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Chapter VII
IDEOLOGY
AND POLITICAL VISION: THE CHALLENGE OF IDEOLOGICAL POLITICS TO
CHRISTIAN POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT
Politics As Imagination
The
impulse to imagine the "good society" probably coincides with human
history itself. Indeed, one can look at the history of political thought and
discover that prior to the emergence of the modem era much of the reflection on
the political order has been lubricated, if not propelled, by the operation of
this impulse into the life of society. Thus, for example, Aristotle, one of the
earliest of Western political thinkers, considered politics as primarily an
architectonic science, a science, in other words, that is concerned less with
the day to day operations and problems of political affairs, and more with the
task of designing the shape of the political order and building the structures
of the common life. In the same way that the architect uses the various crafts
in order to build a house, so also the political thinker uses the various arts,
sciences and technologies in order to design and build the most desirable polls.
Thus, also, Augustine, one of the original political thinkers of the Christian
tradition, looked at the fragility and travails of the "city of man"
and projected the "city of
The
source of the impulse and the form in which it has been expressed and made
operational has varied at different times and at different places. There have
been,
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for example,
clearly religious sources of the impulse, as there have been much more
specifically social and psychological ones. At times, the expression of a
social and political vision spawned and agitated for rebellion against the
established order, as at other times, it led to the formation of alternate
models of social existence far removed from the immediate concerns of social
and political action.
Whatever
the course and whatever the form, however, the manner in which this impulse has
been constructed has had one common element: what exists is not satisfactory;
indeed, what exists must be inverted. Those, in short, who considered politics
as a matter of design and not merely a matter of adjusting to the changing
contours of power in day to day life shared a common view of history: history
is to be shaped rather than left alone to drift; history, as it were, is to be
stormed so that it begins to reflect and conform to a design that is injected
into it. Discontinuity and creative dislocation rather than drift and
adjustment, in other words, characterized the attitude towards history that the
tradition of politics as imagination imbibed.
It was
from this tradition of politics as imagination that the modern idea of
socialism emerged. Socialism, in this sense, was not the logical outcome of the
social and political development of the times in which it grew. It was
aberrational. It was in fact imagined as an alternate vision of society not
merely to give moral sustenance to those who constructed it in the midst of
what they perceived to be "a society that presented nothing but
wrongs," but more so to provide an objectification and sense of urgency to
their criticisms of the human condition of their time.
The
so-called Utopians who dreamed the first socialist dreams at the beginning of
the modern period were different from their predecessors in at least two areas
of their concern. The first had to do with their encounter
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with the rise of industrial
civilization. How to be in but not of industrial society was, in a sense, the
question that prompted and engendered the modern idea of socialism. Faced by
the first blush of industrialization, the figures who were to become the
"early socialists" reacted with intense mixed feelings. They were
attracted and yet at the same time repulsed by it. They recognized that it
promised a better life than that of earlier periods. They were, however, also
certain that in the form in which it was evolving it was doing away with the
worthwhile features of the old order. The quest that led them to dream
socialist dreams was for an order that would combine the best of both worlds.
The
second had to do with their involvement in the slow and at times painful formation
of the State as the primary expression of the political organization of
society. Thus, there was a much clearer sense of rationality in their imagery
of the future, removing them quite far from the ecstatic visions that
accompanied the religiously inspired agitations against feudal society at its
last moments. In short, as the patchwork of traditional autonomous social
institutions began to give way and to be replaced, in the name of efficiency,
by a more centralized system of rule, it began to dawn upon some people that
one can extend this tendency to its extreme conclusion, namely, a society that
is governed completely by rationality, where a new style of life would emerge
that would emphasize calculation, foresight and efficiency, and made regularity
of work almost a religious obligation. As soon as people began to look at the
State as a "work of art" — to use Thomas Hobbes' terminology —, in
other words, as a. product of human effort and imagination rather than a
Divinely given institution, it took but one more step to imagine that it could
be rendered perfect through the application of human rationality and foresight.
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The
visions that were projected were visions of social perfection. The society that
was envisaged was one in which tension, conflict, want and failure would have
largely disappeared. They were comprehensive as well. They touched upon all
areas of life. The benefits of society were to be equitably distributed and
managed "for the good of the whole commonwealth." Education was to be
completely rationalized. Even sexual relations were to be administered
according to clear "philosophical lines." The whole of social life,
as it were, was to be governed by a design that was to be imposed upon it in
such a way that it conformed to the ideal of social perfection.
