Generally speaking, ideology refers to a set of ideas, beliefs, values and rules that a social group is committed to. Marxist conception of ideology describes how the dominant ideas within a given society reflect and help to preserve the interests of a ruling economic class. In reality, ‘through ideology, the elitist social groups naturalize capitalist relations of production in a way that workers come to view the capitalist mode of production as the only viable option” (Stoddart). Hence, ideology is so powerful a system of ideas which the masses lack the intellectual capacity to understand how it functions and to resist its influences and outcomes. Gramsci speaks of “the hegemonic ideology of the Bourgeoisie” that offers “a kind of consciousness which concerns the realization of ideological interests of the subordinate classes” (Im, 1991).
In his writing, he was focused on the social classes struggles for power with the working class against its capitalistic leaders. Marx founded that the market binds the individual producer to the market from which he consumes, as he is dependent on capital for his survival. The worker thus creates a surplus value for the upper class he labors for, helping large-scale industries dominate the market, and creating a larger gap in income inequality, inevitably leading to conflict. With this, Marx took a materialist approach in his philosophy, where he viewed society to be ever changing, and systematically developed in favor of the most dominant productive
Gellner justifies the repercussions of the idea of “nationalism is a theory of political legitimacy” by discussing how the political effectiveness of national sentiment impairs the sensibility of the nationalists to realise the wrong committed by the nation. Gellner (1997) also describes the relationship between the nation and the state. The interchangeable use of nation and state deepens the contradictions that arise in the common person’s understanding of nationalism. Therefore both Anderson and Gellner take a Marxist stance that nationalism is a species of bourgeois ideology. They see nationalism as an instrument through which the ruling class controls the people and counters the threat of social revolution by emphasizing national loyalty is stronger than class solidarity.
This power in the Marxist paradigm held by the bourgeoisie and aristocracy results from their possession of the means of production, which in turn assures the unconstrained access to the superstructural goods, e.g. education and politics, that is cultural goods not related directly to the process of production. The access to those can perpetuate dependency between the oppressed and the oppressors as it maintains or regulates the social divisions. The feminist perspective, on the other hand, assumes men as the enemy with their patriarchal construct of womanhood imposed upon women along with
Durkheim worked to record both moral and social requirements for societal consistency in modern and traditional societies in order to advance a theory about society as a combined reality. In his writings, Durkheim has highlighted individualisation and social differentiation as two value that has guided his papers and research. With the value of social differentiation in mind, Durkheim observed how the rapid social differentiation of a contemporary society quickly destabilised the society 's awareness as a whole (Lausten et al. 2017 pp. 37,41).
This chapter explores the possible reasons to why men and women break the rules in society. In other words, what are these men and women fighting for and hoping to gain? Who are they fighting against? These men and women are willing to risk everything and potential suffer consequences, but why? This chapter argues that rule making is the key for domination, and if that is the case is rule breaking a key to the potential challenges of domination.
imperialism in the eighties and nineties. Very importantly, she addresses the curious absence of the term “postcolonial” in academic oppositions to the Gulf War despite its widespread institutional endorsement (1992: 105-99). Indeed, the key journals of postcolonial studies have been relatively quiet on the new imperialism. Another equally blunt way of saying this is that postcolonialism is criticised for a tendency to “focus on faded European empires while ignoring the actually existing U.S. neoimperialism that surged into the vacuum left by the receding empires” (Stam and Shohat 2012: 372). What is more, postcolonialism involves a serious neglect of the role of global capitalism in perpetuating global inequalities in the present and accordingly serves the cultural requirements of global capitalism.
He puts emphasis on our understanding that ideology functions differently, and with this in mind, we may begin to recognise the complex intervention that lies between culture and ideology. He sees ideology as a ‘human perception of the “lived experience” of human existence itself.’ Ideology’s function is basically to imitate relationships between the society and their ways of producing daily life. Nowadays, a dominant ideology is easily developed which further serves to fortify the already existing economic organization of the civilisation. Thus relations of production are reverted to relations of capitalist exploitation. Evidently, there was a constant class struggle within ideology and this led to a process of ‘contention’ amongst the different classes.
“Every effort is made to bring the colonised person to admit the inferiority of his culture which has been transformed into instinctive patterns of behaviour, to recognise the unreality of his 'nation ', and, in the last extreme, the confused and imperfect character of his own biological structure.” As Frantz Fanons (1959) speech highlights, culture and Imperialism go hand in hand. Where there is culture and potential for expansion of the coloniser, imperialism will seek to conquer and eliminate. The Encyclopaedia Britannica describes imperialism as “state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas”. Imperialism drives the need for expansion of territory. As a result of this expansion,the imperialists force the idea of inferiority of culture on the colonised peoples.
Ruling elites might use political ideas to contain opposition and restrict debate through the process of ideological manipulation. It was obvious in regimes that possessed official ideologies such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. In both cases, official or political reliable beliefs dominated political life and all other social institutions in such a way that opposing views were strictly censored or suppressed. However, some argue that a more subtle form of ideological manipulation occurs in all societies. This can be seen in the Marxist belief that the culture of capitalist societies is prevailed by ideas with the interests of the economically dominant class (Heywood 2003, 5).