Modern Ideologies
Ive written an extended introduction to this assignment. The introduction is meant to clarify the different standings and shared understandings on modern political ideologies over time, the ways that political scientists have wrestled with this phenomenon, and the current opportunity to search for and isolate means for healthy political polarization that clarifies conflict on values as well as governance and policy alternatives.
This semester Ive realized that studying modern political ideologies puts scholars on journeys through the best of times and the worst of times. Original modern political ideologies derive from the modern political theories of, among others, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Edmund Burke, and the authors of the Federalist Papers (Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison and should include anti-Federalists such as Brutus). The liberal and republican revolutions that occurred in the United States and France signal the downfall of monarchies and absolutist governments. The rule of law and democratic ideals came to prevail widely in shared political expectations among peoples in nations that also industrialized through a capitalist mode of production. The economic revolution wrought by capitalism has distinctive features that merit specific study and reveal widespread uneven developments from the Caribbean (earliest complex division of labor per S. Mintz) to France, Russia, China, India, and revolutions from the late 20th century to the present.
After liberal republics formed, modern political ideologies evolved into basically two kinds: inside and outside of government. Elected and appointed officials in the United States, for example, tailored their deliberations and writings with close regard for Constitutional principles. The 11th and 12th Amendments passed Congress and were ratified within the first 20 years of the Republic to rectify widely shared views on need for shoring up state autonomy and weaknesses in the electoral law that undergirded the Presidency.
Voluntary organizations, business interests, and active citizens eager to build a resilient democratic society organized and developed shared ideals and ideologies that aimed to mobilize members and sustain organizations. Some ideologies, such as abolitionist ones, included political reforms; others, such as charitable ventures did not (or, at least not as a core purpose). Innumerable ideologies emerged because governments that exist of the people, by the people, and for the people invite groups to organize and act to sustain and improve society. In the United States, industrialization proceeded apace but unevenly due to black chattel slavery and its legacy as well as diverse geographical regions (think a/c arrival after 1950 in the South and West).
Approaches to the study of modern political ideologies vary by and within disciplines. The standing of ideology as a subject of inquiry has had many ups and downs. When I started college in the early 1970s, Daniel Bells book, The End of Ideology had persuaded many political sociologists that pervasive affluence and persistent consensusa Vital Center of moderates from the Democratic and Republican parties controlled the national government agenda from the late 1950s to the late 1970smade ideology politically irrelevant. (This was at the same time as the civil rights movement, Black Power, the anti-Vietnam war movement, and the womens liberation movement surged.)
Earlier, Karl Mannheims book, Ideology and Utopia (1936), gave pause to social scientists because Mannheim asserted that all political interpretation and arguments included ideology. Ones ideological perspective and frame of mind could not be erased. All inferences made on political policies, programs, etc. aimed to achieve some kind of political ideal. Mannheims persuasive argument steered many social scientists away from the study of political ideas and toward the study of political behaviors. To study ideologies outright meant that the scholar intended to promote a particular political agenda or set of outcomes, a cardinal sin for social scientists expected to produce scholarship that was objective and politically neutral. (The civil rights movement and self-critical inquiry standards (1980s forward) countered the notion that any political outcomes could be neutral.)
That said, political science behaviorists pride themselves on the survey questions (National Election Study NES, National Opinion Research Center, NORC) they have developed to elicit data on ideological mindsets without directing respondents answers. Now, 16 of these political scientists have published an article that warns on the emergence of political sectarianism. The authors begin their article with a description of Ideology and ideological conflict, including a modicum of political polarization as normal in American politics. The current situation, however, of antipathy, contemptuous rhetoric, and increasing willingness to engage in unlawful behaviors including violence signals dangerous behaviors unless concerted efforts get made to undo political sectarianism.
This Group of 16 echo the warnings made by Muirfield and Rosenblum in A Lot of People are Saying: partisan attitudes and behaviors have become illiberal and anti-democratic without the adoption of new ideologies. The Group of Sixteen along with Muirfield and Rosenblum suggest ways to return to healthy ideological debate that lacks the animosity and intolerance of current partisanship.
At the same time, the so-called healthy political polarization and ideological debates provided the bases for the intensification of conflict. It is critical that we identify robust speeches, tracts, paintings, sculptures, films, that will help us get back on track.
To this end, I suggested that your final writing project for this class identify an example of each of the following kinds of rhetoric: ideological, moving, and inspirational. For EACH document or monument, explain why EACH is predominately ideological or moving or inspirational. Then return to each document and describe aspects of the other two kinds of rhetoric.
After you finish this analytical exercise, suggest the kind of message, content-wise, that you think or sense would steer Americansor a nation of your choicetoward healthy ideological debate.
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