What
has been considered dubious in the Utopian project of the early socialists has
been neither their negation of the present state of affairs, nor the inner
quality of their social vision. On both of these points, in fact, little
disagreement can be posed. Rather, it has been in the manner in which they
constructed the intrusion of their vision into the historical arena that much
scorn has been heaped, as a result of which the Utopian ideal has become
discredited, much, I think, to the impoverishment of social and political
thought. How indeed was the social vision to be introduced and inserted into
the ongoing flow of political life? What was the bridge that was to cross the
chasm between the plan and the subject, between the vision, ready and perfect,
and the masses of people, who were seemingly mute and indifferent? The early
socialists have been severely criticized for having the vision but totally
devoid of the strategy to put it to work in the actual and concrete life of society.
This was what Friedrich Engels was alluding to when
he wrote shrewdly and with sympathy about the Utopian process:
Society
presented nothing but wrongs; to remove these was the task of reason. It was
necessary then to impose this upon society from without by
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propaganda, and
whenever possible by the example of model experiments. These new social systems
were foredoomed as Utopian; the more completely they were worked out in detail,
the more they could not avoid drifting into pure phantasies...
We
can leave it to the history of literary small fries to solemnly quibble over
these phantasies, which today only make us smile, and
to crow over the superiority of their bald reasoning, as compared with such
insanity. As for us, we delight in the stupendously great thoughts and germs of
'thought that everywhere break out through their phantastic
coverings... (L. Coser and I. Howe, The Radical
Papers: Essays in Democratic Socialism, p. 16.)
The
criticism was not all that fair. It is nevertheless true that these early
socialists tended to be ahistorical and did not
devote as much attention as they might have to the task of relating the image
of the good society to the actual workings of society as it is. They tended as
well to be elitist. What other recourse, as a matter of fact, could a lonely,
isolated Utopian have but the elite, the small core of intellect that, like
himself, could control and guide? Reformers who lack some organic relationship
with major historical movements must almost always be tempted into a more or
less benevolent theory of a ruling elite. And as the Marxist socialists of a
later age were to point out, social and political vision without egalitarianism
and which is dominated by an aristocracy of mind must quickly degenerate into a
vision of useful and sophisticated slavery.
The Beginnings of
Ideology
It was,
to a large extent, from this soil of critical
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response to the
Utopian project that ideological politics emerged. Ideology, like utopia, in
other words, grew out of the effort to infuse human rationality to the social
and political process and to inject human purpose and vision to the conscious
shaping of history.
The
concept ideology is of French origin. The word was first coined at the time of
the French revolution by one of the philosophes
at the Institut de France, Antoine Destutt de Tracey, to mean literally "the science of
ideas." In Destutt de Tracey's mind, society up
until his time has been operating on false ideational foundations — biases and
prejudices, as he put them — and ideology was to be the encompassing science
the primary concern of which was the scientific and empirical inquiry into the
human mind and how it works so that it will become the foundation not only on
the other sciences but of the newly emerging society as well. Ideology, in
other words, was to be a critical inquiry into the origin and growth of ideas,
an approach to the whole mental operation of man in such a way that it could be
rid of its illusions, including and especially religious illusions, and a
source of the true, objective and scientific ideational foundations of the new
society.
From
its inception, therefore, ideology recognized the importance of the ideational
foundations of society and the social and political function of human
rationality. On the one hand, it recognized that there were indeed ideas
operating in society that were really camouflaged illusions. On the other hand,
it assumed that these illusions, religious and social especially, can be rid of
through the critical and consistent operation of rational and scientific
thought upon them. Ideology, then, will provide the replacement for such
illusions and biases in the true ordering of social life. The ideologue, in
this sense, was to be the intellectual and rational mater et magistra of the new order.
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Ideology and
Political Praxis
It was,
strangely enough to many, Napoleon Bonaparte who started a whole tradition of perjorative response to the work of the ideologues.
Noticing that the proposals of the philosophes
were inimical to his imperial ambitions, he contemptuously sneered at their
ideas and labelled them "ideologists" by
which he meant that they were "doctrinaire" and therefore
"impractical" and "unrealistic."
