Ideologies #
‘Ideology’ comes from the French idéologie, and was first used during the French Revolution, but didn’t become popularised until the publication of Marx and Friedrich Engels’s The German Ideology (written in 1846) and later Karl Mannheim’s Ideology and Utopia (1929).
Credo - a system of principles or beliefs { creed, credible, credibility, credulity, credulous,}
Dogma - intransigent beliefs.
Christianity #
With the conversion of the Roman emperor Constantine in 312 to the baptism of Grand Duke Mindaugas of Lithuania, the last pagan ruler in Europe, around 1250, the Medieval world became monotheistic in religion, monolithic in culture, monarchial in governance and uniform in feudalist economy.
After 600 men of the sword replaced men of the pen in all but the higher reaches of the clergy. With that change, Europe is said to have entered “the Dark Ages.”
Peter Heather resolutely rejects the romantic notion that Christianity rose to the top of late Roman society by its intrinsic merits alone, without the help of the powerful. His attitude is close to that of J.B. Bury, who argued that “it must never be forgotten that Constantine’s revolution was perhaps the most audacious act ever committed by an autocrat in disregard and defiance of the vast majority of his subjects.”
Heather points out that the late Roman state could not enforce an ideology; it was too “rickety.” But it could seduce.
Once the emperor made plain that he was an orthodox Christian and that he would shut the “divine ears” to the petitions of heretics, Jews, and pagans, the message trickled down with surprising speed. A confessional state was born. Beginning in the reign of Theodosius I (379–395), access to public office and to the full privileges of Roman citizenship was restricted to coreligionists, who held something like party membership in a modern totalitarian country. And it began very much from the top down.
The Nicene Creed (which asserted the absolute identity and equality of three High Gods—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—in a single mysterious Trinity), laid down at the Council of Nicaea in 325.
But many Christians did not adhere to it. Goths and Vandals followed a variant of the creed that had been accepted as perfectly orthodox by the emperors before Theodosius.
The Arians saw Christ as “similar to” but not identical with God the Father.
Every generation produced its own style of Christianity, as different notions and practices were brought to the fore by changing circumstances of the society in which it had come to be so deeply embedded. We are not presented with a single juggernaut-like Christianity
It was the Lateran Council of 1215, at which Christianity once more transformed itself as the Catholic Church that we can recognize: the church of the Crusades and the great cathedrals of Gothic Europe. It was now a church centered firmly on the papacy. It legislated on every detail of the Christian life. Its representatives and decrees reached the farthest corners of Europe. Alas, it was also a church flexing its muscles for the first time by turning random local prejudices against heretics and Jews into the Inquisition—the product not of mindless bigots but of professors in the dynamic, newly founded universities.
Adapted from Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion, AD 300–1300 by Peter Heather Knopf, 704 pp.,
All institutions gravatate towards dystrophy, and soon the Catholic Church’s need for money to fund wars and build monumental Cathedrals saw it resort to dodgy methods of indulgences and simony. All objectors, Savonarola, Jan Hus … to these corrupt practices were deemed heretics and burned at the stake.
It was Martin Luther’s rise and protection by secular Princes which gave rise to a whole slew of splintering religious sects.
All strongly held ideologies were effectively faith-based, as no human being could survive long without some ultimate loyalty. If that loyalty didn’t derive from traditional religion, it would find expression through secular commitments, such as nationalism, socialism, or liberalism
People may form “ideological predispositions” which evolve into Mindsets, dogmas, doctrines ..
“enduring a belief whose logic brought them somewhere else to grief”. Auden
Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes (judgement)? Groucho Marx
The Age of Inquiry – Alice:
The more questions you ask, the more you will learn.
Edgar Allen Poe: Believe half of what you see, and nothing of what you hear.
F. Scott Fitzgerald:
Our parent’s children, “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Nationalism #
The nation-state, was created in 1648 to achieve peace in Europe by granting a self-determining interiority to nations, joining a raft of other isms leading to WWI.
The power vacuum created by the fall of the Roman Empire was eventually filled by the Catholic Popes. As Princes and Kings became more sure of themselves, they challenged this power, at first without success. It was Luther’s successful reformation, protected by the military might of the Princes who wrested the monopoly of the Papacy. The Religious Wars that ravaged Europe from 1530’s to 1648 decimated the populations, especially the Thirty Years War 1630 - 48. The Treaty of Westphalia attempted to settle disputes by diplomacy by setting up nation states that ultimatlely caused the most devastating wars in the history of the world.
Karen Armstrong in Fields of Blood claims Industrialization … gave birth to the nation-state. Agrarian empires had lacked the technology to impose a uniform culture; the borders and territorial reach of premodern kingdoms could be only loosely defined and the monarch’s authority enforced in a series of overlapping loyalties. But during the nineteenth century, Europe was reconfigured into clearly defined states ruled by a central government. Industrialized society required standardized literacy, a shared language, and a unified control of human resources.
