Armstrong: On ideologies and politics
From Karen Armstrong’s The Battle for God:
“Ideologists believe that the world is in a parlous state, find reasons for the current crisis, and promise to find a way out. They direct the attention of the people to a group that is to blame for the world’s ruin, and to another group that will put things right. Since in the modern world, politics can no longer be an entirely elitist pursuit, the ideology must be simple enough to be grasped by the meanest intelligence in order to gain the support of the people as a whole.
“Crucial is the conviction that some groups will never be able to understand the ideology, because they have been infected by a “false consciousness.” The ideology is often a closed system that cannot afford to take alternative views seriously. Marxists, who see capitalists as the source of the world’s ills, cannot understand the values of capitalism, and vice versa. Colonialists are impervious to the truths of emerging nationalisms. Zionists and Arabs are unable to appreciate one another’s point of view. All ideologies imagine an unrealistic and, some would say, unrealizable utopia. They are by their very nature highly selective, but ideas, passions, and enthusiasms that are in the air at any given time, such as nationalism, personal autonomy, or equality, are likely to be picked up by a number of competing ideologies, which will often, therefore, appeal to the same ideals, since all derive from the same zeitgeist.
“….This type of conspiracy fear, which makes people feel that they are fighting for their lives, can easily become aggressive.”
Add comment December 31st, 2008
