What is “Ideology”? What are the meanings of “Ideology”?

What is “Ideology”? What are the meanings of “Ideology”? What are its constituent elements?

At the simplest level “Ideology” is a political statement. But every political statement is not an ideology. If you pick up newspaper you will find political statement by Government officials.  Although they are all political statements but none of these can be categorized as ideology.

Then what is ideology? Ideology is a set of belief, values and ideals a group or a nation subscribes to. This has to be ingrained deeply in the social consciousness of the people over time. Therefore, this becomes a part of the psyche and heritage of a social group or a nation.

It is a framework of action and a guidance system that gives order and meaning to life and human action. It endows a nation or a group with a sense of purpose, a sense of commitment, a sense of identity, a desire to achieve certain goals and objectives. Therefore “Ideology” plays a very dynamic role in the destiny of a group or a nation. It shows them the destination which they wish to achieve.  

“Ideology” emphasizes certain things:

1.       A set of principles, ideals and blueprint for the future.

2.       It offers a review of the existing political, social and economic arrangements. It is infact a critique of existing political, social and economic order.

3.       It must create a thinking and consciousness based on its principles and ideals.

4.       It plays the role of legitimization and de-legitimization. By legitimization means that the ideological principles are used to justify actions or certain developments. Similarly ideology is used to delegitimize, criticize or condemn certain developments which do not fall within the framework of the ideology.

5.       Leadership and state can be instrumental to implement an ideology. So both leadership and state are needed.

When we are discussing the ideology or its principles, basically we are discussing things at the level of abstraction or theoretical level. We are basically talking of certain theoretical abstract principles which emphasize certain things. For examples: somebody would say, “We should speak the truth. We should be honest”. Now these are principles. In the case of ideology these principles have to be shifted from level of abstraction to level of reality. You have to create institutions and societal processes that reflect ideological principles. Once you do that these institutions and societal processes will reinforce your ideology. This creates and interesting and challenging situation that your institution must reflect the ideology and in this case they will strengthen it and this circle goes on.

“Ideology” gives you worldview/ certain set of principles. It is your responsibility to implement it. And ideology must address the societal problems. If it doesn’t then in the long run ideology suffers.