The
implications of this contempt were important in the development of ideological
politics. Not only did it bring ideology into the actual arena of political
conflict; it also raised theoretical and epistemological questions of
considerable consequence. Napoleon was depreciating the validity of his
adversaries' proposals by calling them "impractical" and
"unrealistic" with reference to the practice of politics, i.e., when
such ideas were seen in the context of the affairs that transpire in the
political arena. As Karl Mannheim has suggested, what was implied here was at
bottom a new way of looking at truth and reality in the political context,
namely, that any idea in itself was not only futile but also not credible when
it was not politically practicable, and the only reliable and significant
access to reality was to be sought in practical activity. In other words,
unless it has the capacity to stand the measure of practical political conduct,
mere thinking and reflection on any given political situation will turn out to
be trivial (Ideology and Utopia, pp. 72-75)
From
this point onward, the concept ideology bore specifically not the trademark of
intellectuals working in "ivory towers" but the position and imprint
of people engaged in political action. Again, as Mannheim puts it, 'The. . .
word gives sanction to the specific experience of the politician with
reality..." and "marks the conceptual point around which a new critieria for truth was located in terms of its efficacy in
the mundane
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affairs of people
and their social and political relations" (Ibid.).
In
other words, ideology emerged in the intellectual and political scene as the
affirmation of the social and political function of ideas and the social and
political creativity of human reason. It developed into a much more politically
potent and intellectually revolutionary force when it began to be recognized
that not only do ideas have a social usability, but that they also have a
definitely social and political criteria. Ideology, in short, was one of the
points of entry of the philosopher, i.e., the man of ideas, into politics. It
developed, however, not in the enthronement of philosophy into politics but in
the precipitation and subsequent imposition of a social and political criteria
for the philosophical enterprise.
Ideology
as Social Criticism and Social Hope:
The
Marxian Conception of Ideology
It was,
of course, Karl Marx who pushed the political attack upon philosophy and the whole
structure of the non-material aspects of social and political life to its
furthest and most provocative limits. Marx put together the positive and perjorative conceptions of ideology and constructed a
dialectical view of it, not so much as a form of theoretical and conceptual
clarification but as at once a devastating instrument of social criticism and
as a guide to social transformation.
If one
may now refer back to the Utopian project that I described earlier, it was Marx
who tried to place most forcefully the drive towards Utopia not beyond but
squarely — perhaps a little too squarely — within the course of history and
located an active "realizing" force which the Utopians could nowhere
discern on the social horizon beyond themselves. He saw as a result the
possibility of linking the Utopian desire with the actual development of social
life and was thereby enabled to avoid
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the ahistoricism and elitism of his socialist predecessors.
This, I think, is best illustrated in his conception of ideology.
Throughout
the gamut of Marxian writings, the term ideology or ideological is used in a
number of distinctive but inter-related ways:
A. Marx uses the term ideology or ideological,
first of all, as a way of negatively characterizing and describing the
ideational and non-material aspects of social and political life. Ideology
refers to philosophical abstractions and generalization, to all ideas of
whatever kind, religious, juridical and political, that are unaware of the
basic presuppositions and roots in the social and material condition of man.
Philosophy, for example, though it has historically functioned to point out the
varied dimensions of man's alienation and predicament remains ideological in
the sense that it is the intellectual reflex of the age and of the society and
social organization in which it is conceived. It reflects, in this sense, the
basic spirit of that age and rationalizes 'it rather than basically criticizes
it.
Marx's
conception of ideology, in short, was his way of destroying the presumed
autonomy and independence of ideas from the material condition of man and from
the social organization of man's collective life. All ideas and the whole
structure of the non-material life of man, religious, cultural and
philosophical, are ideological in the sense that they are forms of
representation characteristic of a given epoch and society. They express a
particular pattern of thought and reflection, therefore, that is inevitably
conditioned and discolored out of proportion by the spirit of that age.
"Social being" in this sense determines "social
consciousness" rather than the other way around.
B. In a second and more specific way, ideology
was used by Marx as a way of describing and referring to the characteristic and
false consciousness of the ruling class and those who control the means of
production. To the extent that ideas, especially social ideas, are conditioned
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by the social
organization of society, to that extent, too, the forms of thought and
reflection that prevail in a given social situation reflect the interests of
those who hold economic and political power in society and rationalizes and
gives legitimation to these interests. Ideology, therefore, is that kind of
thinking that generalizes special interests and universalizes by means of
abstractions, incomplete and distorted representations, what is in reality the
specific and particular interests of a particular group of people in the social
order.
