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An ideology is a collection of ideas. The word ideology was coined by Count Destutt de Tracy in the late 18th century to define a "Science of ideas." An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things (compare Weltanschauung), as in common sense (see Ideology in everyday society) and several philosophical tendencies (see Political ideologies), or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to all members of this society (the Marxist definition of ideology - see Ideology as an instrument of social reproduction).
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 Hegemony, about which the philosopher Antonio Gramsci wrote. The much smaller scale concept of Groupthink also owes something to his work. Modern linguists study the mechanism of Conceptual metaphor, by which this 'thinking alike' is thought to be transmitted.
There are many different kinds of ideology: political, Social, epistemological, ethical, and so on.
Meta-ideology is the study of the structure, form, and manifestation of ideologies. Meta-ideology posits that ideology is a system of ideas and thoughts bound by an internal logic and a few basic assumptions about reality that have no real factual basis, but are arbitrary choices that serve as the seed around which ideologies grow. According to this train of thought, ideologies are neither right nor wrong, but only a relativistic intellectual strategy for categorizing the world.
Political ideologies regard policies of many different aspects of a society, the most central of which are: Economy, Education, Criminal law, management of criminals, minors, animals, environment, Immigration, Eugenics, Race, use of the Military, forced Nationalism, forced Religion
The following list attempts to divide ideologies into a number of groups; each group contains ideologies that have a certain theme or idea in common. Note that one ideology can belong to several groups, and there is sometimes considerable overlap between related ideologies.
There are critics who view science as an ideology in itself, or being an effective ideology, 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.
The word "ideology" was coined long before the Russians coined "intelligentsia", or before the adjective "intellectual" referred to a sort of person (a Substantive). Thus these words were not around when the hard-headed, driven Napoleon Bonaparte took the word "ideologues" to ridicule his intellectual opponents.
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:Other dominant forms of capitalist ideology such as Social Darwinism cannot be related to a specific phase.