Chapter 12: Ideology - Discussion Questions §

1. Can politics exist without ideology?

   • could be positive sum game: all groups can share benefits How?
   • with experience & time politics will become positive sum game?
     • Ex: after violence from war to civilians → human rights benefit all country to shield innocents from war

2. Is politics only about power play?

   • People seek to maximize their interest and power.
   • Zero Sum game: benefit of one destroy another
   • Politics is about conflicts: how to make it more peaceful?

3. Is ideology a help or hinderance to political parties?

   Ideology is a tool to help political parties/leaders to attain power

   • Without ideology, politics will still be about power but uses different tools other than ideology to achieve the same objectives.

4. What were the flaws of the ‘end of ideology’ thesis?

Rebuttal to Daniel Bell

1. The agreed upon common goal of managed capitalism is a ideology
   • Value of private property, material incentive
   • Kept in check by social welfare and economic intervention

The common ideology was only temporary

• 2. 1960s rise of New Left Ideas: revival of leftist ideologies
  • Anarchism
  • Feminism
  • Marxism
  • Ecologism
• 3. 1970s rise of New Right Theories: revived interests in
  • Free-market doctrines
  • Stimulated development

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• 4. Daniel Bell neglected strong communism in the East only focused on the west
  • Soviet Union
  • Eastern Europe
  • China
• Why have ‘end of history’ theorists viewed liberal democracy as the final solution to the problem of governance?

The main ideological debates between major powers has come to the same conclusion that liberalism and its concepts are desirable to both sides. The debate became about the method of delivering on the same goal (gaining wealth prosperity).

• Could history ever come to an end?

• Can intellectuals rise above ideology?

Ideology may be in the process of being replaced by scientism

• Ideology only serves as a vehicle for advancing class interests
• Science: advances human knowledge from irrational beliefs and political ideologies
• Why have postmodernists proclaimed the death of ‘metanarratives’?

Metanarratives are the big stories people tell to make sense of everything and that everything is connected and have an objective answer.

• Postmodernists reject the idea that a that history is making progress

Postmodernists reject metanaratives because:

• First, metanarratives are seen as ignoring context and unaware of their own origins in and limitations by a particular context.
• Second, metanarratives are seen as a tool by which those who are telling the metanarratives assert power over others.
• Is the left/right divide now redundant?

Why the decline of left/right divide?

1. End of Cold War: Left (US) winning over Right (Soviet)
   • Politics started to be more about culture rather than ideologies
   • Fall of Soviet led to rise of Islamism, China, and India threatening the West culture
2. Globalization:
   • People’s lives effected by events far from them
   • Emergence of ‘post traditional’ social order and social reflexivity
   • No ideology can fully explain the complex reality created by globalization

• Can science be thought of as an ideological tradition?

Is Science an Ideology?

it can be viewed as a ideology.

• Science links to powerful social forces
• Shape peoples attitude to truth, justice, and knowledge

Beneficiary: transnational corporations who are increasingly responsible for funding scientific and technological development

• To what extent has ideology created a worldwide language of political discourse?

• Is ideology a help or a hindrance to a political party?

Ideology is a tool to help political parties/leaders to attain power

Political parties relies on ideologies to give them common preference of an idealized state system.

Without ideology parties left/right sells leaders/policies rather than emotional attached idealized state.

• Can politics exist without ideology?

Political parties are not reliant on ideology

Without ideology, politics will still be about power but uses different tools other than ideology to achieve the same objectives.

• Does ideology enlighten or delude?