The
ideological character of all thought, in short, reveals and brings into the
open the class character of all truths. This, according to Marx, has always
been true, but it becomes especially visible in the social organization of
capitalist-industrial society where not only the material capacity and
technological know-how has increased but where also the distinction between
those who control the means of production and those who are victimized by it
has become more evident.
Marx,
in this sense, was among the first social and political thinkers who foresaw
the predicament of thought in the social organization under which industrial
and technological society was evolving. Those who control the means of
production and hold the reins of power control also the means of thought and
hold also the reins of cultural activity so that consciously or unconsciously
these non-material ingredients of life give legitimation and ornamental
beautification to their position, interests and power.
C. In both of the instances described above,
ideology shares a basic characteristic. It is an inverted, truncated, and
distorted approximation of reality. In this ideological form, human beings and
their condition appear upside down like images on the lens of a camera. In
these representations, individuals too grasp their own reality
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upside down. The
starting point of the ideological question, in other words, is reality itself.
Its illusory character lies in the fact that it abstracts, and in the process
universalizes, a fragmentary and partial dimension of that reality. In assuming
totality and universality for what is partial, it veils reality and obscures
the consciousness of the real condition of man in society. It does this by
refracting reality via preexisting representations selected by the dominant
groups and which are acceptable to them. The description of the problems, the
points of view expressed, the vocabularies and modes of expression used thus
come to stand in the way of the new elements in society and the new approaches
to its problems. Utopian proposals, in this context, are from the beginning
doomed, and religious antidotes, while they may play a positive function in
holding a vision of human reality before dehumanized human beings, become in
the end opiate.
D. Had Marx, however, simply theorized about
ideology and of the fate of philosophy in the political and social arena, he
would have fallen into the same trap that the philosophers and Utopian thinkers
before him had fallen into. What provided avoidance of this predicament was his
clear understanding that this analysis of ideology and of the ideological
character of thought was functional to the redemption and changing of society
the subject of which was other than himself, or, for that matter, other than
any past or future thinker or visionary.
Ideology
as social criticism at its most pungent form, in other words, was used by him
as a debunking and critical instrument in the struggle of the oppressed and
alienated class of people in society whom he identifies as the only and real
bearer of that social hope and social power that would turn society
right-side-up and in whose behalf he hands over this analysis as an instrument
of social warfare. Here lies the critical divide between
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Marx's social
vision and those that preceded him. The Utopians saw the need for revolt
against history but they could conduct it, so to speak, only from that space
and platform opened up by their ideas of the future. The philosophes
sought reform but could find their point of entry into the political process
mainly through the rationality of their proposals. Marx projected the socialist
vision of his political dream but located both the subject and the power of its
fulfillment neither in him, nor in his ideas, but in the active work of a mass
movement of people whom he called the proletariat. The mute, indifferent and
defenseless people (to use the Utopians' ascription of the masses) in whose
behalf and for whom the Utopians dreamed dreams of better worlds became for
Marx the subjects of social hope, and ideology was put in their hands as a
critical instrument for overturning and unveiling the pretensions of the powers
of the present social order. In Marx, in short, Utopia not only becomes
historicized; it also becomes egalitarian.
The
heart and power of Marx's concept of ideology, to put it differently, was the
prophetic rebellion against the manner in which the bourgeois world of his time
was idealizing itself, defying its own spirit, and considering itself the apex
of social development, in the name of concrete, real people who were being
exploited and enslaved, and who were estranged and alienated from the fruit of
their work and, thus, also from themselves. In the name of this class of
exploited people, Marx waged "a ruthless criticism of everything which
stands." From the perspective of these people, estranged from the
possession of the manner and fruit of their labor, philosophy, religion, law,
politics, and all the rest, were exposed as the consciousness of one possessing
class and the instruments of its interests. Reality comes into view as the
natural relations of people in society, acting, producing and striving to
overcome this self-estrangement into
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which they have
been forced. Truth, as against the mystification of the philosophers and the ideology
of the ruling class, becomes the ideology of the dispossessed, stripped of all
vested interests and illusions. It becomes response to the real demands of
human beings thus revealed, a matter of changing the world. As a contemporary
Asian practitioner of Marxian ideological politics has put it, 'The only
yardstick of truth is the revolutionary practice of millions of people"
(Mao Tsetung, Selected Works, II, pp. 339-40).