English historian Lord Acton (1834-1902) deplored the notion of nationality, fearing that the ‘fictitious’ general will of the people that it promoted would crush ‘all natural rights and all established liberties for the purpose of vindicating itself.’ He could see that the desire to preserve the nation could become an absolute used to justify the most inhumane policies.
As James Baldwin, put it: “I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
There are no nations! There is only humanity. And if we don’t come to understand that right soon, there will be no nations, because there will be no humanity. Isaac Asimov
French President Emmanuel Macron has declared nationalism as a “betrayal of patriotism”, mere metres away from presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin at a WWI armistice commemoration in Paris.
Macron called on 70 world leaders, to renew commitments to honour the dead and “place peace above all else”.
“Patriotism is the antithesis of nationalism. Nationalism is inherently treasonous. In saying ‘our interests first, and forget the others’, we lose the most important part of the nation: its moral values.” Nov. 11 2018
Nationalism is a word I avoid as a positive. I think nationalism is destructive. It has an aggressive quality. It means we’re better. We are not just different but better, and in some ways we must crush you. Patriotism, to me, is closer to what I’m trying to describe because it’s like loyalty. It’s like loyalty to what’s yours. Just as you’re more loyal to your family than to people you don’t know. I feel the same about our country.
Lydia Khalil explains how Big Tech monopolises control of digital platforms the internet has contributed to a cacophonous public square that limits productive dialogue and affects the ability of citizens to access accurate information. It increases political polarisation, reduces trust and exacerbates extremism.
For all of its positive impact on promoting marginalised voices, Khalil says the consensus is that the internet has contributed to democratic erosion. Stan Grant
Capitalism #
In theory, capitalism is simply the freedom for individuals to engage in enterprise and voluntary trade.
In practice it is the privilege of the strong to exploit the weak.
Adam Smith, a Scottish economist whose 1776 book, The Wealth of Nations, profoundly influenced economic thought, particularly as it regards the merits of free markets, free trade, and the “invisible hand”:
Marx felt that Feudalism had replaced a communal tribal system, which then was superseded by Capitalism based on individual greed and the disparity of wealth where society became divided into the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’, the rich and the poor.
Capitalism is premised on the idea that the enrichment of the few will solve the poverty of the masses; in fact the few can only be rich if the masses are poor – all wealth is theft. Both Reaganites and Thatcherites operated on the principle that cutting taxes to the rich would stimulate economic activity and ultimately benefit everybody. Reality did not bear this out. The rich simply got richer; the poor, poorer.
The trickle down effect only occurs in urinals.
Eventually the klepto-capitalists would become so monopolistic, the rich so rich, but few in numbers and the poor so numerous and desperate that they would rise up an overthrow the rulers (French Revolution) and introduce a fairer economic system; a Communistic phase where all people would equally share all the wealth of the world and eliminate global conflict between the rich and poor.
The economist John Maynard Keynes once explained that the free market rested on:
“the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone”.
To which J.K. Galbraith contributed:
“conservatives are engaged in one of mankind’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy: a search for a superior moral justification for selfishness”.
Billions in profits, by Mega-corporations, while workers and clients cant’ afford basic food or housing, is not success - it’s exploitaion.
Great disparity of wealth always leads to social fragmentation and ultimate upheaval.
Conservatism #
Cultures are formed and transmitted by varied means by our ancestors, both immediate and long past. The shared values, customs and beliefs are imbued into our national psyches. The inspiration of the known reflects upon the new, while the new resonates with the known. The lessons of the past must be learned in order to avoid repetition so that we learn to identify with our shared inheritance.
Nostalgia, derived from a Greek term meaning “homesickness,” from Odysseus trying to get home. It was long considered a medical form of insanity, one that could prove fatal. That was the meaning Scott Fitzgerald grew up with, but by 1920 nostalgia had begun to convey sentimental yearning for a lost time. Fitzgerald became America’s poet laureate of nostalgia because he understood its perils as well as its allure: nostalgia wants to falsify the past, whereas history tries to clarify it. Gatsby, the emblematic American, is destroyed by nostalgia, his dreams of reclaiming paradise shattered by the “hard malice” of Tom Buchanan’s plutocratic power. Gatsby’s incurable faith in the false promise of renewal—“Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!”—is America’s. Like Gatsby, we want to recover some idea of ourselves that we’ve lost, to return to the past and find there, intact, our own innocence. Gatsby’s “extraordinary gift for hope” is our own—and ensures we keep willfully forgetting that his great aspirations ended dead in the water.
