Ideology

Religious wars were superseded by patriotic, then by ideological, wars, fought with the same self- immolating loyalty and fervor. The opium of revealed religions was replaced by the heroin of secular religions, which commanded the same bemused surrender of the individuality to their doctrines, and the same worshipful love offered by their prophets. The devils and succubi were replaced by a new demonology: sub-human Jews plotting, world dominions; bourgeois capitalists promoting starvation.

Arthur Koestler

Attributes of ideology

1. Ideology embraces any expression of human thought whether verbal, symbolic or behavioral

2. I can assume a reactionary, progressive or revolutionary aspect, according to whether it acts in a given situation as (a) conformist, conservative, hegemonic force, (b) an idealistic, reforming, but systematic force or (c) a utopian, subversive, ‘extra-systematic one’ (this trichotomy seems more appropriate than the usual dichotomy between ‘conservative’ and ‘revolutionary’.

3. The utopia of an ideology can never be fully realized in practice

4. Ideologies are lived out as truths, being perceived as ideologies only when observed with critical detachment from outside

5. An ideology is intrinsically irrational. It owes power to inspire action and provide a sense of reality to the fact that it is rooted in pre-verbal, subconscious feelings and affective drives

6.There are many levels of commitment to an ideology, ranging from the intensity of the activists, leadership and ideologues of a movement at the heart of its propagation to the more passive or pragmatic ‘fellow travelers’ at the periphery with no deep or lasting involvement with it. The contents of an ideology will become more nuanced and sophisticated towards a movement’s activists’ core and more simplistic and crudely propagandistic towards the periphery.

7. Commitment to an ideology is largely determined by self-interest. Not only to narrow materialistic egotism and immediate issue of survival, but also to complex psychological needs and irrational drives.

8. Ideologies are not homogenous at a lived level, for every individual will rationalize them in a unique way, emphasize different aspects of the cluster of values and policies.

9. Ideologies are not located in individual and as such can never be incarnated in, or fully expounded by one ideologue.

10. Each ideology can be defined ideal-typically in terms of a core of values and perceptions of history. This core underlies its vision of the ideal society, its evaluation of the present one and, if the perceived discrepancy is too great, its strategy for improving or transforming it.

The above ten attributes of ideology can be synthesized into a definition on the following lines:

Ideology: is a set of beliefs, values and goals considered in terms of their implications for the maintenance of the socio-political status quo (where ideology will tend to act as a conservative, reactionary force), for its improvement (where it becomes a reformist, gradualist force) or for its overthrow and replacement by an alternative order (where it will exhibit its utopian, revolutionary dimension). The socio-historical system created in the name of an ideology will always represent a travesty of the ideal society envisaged by those committed to it in its utopian, revolutionary aspect.

As a supra-personal structure an ideology can be pictured as a dynamic interaction of moral and political convictions, rejections of opposing values, and nuanced but converging visions of an ideal order of society and the policies to achieve it, all of which are capable of formulation at a high level of theoretical analysis. However, the extraordinary normative power of ideology, which is manifested historically in its ability to serve as the rationale of behavior, the basis of social cohesion, the legitimization of a particular political regime and the inspiration of revolutionary action, is rooted in sub-rational and pre-verbal layers of consciousness within the individual and may express itself in a wide variety of both verbal and non-verbal cultural phenomena.

All ideologies may seem rational and coherent when articulated by a major theorist or reconstructed by an outside observer. However, they will tend exhibit considerable heterogeneity at a ‘lived’ level, since all individuals will embody them in a partial and incomplete way as a function both of their unique social situation and of the specific psychological and material interests which condition their personal ‘elective affinity’ with it. There will also be notable differences in the level of affective commitment and theoretical self-consciousness, ideologies do not originate or operate solely in the mind but both shape and are shaped by the cultural, social, economic and political structures which create the preconditions for the influence they exert on human behavior and historical processes.

Each particular ideology can be ideal-typically defined in terms of an underlying core of values and goals which inform various policies and tactics, while a generic ideology is one whose core values and goals have expressed themselves in a variety of distinct, or even apparently conflicting surface manifestations.

Fascism

Fascism is a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a paligenetic form of populist ultra-nationalism. Generic ideological features of Fascism:

1. The values and world view which fascism embodies will be expresses not only in theoretical writings, speeches, propaganda and songs but in the semiotic language of rallies, symbols, uniforms: in short, the whole style of its politics.