The Challenge of
the Ideological Paradigm
Not one
but many ideologies emerged from the intellectual and political impetus
provided by the progenitors of the ideological mind. Indeed, in Europe, the
period from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth has been described as
"the age of ideology" simply because it saw the extraordinary
outpouring of theories about the nature of man and the future social order,
imbibing in people not only the belief that they can shape the future but also
the responsibility to construct a variety of alternative paths that may be open
to them in their own personal lives, in their religious, philosophical and
political creeds, and in the rearrangement of their social existence.
One can
look at the contemporary Philippine political life in this light as well. The
political upheavals that led to the birth of our republic after the Second
World War have been shown to be more than attempts at bringing about political
autonomy and independence from Western domination. They are also social and
economic revolutions posing before our society the problem of imagining and
building the shape of our collective future. If, as some political theorists
have suggested, the "age of ideology" has come to an end in the West
— a dubious assertion if there was one — it is at best only in
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midstream in our
part of the world, so that political problems will continue to be seen in terms
of their ideological content and direction. It is here in recent times, where a
proliferation of ideological formations continue to take place befuddling, as
it were, those who seek to understand the political dynamics of the region. Not
only old ideologies but also new ones, and not only new ones but new
"mixtures" of a variety of formerly irreconcilable ideological
positions have emerged in our time.
How
then can one speak of an ideological paradigm in this context? The word
paradigm has come in vogue as a result of the work of Thomas Kuhn in the field
of the history of science. Kuhn pointed out that science, contrary to previous
notion, has not advanced as a result of confrontations, of counterposed
theories and verifications. It has operated in terms of a paradigm, i.e.,
"in terms of universally recognized scientific achievements that for a
time provide model problems and solutions to a community of
practitioners." It takes a turn when some piece of evidence contradicts
the paradigm so that the search for a new one ensues. One paradigm is then
taken over by another.
The
dynamics of social and political life, of course, can not be transmuted easily
into that of the natural sciences. The subject matter of the natural sciences
after all is not alive and its data do not talk back deceptively. When I use
the term ideological paradigm, therefore, I use it in a more modest manner. I
am not assuming that there is one ideological model we should follow. I want
simply to suggest that there are some distinctively ideological questions, and
ways of posing and answering them, and that both are important and pertinent to
the understanding and shaping of the future. I want to raise here a number of
the ingredients of such an ideological paradigm:
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A. The first is the insistence of the
ideological perspective to look at society as a whole. It refuses, in other
words, to accept the presumption that society is made up of a series of
co-existing sets of autonomous institutions and activities each of which may
only be incidentally related to the other. When one analyses society,
therefore, one has to look at the linkages rather than the autonomies of the
various aspects of social life. Social life must be examined, in other words,
in terms of its overall logic, in terms of its overall movement, and in terms
of the overall power and rationality that keeps it where it is and keeps it
moving where it is going. Thus one must not speak of politics only; one must
speak of political economy. Thus, also, one must not speak of religion and
culture only; one must speak of the social, economic and political
underpinnings and functions of religion and culture as well.
One of
the primary reasons for understanding ideology, or ideologies, in this context,
is its mirror-like quality. Ideologies are the products of the conscious effort
to comprehend the totality of social and political reality and to understand
its dynamics. They reflect, therefore, in a wholistic way the valuational, intellectual and material aspects of society
and how these are related to each other. To understand ideology in any given
situation is not only one illuminative clue to the dilemmas of social and
political life; it is also an entry into one of the major sources of political
coherence and intellectual culture in such a situation, the degree of its
integration and disintegration, and its present and possible future. This is
true whether one is dealing with Mao Tse-tung's On
New Democracy, or Ferdinand E. Marcos' suggestions and formulation of
"A Filipino Ideology."
B. The second is the insistence of the
ideological perspective that any form of political engagement must not only
mean the entry of thought into social life. It
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means, more primordially,
the investigation of the practical implications and functions of thought, on
the one hand, at the same time that action, in whatever form it might take,
must be seen in the context of a wider set of meaning and intentionality beyond
the pragmatic need of the moment.
