Jesus
Sepulveda
on Ideology
From The Garden of Peculiarities
Basic Definitions
of Ideology
Broad Basic Definitions of
Ideology
1. ideology is an organized collection of ideas.
[Wikipedia]
2. Its body of ideas reflect the social needs and
aspirations of an individual, group, class, or culture.
[answers.com]
3. Ideology is here defined as a theory of the nature,
value and use of ideas. In short, it is a theory of ideas
about ideas.
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More Focused Definitions of
Ideology
An ideology is a belief or a set of beliefs, especially
the political beliefs on which people, parties, or
countries base their actions.
[http://www.rolfschwarz.com/Essays/ideology.htm]
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More Focused Definitions of
Ideology
“A system of ideas, attitudes,
standpoints, conceptions and beliefs
which arise in relation to material
activity, and which are capable of
affecting our perception of reality.”
[from Marx, Durkheim, Weber:
Formations of Modern Social Thought
by Kenneth L. Morrison
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Broad More Focused Definitions of
Ideology
Terry Eagleton defines ideology as
“the ways in which specific ideas
help to legitimate unjust and
unnecessary forms of political
domination” [from Studies in
Ideology: Essays on Culture and
Subjectivity”
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What Ideology Does
IDEOLOGY
crystallizes
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IDEOLOGY
legitimizes
IDEOLOGY
propagates
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IDEOLOGY
programs
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What Ideology Does
IDEOLOGY crystallizes
IDEOLOGY crystallizes
itself into a map in memory
It makes of memory a map
even as it makes a map in
memory; it equates the
content with the vehicles
that holds the content
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What Ideology Does
IDEOLOGY
legitimizes
Ideology legitimizes
itself
It speaks well of itself
in the most conceited
fashion
It legitimizes itself
through propagating
the big lie:
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What Ideology Does
THAT A
REIGNING
IDEOLDOGY IS
NOT
IDEOLOGICAL
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What Ideology Does
IDEOLOGY
propagates
Ideology propagates an
idea and/or many ideas
It peoples the world
with ideas
Ideas and idea(l)s are
its offspring
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What Ideology Does (2)
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What Ideology Does
IDEOLOGY
creates
narratives
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IDEOLOGY
demonizes
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What Ideology Does
IDEOLOGY
creates
narratives
that enable it
to seduce us
into its story
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This is its
literary aspect
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What Ideology Does
Ideology’s
story becomes
our story: its
protagonist,
our protagonist
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Its othered
antagonist, our
othered
antagonist,
even if we are
that antagonist
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What Ideology Does
Ideology’s story is
crystalline
because it is so
central to our
existence: it is like
our imagined
crystalline core –
OUR ESSENCE
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It functions in this
fashion because it
can map
consciousness and
its memories as it
reproduces its
privilege
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What Ideology Does
In this prismatic illusion
created by its biased
functioning, ideology
maps consciousness
and memory in
particular so that
memory becomes a
point of orientation of
consciousness to itself
through the eyes of
ideology
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It recasts memory in terms
of its ideas and ideals and
its narratives, which
reinforce those ideas and
ideals
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What Ideology Does
IDEOLOGY
programs
memory and
consciousness
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IDEOLOGY
programs us to
think according
to its dictates and
within its frame of
reference
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What Ideology Does
1. IF IDEOLOGY IS TO SUCCEED IN
legitimating itself, it must succeed in
programming cultural consciousness with its
ideas, ideals, and history, so that its history
becomes our history, our memories:
memories that we take as natural.
2. We must take its ideas,
images, narratives, values, and
history as our own: its history
becomes our history, our
remembered history within its
context and within its frame of
reference.
3. Its history becomes natural as
opposed to cultural and
constructed by one group seeking
to rule over another group)
4. That is what we mean that
ideology crystallizes itself like a
map in memory.
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The Pretense of
Ideology
What Ideology Does
IDEOLOGY
demonizes
the other of
its story
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IDEOLOGY
demonizes
other
ideologies
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What Ideology Does
IDEOLOGY
demonizes other
narratives that don’t
fit into its neat little
package of
conceptualizing the
world
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IDEOLOGY
demonizes other
memories that don’t fit
into its preconceived,
acceptable memory
banks of disseminated
information to its
subjugated subjects
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What Ideology Does
IDEOLOGY
demonizes
other
ideologies
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What Ideology Does
AS
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What Ideology Does
IDEOLOGICAL!
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What Ideology Does
This is its
great
hypocrisy.
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What Ideology Does
A reigning ideology pretends to be nonideological, but all those its criticizes
are considered to be ideological.
It is never ideological. It is objective
and it is neutral and it is natural and its
tries to remain below the surface of
observation in the unconsciousness
netherworld of non-conception.
Look out
Look in
&
Look for it
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