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There are many definitions of ideology -
What does this list tell us?
Not all of these definitions are compatible.
If ideology means any set of beliefs motivated by self interests, then it cannot simply mean the dominant forms of thought in a society.
Some of these definitions are mutually compatible.
But this could result in a definition that means that if ideology is both illusion and the medium in which social actors make sense of their world,
then our sense of the world is an illusion.
Some of these formulations are pejorative, ambiguously pejorative and others are not pejorative at all.
Pejorative
ADJECTIVE:
1. Tending to make or become worse.
2. Disparaging; belittling.
NOUN:
A disparaging or belittling word or expression.
On several of these definitions no one would claim that their own thinking was ideological.
Some of the formulations bring in questions of epistemology.- questions regarding knowledge of the world.
This question of epistemology reflects the dissonance between two of the mainstream traditions.
The first one being from Hegel and Marx to Lukács and some later Marxist thinkers, who are concerned with ideology as an illusion, distortion or mystification.
The second being writers concerned with the function of ideas within society rather than their reality or unreality.
Terry Eagleton Contd.
If dominant ideologies involve falsity it is due in part to the notion that most people are not cynics or masochists.
Because there would be no need for ideology.
Cynics would feel no ease and masochists wouldn?t mind the pain of living in such a society.
In an entirely just society there would be no need for ideology (pejorative sense)because there would be nothing to explain away.
Six definitions of Ideology
Material process of producing beliefs, values and ideas in social life- CULTURE
Ideology as symbolizing a specific, socially significant group or class.
Promotion and legitimation of the interests of a social groups in the face of opposition.
Ideologies help to unify a social formation in ways convenient for its rulers. Subordination.
Ideology that legitimizes a specific group interest by using distortion and dissimulation.
An ideology that arises not from the dominant group or groups but from the structure of society as a whole. Commodity fetishism.
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