Ideology,
in this sense, refers to more than doctrine. It links particular actions and
mundane practices with a wider set of meanings, and by doing so, lends a
dignified direction and complexion to social and political conduct. Nor is
ideology merely a philosophy. It is in a curious position of an abstraction
that is less abstract than the abstractions contained within it. Ideologies
enlarge the role of individuals in social life, and this is why it has been
central to the thinking of revolutionaries. Working out an ideology is a way of
stipulating the challenge of a new idea, a new vision, for the social order.
C. This leads to a third point. The ideological
perspective, especially its modem variants, claims for itself a rigorous scientific
outlook, but poses above all the importance of commitment as the primal
ingredient of its political work. It is, in this sense, a
"value-oriented" rather than a "value-free" science. As the
history of ideology has shown, the ideological perspective emerged as part of
the effort to apply the scientific method into social life, and to rid society
of its pre-scientific and irrational ideational foundation. It has, in its
present expressions, maintained this claim to scientific rigor. It does not, however,
remain in the realm of a "neutral science."
A look
at modern political ideologies reveal this well. Whatever else they involve,
political ideologies embody at least the following ingredients: (1) a
philosophy of history; (2) a view of man's place in it; (3) some estimate of
some probable lines of future development; and (4) a set of prescriptions
regarding how to hasten, retard, and/or modify that developmental direction.
The linking
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of
"estimate" with "prescription" means that beyond the presumed
scientific component of its analysis, ideology also specifies a set of values
and directions that are more or less coherent, and provides a linkage between
analysis and a given pattern of action to the achievement i of maintenance of
future or existing state of affairs, f
This
combination of analysis, action and prescription in ideology means that the
ideological perspective involves the conversion of ideas into social levers.
That "ideas" and "analyses" are "weapons" and not
mere observations is very distinctly and clearly the language of ideology.
Ideology means more. It also means i commitment to the consequences of ideas
and analyses. What gives ideology its force is the manner in which it weaves
ideas and analyses with passion. Abstract philosophical enquiry and pure
scientific research has always j sought to eliminate passion. For the
ideologue, on the other hand, truth arises in action, and meaning is given \
to experience not by the contemplative but by the transforming moment. He
comes alive not in contemplation, but in "the deed." One might in
fact say that one of the most latent and important functions of ideology is to
tap the roots of people's allegiances in their content and feeling, in their
objective and subjective sides, in order to change these allegiances. Ideology,
therefore, does not only transform ideas and analyses into action; it also
transforms people. To put it differently, it is through the construction and
operation of ideologies that people make themselves, for better or worst, into
political animals. In i brief, the real core of any ideology lies in the
subject of its commitment, the subject of its solidarity, rather than the
enticement of its analytical and ideational formulations.
D. Finally, ideologies raise most sharply the
question of the final direction of political engagement as regards to whether
it is geared towards the present and the past, or towards the gestations of the
future. This is not to say
151
that all ideologies
are ideologies of the future, or that all ideologies are ideologies of radical
change. There are conservative ideologies as there are revolutionary ones. It
is in dealing with the clash of ideologies, however, and in identifying one's
own ideological presuppositions, that one is caught in the vortex of the
question of whether one is for a politics of maintenance or a politics of
change; a politics of reform and development or a politics of revolution; a
politics of pacification or a politics of agitation and violence.
Whether
one admits it or not, it seems to be the fact that it is in the world of
ideologies where the possibility and even the desirability, of the total
reconstruction of society is affirmed, where the prospect that nothing is to be
left untouched and unturned on the way to the future is presented as an option,
if not as an inevitability, for the building of a new society. Any form of
political engagement, and more importantly any expression of political vision
and social hope must have to give an answer to the question of the transition
from the undesirable present to the desirable future, and how this transition
is to take place. Without a consideration of this question, any presentation of
the "good society" as an alternative to the present becomes not only
trivial but also meaningless.
Conclusion
What
the ideological perspective and its Utopian beginnings pose above all is the
fact that men and women are both creatures and creators of their society. They are
called therefore not only to be a part of society as it is but also to be
responsible for keeping alive the effort to shape it into what it should be. It
is in the dialectic of the freedom and social determinism of their social
existence that human beings must locate both the roots and the direction of
their social hope. This is true
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for the Christian
as it is true for everybody else, that he or she must examine critically the
social condition of the time and make, not avoid, ideological choices. Not to
do so is not being non-ideological, it is simply being sucked into the ideology
of the prevailing powers.