual weight. It is rather:
‘What has to hold
in order for this utterance to make sense/be true/be right for its producers and consumers?’ We have to understand the assumptions contained in an ideology prior to appraising them. We need to put ourselves into the shoes of the ideological promoter, and that requires a sympathetic, or at least impartial, reading of their words and phrases. Were we to direct the full power of philosophical and logical analysis and of ethical evaluation at most ideological material, that material would collapse under the pressure. But instead of concluding that the ideological arguments were hopelessly flawed, we might more wisely decide that we were using the wrong investigative equipment and consequently missing the point.
Nationalism, for example, has been judged by some philosophers to be a mess of shallow and primitive arguments that does not bear serious philosophical scrutiny. This leads to a dead end for anyone who wishes to comprehend the political impact of nationalism as an ideology. Before we proceed any further, we
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