Politics, Ideology, and Belief Systems

The word ideology points to a black box. As a philosopher puts it, ideology “signifies at the same time truth and error, universality and particularity, wisdom and ignorance.” Likewise, for the political scientist the term ideology points to a cluster concept, i.e., belongs to the concepts that bracket a variety of complex phenomena about which one tries to generalize; and the growing popularity of the term has been matched, if anything, by its growing obscurity. All in all, one is entitled to wonder whether there is any point in using “ideology” for scholarly purposes. And my specific question will be whether there is a technical meaning, or meanings, of “ideology” which constitute a necessary tool of enquiry for a science of politics. Discussions about ideology generally fall into two broad domains, namely, ideology in knowledge and/or ideology in politics. With respect to the first area of inquiry the question is whether, and to what extent, man's knowledge is ideologically conditioned or distorted. With respect to the second area of enquiry the question is whether ideology is an essential feature of politics and, if so, what does it explain. In the first case “ideology” is contrasted with “truth,” science and valid knowledge in general; whereas in the second case we are not concerned with the truth-value but with the functional value, so to speak, of ideology. In the first sense by saying ideology we actually mean ideological doctrine (and equivalents), whereas in the second sense we ultimately point to an ideological mentality (also called, hereinafter, ideologism).