2. Fascism will exhibit a revolutionary aspect when attempting to overthrow the existing order but proceed to assume a reactionary, oppressive one if ever installed in power, even if some idealists will constantly seek to 'reform' it by narrowing the gap between the theory and the practice.

3. The utopia that Fascism seeks to implement will never be realized in practice, only a travesty of it.

4. No matter how “propagandistic’ fascist thought will appear to those who do not sympathize with its underlying world-view, its most committed activities and supporters will find it an outlet for idealism and self-sacrifice.

5. Despite rationalizations of the fascist world-view by appeals to historical, cultural, religious or scientific ‘facts’, its affective power is rooted in irrational drives and mythical assumptions.

6. Commitment to fascism can exist on varying levels of emotional intensity and active support and its ideas will express themselves in various degrees of sophistication or simplification.

7. Genuine (as opposed to tactical or feigned) support for fascism stems in each individual case from a largely subliminal elective affinity to it based on material and psychological interests.

8. Though a fascist movement may appear a cohesive ideological community and present itself as such, on closer interpretation its support will prove to derive from a myriad personal motivation for joining it and idiosyncratic conceptions of the movement’s goals.

9. Fascist ideology and the impact it achieves as the basis of a movement is not reducible to the theories and policies of any one ideologue or leader, for it acts as a transpersonal historical structure whose emergence and success are conditioned by its interaction with other structures both ideological and non-ideological.

10. Generic fascism is definable ideal--typically in terms of a cluster of values and goals common to all its various permutations, in other words its ideological core.

The mythic core of political ideologies:

The core of an ideology can be conceived as the fundamental political myth, which mobilizes its activists and supporters. The term political myth in this context does not refers to specific historical myths exploited to legitimate policies. Rather it denotes the irrational mainspring of all ideologies irrespective of their surface rationality or apparent ‘common sense’

1. The emergence of any fascist movement depends partly on the ideological commitment and ambitions of its nucleus of original founders which are rooted in their individual psychological predispositions, but also in a nexus of transpersonal social, economic, political and cultural factors which condition the decision to found the movement and the content, however nebulous, of its program.

2. The subsequent strength or weakness of the movement will depend partly on intrinsic factors (qualities of leadership, tactics, organization etc) but will be decisively affected by the socio-political space in which it operates and by the course taken by the many national and international processes and events on which its activities impinge.

3. It is important to distinguish between at least three types of support for a movement (that is before a party gains power)

a. the commitment of the leadership, ideologues, hard-core activists and fanatical converts

b. the genuine but more passive and fickle commitment of rank-and-file supporters in the public at large who might be swayed away by the stand it takes on a single issue (for example immigration, communism)

c. the tactical support of those who traditionally belong to another political constituency but who see in it a force capable of combating common enemies (for example the left). All three levels of support will be tend to be motivated by different considerations.

4. Once fascism takes power and forms a regime, factors other than ideological zeal (i.e. fear, opportunism, conformism, cynicism, gullibility, sadism, the effectiveness of social control or the absence of practical alternatives) will motivate many to support or become activists in official organization and to collude with the new regime without any intense effective commitment to its ideology or policies.

5. Accounts of psychological motivation for supporting fascism are only meaningful as part of an investigation into its nature if they concentrate on the most committed group of activists and converts in its movement phase because shallowness, cynicism and opportunism contribute to the support for all ideologies, especially in their orthodox aspect as the basis of a system.

6. It should not be assumed that even ‘genuine fascists’ understand or endorse everything contained in a fascist political program of myth. Like all carriers of an ideology they will embody it partly and idiosyncratically, giving emphasis to different strands or potentials within it in a way which reflects their unique personality and circumstances.

7. The leadership, members, voters and tactical allies will not be drawn from a single social group (i.e. the ‘petty bourgeoisie’), for, as Sternhell put it, ‘fascism has no sound and obvious footing in any particular class’ (1979, p235). Similarly, the motivation to support the movement will be too heterogeneous to be reduced to a single factor, personality type or neurosis. Weitenstein’s observation about Nazi activists holds for all fascists: they ‘participated in the movement for their personal idiosyncratic reasons: there was no homogeneity of their motives’.

8. Attempts to illuminate the dynamics of generic fascism must refrain from assuming that it is essentially the product of inter-war Europe and especially from taking Nazism as the paradigm of all structurally related movements.

The Nature of Fascism: Roger Griffin (Routeledge)