Mel Campbell, editor and publisher of The Enthusiast defines Nostalgia as “the pang we feel upon realising the impossibility of returning to an idealised past. Coined in the 17th century to describe the pain of loss or a pathological homesickness, it’s now understood as a sentimental fondness for the cultures and values of bygone eras — often of one’s own childhood.” Chekov defines it as a longing for a lost past – a Golden Age. (Randall Jarrell, claims, “in a golden age people go around complaining about how yellow everything looks.”) Nostalgic people see the past through rose coloured glasses
Enchanting “ trips down memory lane” pensively indulging in the foggy charms of nostalgia, the fun and folly of romanticising the past; through a mist of reflection, things can be remembered better than they actually were, embracing the smokey beauty of the past, bathing in a perfumed mist of fact-tinged fantasy, can be beneficial – soothing or therapeutic for the soul - our self esteem.
Nostalgia’s just not what it used to be!
Despite modern inventions, innovations and cutting edge discoveries, many original modes retain their fascination and nostalgic use. The motor car may have replaced the horse and buggy, but for romantic, nostalgic and ceremonial reasons, royal occasions such as weddings and funerals use vintage modes of transport. Television, computers and the internet founded the information superhighway but have not obliterated newspapers, radio or books while other old technology has virtually disappeared such as vinyl records, floppy disks, reel to reel recording devices…… Ancient natural foods such as Spelt, Chia and Quinoa have experienced a revival, perhaps in a reaction to modern genetically modified foods -“diets like Paleo which claim to solve our modern distress with recovered ancient wisdom”. Helen Razer
The old or retro, will always intrigue as we tend to try to recapture an idealized past; tourists prefer the ruins of ancient Greece, Turkey and Egypt to the glamorous tinsel glitz of Vegas or Disneyland; Austen, the Bronte sisters, Dickens and Downton Abbey out poll most modern films or TV productions. Old wine, old paintings, old furniture and vintage cars increase their value with age. Even old philosophers are revered above contemporary ones; think of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Jesus Christ, Nietzsche…..
We need to be progressive conservatives, hold on to timeless values, morals and principles of the past, while forging ahead with new ideas.
Liberalism #
Defined as a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, had its origins in many revolts throughout history as early as 1700 BC in Sumer.
Liberalism in the modern era has thus become a kind of strange pantomime act in which elite politicians deploy the rhetoric of imminent threats and national emergency only to behave like hapless passengers trapped aboard a sinking ship. Although it has certainly found its most potent expression in Washington, this posture of feigned powerlessness has gradually come to infect the broder culture and ideology of worldwide liberalism as a whole.
Dickens’s satire is liberalism. We associate liberalism with caring about the poor and the working class, which Dickens obviously did. But in nineteenth-century England the typical liberal was a utilitarian, who believed that the worth of a social program could be measured by cost-benefit analysis, and very likely a Malthusian, who thought it necessary to lower the birth rate so that the population would not outstrip the food supply.
Australian liberalism
Yet as the beleaguered party considers its options, entreaties to double-down on the very things that alienated it from its base are already being aired. The logic can be well hidden. “The Liberal Party’s experiment with the poison of leftism and progressivism must be over.” Other prominent conservatives on the network suggested Liberals who had become pale imitations of Labor were the ones defeated, whereas hardliners who stood up against climate policy and who oppose a First Nations Voice to Parliament, had been successful. These were their takes after the most significant shift to the left by mainstream voters in memory.
They highlight the influence of ideology and what looms as a wrestle for the centre-right soul that lay ahead.
Marxism #
Karl Marx who lived and died in the 19^(th) century had a profound lasting impact on political, economic and social thinking of his and our time. Together with Fredrich Engels he developed an ideology known as Communism.
In several publications such as DAS KAPITAL (1867) and in his COMMUNIST MANIFESTO, (1848) Marx outlined his basic ideologies:
- Economic laws govern how wealth is created and distributed.
- In class struggle, the inevitable conflict between exploited workers and the exploiting rulers, the former eventually overthrow the exploiters.
- The bourgeoisie (middle class) will be overthrown by the proletariat.
- Socialism will inevitably follow and wealth will be distributed equally.
Later other groups evolved these theories into movements known as Socialism.
More @: https://nebo-lit.com/topic-areas/critical-lit/Marxist-Literary-Criticism.html
Socialism #
Imperialism #
Imperialism is the God given prerogative of powerful nations to subjugate their inferiors.
More @: https://nebo-lit.com/history/imperialism.html
Clericalism #
Clericalism is a reaction to various “isms” emerging after 1848, especially liberalism and Marxism. Economic, social and political upheaval generated Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum.
If the liberals insisted economics to be the foundation of society, and the socialists proclaimed the sovereignty of the collective state, while the conservatives claimed nothing needed to change at all; Rerum Novarum declared social questions could only be determined by the free co-operation of all to act in the common good – not necessarily “the greatest good of the greatest number”.
Although Vatican I is best remembered for the ultimately self-defeating doctrine of papal infallibility, it was, as O’Malley describes it, really “a solemn and defiant statement against that century’s Liberalism, especially since that term designated advocacy of representative forms of government, of freedom of religion, of separation of church and state and of secularising programs in schools and other institutions”.