Ideology

Ideology is a collection of ideas, norms, beliefs, and values intentionally designed by Agents of Consciousness to shape human behaviour and cognition in ways not conducive to health and full connection, but instead conducive to the economic, political, and social interests of the Accumulating Class. Ideology maintains the status quo by masking the exploitative nature of the Regime of Accumulation and the social class relations inherent. Ideology is a key element of the Indoctrination that occurs as a consequence of this planet's colonially derived Toxic Socialization process. Ideology is a sub-category of Wrong Thought.

Syncretic Terms

Ideology > Master Narrative

Elements of Toxic Socialization

Toxic Socialization > Chaos, Destruction of Attachments, Indoctrination, Neglect, Parentification, Violence

Elements of Indoctrination

Indoctrination > Creation Template, Ideological Institution, Sacrilization, Symbol Factory

Related LP Terms

Ideology > Archetypes, Conceptual Framework, EPMO, Fish Slap, Flow Purification, Hidden Framework, Ideological Bleed, Less Than Messages, Regime of Accumulation, System Agent, System Maintenance, Triumph of Spirit Archetype Deck, Wrong Thought

Non-LP Related Terms

Ideology > Big Questions, Ideology, Indoctrination, Louis Althusser, Master Narrative, Subjugated Knowledge

Notes

"ideology... is endowed with a structure and functioning such as to make it a nonhistorical -"

"Ideology represents individuals' imaginary relation to their real conditions of existence."

Ideology is inserted into your brain by Agents of Consciousness in a process of repetition and reinforcement known as indoctrination. Ideology and indoctrination are components of Toxic Socialization. Ideology makes it harder to Heal and Connect.

Ideology is often obscured with EPMO

An ideology is a set of beliefs and doctrines that an individual or group hold for "other than purely epistemic reasons." Ideologies form the basis of a political, economic, or social systems.

Ideologies operate by providing excuses and justification that a) quell the doubt and assuage the guilt of the abusers/exploiters and b) encourage docility, compliance, and silent acceptance by the victims/exploited.

There are four broad categories of ideology in use on this planet. These are:

* Gender Ideology - Ideology that provides justification for gender-based exploitation of women
* Race Ideology - Ideology that provides justification for racially-based exploitation of humans.
* Social Class Ideology - Ideology that provides justification for socially based exploitation.
* Spiritual Ideology - Ideology that provides justification for spiritual exploitation.

Ideologies typically have both a "scientific" expression and a "religious" expression. The religious expression of gender ideology is present in stories and monologues that suggest, for example, that women are weak temptresses. The scientific expression of gender ideology is expressed in notions of genetically/naturally based differences, with men being considered stronger/more evolved, and women being seeing as weaker/less advanced.

Althuser

Loius Althuser notes that ideology facilitates the reproduction of the labour force. See Mechanisms of Reproduction

"How is this reproduction of the (diversified) skills of labour power provided for in a capitalist regime? Here, unlike social formations characterized by slavery or serfdom, this reproduction of the skills of labour power tends (this is a tendential law) decreasingly to be provided for ‘on the spot’ (apprenticeship within production itself), but is achieved more and more outside production: by the capitalist education system, and by other instances and institutions. What do children learn at school? They go varying distances in their studies, but at any rate they learn to read, to write and to add – i.e. a number of techniques, and a number of other things as well, including elements (which may be rudimentary or on the contrary thoroughgoing) of ‘scientific’ or ‘literary culture’, which are directly useful in the different jobs in production (one instruction for manual workers, another for technicians, a third for engineers, a final one for higher management, etc.). Thus they learn ‘know-how’.

But besides these techniques and knowledges, and in learning them, children at school also learn the ‘rules’ of good behaviour, i.e. the attitude that should be observed by every agent in the division of labour, according to the job he is ‘destined’ for: rules of morality, civic and professional conscience, which actually means rules of respect for the socio-technical division of labour and ultimately the rules of the order established by class domination. They also learn to ‘speak proper French’, to ‘handle’ the workers correctly, i.e. actually (for the future capitalists and their servants) to ‘order them about’ properly, i.e. (ideally) to ‘speak to them’ in the right way, etc.

To put this more scientifically, I shall say that the reproduction of labour power requires not only a reproduction of its skills, but also, at the same time, a reproduction of its submission to the rules of the established order, i.e. a reproduction of submission to the ruling ideology for the workers, and a reproduction of the ability to manipulate the ruling ideology correctly for the agents of exploitation and repression, so that they, too, will provide for the domination of the ruling class ‘in words’.

In other words, the school (but also other State institutions like the Church, or other apparatuses like the Army) teaches ‘know-how’, but in forms which ensure subjection to the ruling ideology or the mastery of its ‘practice’. All the agents of production, exploitation and repression, not to speak of the ‘professionals of ideology’ (Marx), must in one way or another be ‘steeped’ in this ideology in order to perform their tasks ‘conscientiously’ – the tasks of the exploited (the proletarians), of the exploiters (the capitalists), of the exploiters’ auxiliaries (the managers), or of the high priests of the ruling ideology (its ‘functionaries’), etc.

The reproduction of labour power thus reveals as its sine qua non not only the reproduction of its ‘skills’ but also the reproduction of its subjection to the ruling ideology or of the ‘practice’ of that ideology, with the proviso that it is not enough to say ‘not only but also’, for it is clear that it is in the forms and under the forms of ideological subjection that provision is made for the reproduction of the skills of labour power."

Footnotes

References