OnIdeology

Quora Answer : Are ideologies illogical, thought limiting and/or anti-intellectual?

Mar 6, 2018

No.

"Ideologies" are just bundles of beliefs that tend to fit together well.

Like all beliefs, you can hold them "irrationally" (for some value of "irrational"). Eg. being unwilling to revise them when faced by directly contrary evidence.

OTOH, the strength of an ideology is that all the ideas in it tend to count as supporting evidence for other ideas in it. So people who hold an ideology can't really be accused of believing stuff "without evidence". The other bits of the ideology are the evidence.

Marxists tend to use "ideology" in a specific sense. They mean a bundle of beliefs which is a) the thing that the ruling class want you to believe, and b) an incorrect view of society promoted to keep you in your place. Other groups sometimes have a similar view of an ideology.

But everyone has some kind of ideology. They're just models of the world. Like all models they always have some flaws and are wrong about some tihings. But successful models also capture many truths.

Anyone who flatters themselves that they are "free from ideology" because their model of the world is the absolute truth, is almost certainly wrong.