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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: February 27, 2004
Latest Update: February 27, 2004
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Ideology and Social Theory

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, February 2004.
"Fair use" encouraged.

This essay started with the question: "How is ideology related to social theory?" Good question. A Google search for readings that might give us sources for an answer led to some of the following:

• Cultural Software: A Theory of Ideology, by J.M. Balkin. Yale University Press, 1998. ISBN: 0300072880

  From Amazon.com's book description:

  "Cultural Software is the first book that seriously applies theories of cultural evolution and the theory of memes to the problems of ideology and justice. Instead of resting the concept of ideology on outmoded notions of "false consciousness," Cultural Software shows how ideological effects get produced through the spread and reproduction of forms of cultural know-how, or cultural software.

  Human beings are the bearers of this cultural software, it helps constitute them and shapes them as persons with distinctive values and purposes. Yet cultural software reproduces whether or not it serves the interests of human beings. Rather, cultural conventions and institutions spread as if they had their own interests in survival and reproduction. And some kinds of cultural software can act like virtual parasites, breeding unhappiness and injustice as they reproduce in human minds and institutions.

  Drawing on anthropology, evolutionary theory, cognitive science, linguistics, sociology, political theory, social psychology, and law, Cultural Software offers a strikingly original theory of cultural evolution, a theory that explains both shared understandings and diversity within cultures.

  "Balkin argues ingeniously that meme theory replaces more familiar critical theories of ideology, because it alone explains how people come to believe the things they believe, without reference to dubious assumptions about "false consciousness" or "hegemony." [Balkin] writes with lucid balance. . . . Balkin's account is the most nuanced and convincing on the question of what we actually gain from meme theory."

  --Mark Kingwell, Harpers

  Ideology: A Brief Guide Copyright 1997 by John Lye. "This text may be freely used, with attribution, for non-profit purposes. As are all of my posts on this course, this document is open to change. If you have any suggestions (additions, qualifications, arguments), mail me." Backup.

  The Ideology of the French Revolution Europe In Retrospect, by Raymond F.Betts at britannia.com. Backup.

  "Culturally, the French Revolution provided the world with its first meaningful experience with political ideology. The word, and the concept it expressed, were revolutionary in origin. Indeed, it was Napoleon, a man who had no truck with idle thought, who called the intellectual system-makers of the late eighteenth century ideologues, abstractionists, or, as we have heard in recent years, "eggheads." The father of the DuPont who founded the famous American chemical company was called an ideologue by Napoleon. And this Pierre-Samuel DuPont de Nemours (1739-1817) spent half a lifetime drawing up constitutions, writing letters, while also finding time to offer a learned paper to the American Philosophical Society on the language of ants, and to inform his son that gout was the disease of the intellectual.

  "However, DuPont was not a brilliant mind, and Napoleon was an opinionated soul. Despite these two figures, ideology triumphed; it directed the French Revolution, and it soon grew, like roses on a bush or the heads of hydra--a matter of outlook, of course--to provide the nineteenth century with an unusual number of competing theoretical social systems.

  "What was ideology? It was and remains a system of ideas that are usually goal- directed. Thus, it is a theoretical explanation of the world's situation and a prescription for improvement or radical change of that situation. In this sense, ideology is rooted in historical consciousness, in an awareness of mankind's progress through time and how that progress might be redirected toward an alternate objective. Most ideologies are, therefore, fundamentally political, bright descriptions of the means and methods by which the instruments of revolution, party, or government ought be used for the purpose of social change.

  "Ideology is, in a way, the secular equivalent of theology. It directs the believer's attention to a perfected future when present woes will have dissipated and social harmony will reign. The future, therefore, holds the promise for the ideologue that heaven holds for the devout, religious-minded individual." . . . .

  The End of Ideology and the Possibility for Principled Politics by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, New School for Social Research. Backup.

  Teaching Statement by Lynne Owens. Speaks of the problem with ideology and ideological criticism in the classroom. refers to Goldfarb's writing. Backup pdf file.