Notes on Ball & Dagger text
Chapter 1
Introduction:  What is Ideology and Why Study It?

Anyone not here last time has been dropped.

Quiz today?  Remind the students that "Don't know" = half credit.

I put these notes online, but oftentimes only after the class.

INTRODUCTION TO IDEOLOGY

We're studying ideologies:  ideas of how we are to relate to each other (and to the unreconciled bits of ourselves).  Why study these ideas?  Because ideas have consequences;  people act and even die for them.   Ideologies ...

• guide our thinking, regulate our actions, limit our options.  Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
• give meaning to our life.
• guide us both in authenticity and in relationships.
• help us coordinate with others, which requires compromise even beyond one's knowledge of one's own uncertainty.

The coordination problem in Thomas Schelling's (1980) The Strategy of Conflict.  [Or maybe Kenneth Boulding (1962). Conflict and Defense: A General Theory. NY: Harper and Row.]

Lots of background to the term, as the Carver reading shows, but the main things are:

• The four functions or aspects of ideology
• the negative connotation of ideology

Four functions or aspects.  All of these are related in an ideology, but we can distinguish four ways we see ideology in action.  The first two functions are key [says SPC], while the last two are applications of the first two.  (Important applications, of course, but still deriving from the first two.)

• Explanation:  understanding of how the world works beyond the superficial and obvious.  Distinguish central from peripheral forces.  Allows effective, efficient action.
• Evaluation:  distinguishing the good from the bad (including what falsely appears to be good).  What do we want to work for?  How do we want to react to this specific proposal?  How do I recognize allies and distinguish them from non-allies?  (I won't say "enemies".)

• Orientation:  application of the above to one's personal world to give a sense of identity & authenticity.  Who am I?  What are my important characteristics?  What role do I play in the world?  What is meaningful about me, my life, my action?
• Political program:  application of the above to the external sociopolitical world:  what to do, what to propose, how to persuade others.

[Have the students pick an ideology and go through the four aspects.]

For your consideration:  Which of the four functions/aspects of ideologies do the following perform?  Or to put this another way, are these movements/identities ideologies?

As you consider those two questions, also consider whether there are other criteria that distinguish ideology from random sets of opinions & beliefs that people have.

I will usually talk about ideologies in general terms, talking about how we relate to ourselves and each other.  Note, however, that the book talks about two specific criteria for relating:  democracy and freedom.

• Democracy is the common goal, but ill-defined.  Everyone (except fascists) wants to call themselves democratic [small d, i.e., not referring to the Democratic Party we have here in the United States]:  the German Democratic Republic;  the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.  How people define it shows something about their ideology.
• Freedom is another, photo-negative (i.e., reverse) perspective on ideology:  what is left over after we subtract out the necessities and responsibilities of getting along with each other?

The "triadic model" of freedom:  1. the agent (of history);  2. the obstacle(s);  and 3. the goal.

Application to the first two waves of feminism:

[There is also a third wave (and maybe more) after the first two waves.]

Ideology's negative connotation:  "ideologue";  "ideological".  As Terrell puts it in the reader (p.4, col. B, 3rd paragraph), ideology is associated with "intellectual shortcuts, oversimplification, and distortion".  There is an old joke that quips:  "I have convictions, you have opinions, they have an ideology."  For oneself, one simply has what makes sense.  It's other people that wear the blinders of ideology and false consciousness.

We will use the term "ideology" in a neutral sense:  everyone is ideological.  Experience suggests that everyone's perspective is limited, and certainly no one knows who is right, even though everyone believes they are right.

Potential quiz questions:

• Name any two of the three elements of the text's "triadic model" of freedom.  If you can't remember a specific term, then describe it clearly.
• Name any two of what the text lists as the four "functions" or "aspects" of ideology.  If you can't remember a specific term, then describe it clearly.

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