Literally, ideology means “a study of ideas,” originally “philosophy of the mind which derives knowledge from the senses”. It also means “a systematic set of ideas, doctrines”. Ideology is usually taken to mean, a prescriptive doctrine that is not supported by rational arguments.
According to Karl Marx, ideology is “false consciousness” and it conceals the contradictions between the appearance and essence of society, and therefore benefits the status quo and the ruling class. Marx himself did not use the phrase “false consciousness,” but he paid extensive attention to the related concepts of ideology and commodity fetishism. In short, ideology reflects the reality conversely.
Based on Marx’s ideas, there seems to be a contrast between ideology and science. Science shows the very realities as they exist, whereas ideology reflects them conversely. In other words, the purpose of science is to discover the nature of reality concealed under surface appearance. Based on this definition, Marx makes the above assertion:” if things appeared exactly as they are, there would be no need for science to remove the veil of appearance.” Social science, therefore, is the search for the real nature of society, underneath all of its visible, external façades. If the reality of society is easily observable in our everyday experience, then there is no need for scientific reflection on society, as Marx defines science. The idea that society has an ‘appearance’, which is not the same as social ‘essence’, forms the starting point for the Marxist discussion of ideology. Ideology is what allows a society to persist, even though the essence of that society may contain contradictions.
Moreover, ideology is a quasi-epistemic which lends legitimacy to ruling class, serves its interests, focuses on power and policy, it is alienating, temporary and historical, conflict debugger, and it includes antinomy and irrefutable empiricism. Ideology puts rationality and its findings under question.
According to Abdul Karim Sorosh, an Islamic intellectual, ideology is a non-epistemic issue which is wrapped in epistemology. Interests, power, faith and morality – which roots in non-epistemic issues – are clothed in epistemology and changes into ideology.
He further believes that Ideologies are neither provable nor refutable logically or empirically. But, whenever the interests are in conflict, ideologies stand against each other. Hence, ideology includes a kind of “negligence” and men justify their militancy during the confrontation and conflict of interests through arguing negligently believing to be arguing rightly. So, ideology is the veil of understanding reality and can be a source of error in human.
The Roles of Ideology
According to Karl Marx, ideology legitimizes power. Here the fact is that there exists an illegitimate issue and ideology intends falsely to vindicate it. Ideology plays this role about the unlawful regimes and the legitimate systems need not a justifying factor. This way, ideology is in connection with power.
The second role of ideology is debugging conflicts. Men cannot live a long time in an environment which is in conflict with his objective world. So, where there is a conflict between the subjective and objective world, one has to make attempt to remove the conflicts. In such a case, there must come a change in one of them. Marx believes that, in this case, men usually change their own mentality rather than the world, whereas it is better to change the world. Hence, ideology steps to make a temporary ceasefire between the world and one’s mentality through reflecting a reality conversely. Such a vindication is a need for continuing life.
The next role of ideology is calling to revolution and movement. The concept of ideology, according to Marx, bears “revolution” automatically. Based on ideological theory, something has turned upside down, and there is no option other than correcting it. Hence, there are two matters: the first is that something has turned upside down and the second is that it cannot be corrected through reasons and arguments. So, revolution is required in this regard.
“Alienation” is one of the important discussions of Feuerbach. According to him, theology has roots in anthropology. He believes that men created the God and if men understand themselves better, they will come to know that they are the creator and God is the creature. Alienation means that the creator (human beings) assumes themselves the creature of their own creature (God). Marx agrees Feuerbach to this point; however he criticizes Feuerbach for not completing the discussion. According to Marx, Feuerbach has not found the root of the assumptions. Feuerbach assumes that he will solve the discussion through arguments whereas solving such issues belongs to correcting the factors not reasoning. It is because this invalid mentality, according to Marx, was supported by no reasons to be invalidated.
Ideology and the Systematic Error of Mentality
Francis Bacon classified the intellectual fallacies of his time under four headings which he called idols. He distinguished them as idols of the Tribe, idols of the Cave, idols of the Marketplace and idols of the Theater. According to him, if one is involved in any of the four idols, s/he will not understand the fact truly.
The Idols of the Tribe have their origin in the production of false concepts due to human nature, because the structure of human understanding is like a crooked mirror, which causes distorted reflections of things in the external world.
The Idols of the Cave consist of conceptions or doctrines which are dear to the individual who cherishes them, without possessing any evidence of their truth. These idols are due to the preconditioned system of every individual, comprising education, custom, or accidental or contingent experiences.
The Idols of the Market Place are based on false conceptions which are derived from public human communication. They enter our minds quietly by a combination of words and names, so that it comes to pass that not only does reason govern words, but words react on our understanding.
According to the insight that the world is a stage, the Idols of the Theatre are prejudices stemming from received or traditional philosophical systems. These systems resemble plays in so far as they render fictional worlds, which were never exposed to an experimental check or to a test by experience. The idols of the theatre thus have their origin in dogmatic philosophy or in wrong laws of demonstration.
Bacon ends his presentation of the idols with the remark that men should abjure and renounce the qualities of idols, “and the understanding [must be] thoroughly freed and cleansed” He discusses the idols together with the problem of information gained through the senses, which must be corrected by the use of experiments.
Ideology and Religious Extremism
In common usage, ideology refers to a systematic and organized school with clear elements which teach the human beings the values and ideals and determines their instance regarding questions and phenomena and guide them in their practices.
As it was mentioned above, ideology denies rationality – which is not supported by argument – and depends on movement rather than discovering reality, etc. We see the religious extremists use religion as ideology. Ideologizing religion means to cut down religious instructions so as to fit in a narrow frame of a certain theory. Moreover, ideologues impose their own tastes and interests on ideology which is no more flexible. Those who have embraced ideology, argue irrationally in support of it believing to reason rationally. Moreover, any ideology which comes from religious school is inevitably selective. Such ideology will act as a weapon to suit a specific enemy. Furthermore, ideology is like a garment that is sewn to the stature of a particular community.
Unlike ideology, religion does not necessarily belong to the period of movement but also to the period of institution and it also shares a strong tie with rationality. Religion can never be poured in a specific mold. Religion is like “air” that people can breathe anywhere and therefore cannot be clothed. Moreover, religion does not belong to a specific group or community rather it is worldwide.
To cut short, religion is not supposed to be used as ideology. The ideologues choose one of the aforesaid idols and pay unconditional love to it and therefore cannot hear the calls of rationality – which is not acceptable in religion. It is believed that since religion calls to revolution denying rationality and offers idols to the ideologues, therefore the religious ideologues turn deaf to rationality and the love of idols make them sacrifice anything for them – This fact leads them to revolutionary extremism. Hence, the religious extremists are perilous creatures for the society that denies rationality and arguments and the love of idols also turn them blind. In short, ideology will do more harm to the society than good.