Ideology

Ideology, in this wiki, is a system of ideals that a person or movement is bound to, and the concept is used both as a diagnosis and as a reading topic.

The diagnosis. A saved post by Ben Rudman states it symmetrically: “Through hypocrisy religion has become meaningless. Through ideology science has become meaningless.” Both sides of the political spectrum, it adds, “fail to see themselves as religious zealots bound to ideals,” and the cure is “a humble willingness to change one’s mind.” It was filed under Compromise and Spirit of Humility, and it bears on Intellectual Honesty and Religion.

The reading list. The anti-library tags a cluster of books on ideologies and the intellectuals who carry them:

• Totalitarian and national ideologies: The Myth of the Twentieth Century (Rosenberg, 1930), National Socialism and the Religion of Nature (Pois, 1986), Five Germanys I Have Known (Stern, 2006).
• Intellectuals and their causes: The Intellectuals and Socialism (Hayek, 1949), The Captive Mind (Miłosz, 1953), Voltaire’s Bastards (Saul, 1992), Intellectuals and Society (Sowell, 2009).
• Political thought and order: History of Political Philosophy (Strauss and Cropsey, 1963), The Roots of the American Order (Kirk, 1974), Liberalism in Dark Times (Cherniss, 2021).
• Fiction: The Elementary Particles (Houellebecq, 1998).

A long-read, Using Others To Think With (Rowan Williams), is also related.

Where this appears

• Tweets: Through Hypocrisy Religion Has Become… (tweet)
• Long-reads: Using Others To Think With (Rowan Williams)
• Books to read: Five Germanys I Have Known, History of Political Philosophy, Intellectuals and Society, Liberalism in Dark Times, National Socialism and the Religion of Nature, The Captive Mind, The Elementary Particles, The Intellectuals and Socialism, The Myth of the Twentieth Century, The Roots of the American Order, Voltaire’s Bastards