Conceptive Ideologist
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Conceptive Ideologist
A Conceptive Ideologist is an individual who uses the Means of Mental Production — the universities, presses, churches, publishing houses, and journals in which a society's ideas are produced and distributed — to construct, package, and circulate the ideas that control human thought and behaviour, typically in the service of a ruling class.
Concept Map
Key Terms
Related LP Terms
Non-LP Related Terms
Karl Marx Terms
Syncretic Terms
Notes
The concept originates with Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in The German Ideology: "The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the Means of Mental Production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the Means of Mental Production are subject to it."[1] The ruling ideas, Marx continues, "are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships... grasped as ideas," and the individuals composing the ruling class "rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch."[2] His example is the doctrine of the separation of powers, proclaimed an "eternal law" in an age when royal power, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie were contending for mastery.[3] The Conceptive Ideologist is thus the human instrument of this regulation — the theologian, scholar, textbook writer, or curriculum designer who draws the boundaries his class needs drawn and packages them as neutral, even eternal, description.
In the Rocket Scientists' Guide to Religion, the term marks the pivot from passive bias to active ideological manipulation. Ontological Bias names the closed mind produced by rigid worldview adherence; Epistemic Attachment names the identity-level investment behind it; the Boundary Fetish names the structural result. But the boundaries of the academic study of religion, the book argues, are not merely the product of blindness — they are also the product of work, done by identifiable people, with beneficiaries. When the overt triumphalism of Tylor, Frazer, Comte, and Malinowski became embarrassing after the moral catastrophes of the twentieth century, "what Karl Marx would have called Conceptive Ideologists repackaged it in a fancy 'world religions' wrapper"[4] — preserving the hierarchy "by other means" in the neutral-sounding language of pluralism (Masuzawa). Whether any given scholar is conscious of his service to empire is beside the point; a conceptive ideologist need not be cynical to be useful.
The concept also frames the book's account of elite interference in spiritual systems: Tanser, high priest to the autocrat Ardashir, who selected a single Zoroastrian tradition, declared Ardashir "the final arbiter of the Zoroastrian doctrine," and suppressed the rest with "excessive bloodshed";[5] the elite bishops and scribes who, under Constantine, determined the Christian canon and later edited it in the interests of patriarchy;[6] A. E. Waite, Freemason and architect of the modern tarot, whose system scholars have called "the most successful propaganda campaign ever launched";[7] and Helena Blavatsky, scion of the Russian Dolgorouky dynasty and matriarch of the Theosophical Society.[8] In each case the pattern is the same: control of the Means of Mental Production, construction of a boundary or narrative, and the presentation of interested ideas as the ruling ideas of the epoch.
Quotes
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the Means of Mental Production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the Means of Mental Production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch. For instance, in an age and in a country where royal power, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie are contending for mastery and where, therefore, mastery is shared, the doctrine of the separation of powers proves to be the dominant idea and is expressed as an “eternal law.”[9]
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Footnotes
- ↑ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology (1845–46; repr., New York: Norton, 1978), https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htm.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Mike Sosteric, Rocket Scientists' Guide to Religion, draft v.095, introductory unit for Athabasca University Sociology 231: The Sociology of Religion (manuscript in preparation; E.T.A. 2027), 13. Page references herein are to the draft PDF. Hereafter cited as Sosteric, RSGR draft.
- ↑ Ibid., 50–51, citing Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (London: Routledge, 2001).
- ↑ Ibid., 52–55, citing Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (New York: HarperOne, 2007).
- ↑ Ibid., 55–56, citing Mike Sosteric, "A Sociology of Tarot," Canadian Journal of Sociology 39, no. 3 (2014), doi:10.29173/cjs20000.
- ↑ Ibid., 56, citing Meera Nanda, "Madame Blavatsky's Children" (2010), https://www.academia.edu/27289493/Madame_Blavatskys_children_pdf.
- ↑ Karl Marx, The German Ideology (New York: Norton, 1978), https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htm