Ideological clichés are deadly. In 1989, the end of the short twentieth century (1917 – 1989) with all its horrors, I thought this simple proposition was something that had been learned, broadly across the political spectrum . I was wrong, and the evidence has been overwhelming. This was my biggest mistake as a sociologist of the politics and culture.
When Soviet Communism collapsed, I thought it had come to be generally understood that simple ideological explanations that purported to provide complete understanding of past, present and future, and the grounds for solving the problems of the human condition, were destined for the dustbin of history. The fantasies of race and class theory resulted in profound human suffering. I thought there was global awareness that modern magical thinking about human affairs should and would come to an end.
My first indication I had that I was mistaken came quickly, December 31, 1989, to be precise. It came in the form of an op ed. piece by Milton Friedman. While celebrating the demis
e of socialism in the Soviet bloc, he called for its demise in the United States, which he asserted was forty-five per cent socialist, highlighting the post office, the military (a necessary evil to his mind) and education. He called for a domestic roll back of the socialist threat now that the foreign threat had been vanquished. Friedman knew with absolute certainty that only capitalism promoted freedom, and he consequentially promoted radical privatization as a solution to all social problems. This was an early battle cry for the neo-liberal assault of the post-cold war era.
The assault seemed particularly silly to me, and hit close to home, since I heard Friedman lecture when I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, and even taught one of his true-believing graduate students when I gave a summer school course there on social problems in American society. Friedman and his student’s absolute conviction that the market is the source of all good perfectly mirrored my Marxist friends’ convictions that it was the root of all evil.
Today neo-liberalism and anti neo-liberalism are in an ideological dance. The Republican positions on taxation of the job creators, deregulation and the denunciation of standard social programs as socialism constitute one sort of magical thinking. Newt Gingrich is particularly proficient in spinning the language of this political fantasy and developing its newspeak (with his concerns about the United States becoming a “secular, atheist” country promoting sharia law, and the like). The criticism of neo-liberalism from the left too often present magic: dismantle capitalism and all will be well. As I see it, both propose a future based on a failed past, often with a certitude that is disarming and dangerous.
I wonder how people can imagine a systemic alternative to capitalism, when there is overwhelming evidence that it has never worked, in Europe or Asia, in Africa or Latin America. I wonder how Republicans can ignore the evidence that the market does not solve all economic challenges and social problems, and that sometimes, indeed, it is the primary cause of our problems, particularly evident in the shadow of the world financial crisis and the great recession.
Friends in the academic ghetto, on the cultural grounds of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, Berkeley, Ann Arbor and Austin, imagine revolution with little serious consequences. On the other hand, the Republican market fundamentalists pose a clear and present danger. On the right, there is ideological tragedy. On the left, there’s farce, except to the extent that they enable the right.
I didn’t anticipate that market and anti-capitalist fundamentalism would have such a role in the twenty-first century. I also did not anticipate or understand the possibility of the replacement of the secular totalitarian imagination by religious ones, Islamic, but also Hindu, Jewish and Christian. “Religionism” is replacing “Scientism.” I didn’t see what was brewing on the religious/political front. The attacks of 9/11 and the American fundamentalist response forced me to pay attention, which I attempted to deliberately consider in The Politics of Small Things.
Chastened, I have become accustomed to the persistence of modern magic, of ideological thinking and its appeal, but quite uncomfortable. How can a thinking person accept and actually support the Bolivarian Revolution of Chavez? It and he are so transparently manipulative and fantasy based, so clearly squandering Venezuelan resources and not really addressing the problems of the poor. Yet, many critical people in the American left can’t bring themselves to observe that this king of the ideological left, this revolutionary hero, is naked. How can the sober Republicans believe what Gingrich and company say about the economy and also about international affairs? If they do so and prevail electorally, I am pretty convinced that they will preside over the decline and fall of the American Empire, what they claim to be most against. Perhaps that is reason for true-believing anti-globalists to support the Republicans.
P.S. As it turns out since 1989, I have been bombarded with evidence that ideological thinking is a persistent component of modern politics. It seems that everywhere I look its importance and its dangers are to be observed, but so are its limits. I am thinking again about my big mistake as I reflect on Occupy Wall Street and its prospects, and its extension to the New School. As Andrew Arato pointed out in his critique of the idea of occupation, there is a danger that when people, who speak ideologically for the 99%, will turn themselves into the 1%. True-believers are convinced, but the rest of us in the end aren’t. Sooner or later the insights of ’89 prevail. On the bright side, from my political point of view, I think this is likely to apply to the Republican Party, with its true-believing, fact-free ideology. This is the major reason why I think that the Republicans will fail in the upcoming elections. I think this is why the Republican field is so dismal, as Paul Krugman has cogently observed. But I am trusting that ideology will end again.
I am not quite sure that ideology will ever end, because people do seem to have a need for generalized ‘truth’ – if only to make easy choices with little need for attention. Ideology has become the political version of religion. Interestingly even religion (as you mentioned) can be appropriated as political ideology. I think though, that we should differentiate between dogmatic ideology and, what I would call ‘reflective, deliberative’ ideology. I would agree with your post, but all the instances you mention are dogmatic. You are right, there is nowhere to go from dogma. On the other hand, there is a need for ideological foundations, not only for politicians, academics, but also for the people. We see the opposite problems of un-ideological politicians, when we look at most of todays Democrats (including Obama) or center Republicans, they make no sense, have no stance and also offer no solutions in times of crisis. Unfortunately the grounding of politics in ‘reflective’ ideology seems to have become a lost art, where ever we look: left and right.
We have very few people who speak today from a ideological foundation that is not blind towards more ‘profane’ politics and a dialogue with the ‘other’. This is unfortunate, I think Habermas with his stance on Europe is one (Havel was here another, even though he would not call himself one). The Social Democratic movements in Europe, especially in Scandinavia with there “de-commodification” politics, were too. All these appealed to the people not only through some emotional, dogmatic application of ‘us or them’ rhetoric, but through complicated dialogue and education. They did not offer simple ‘truth’, but ideological starting points for politics.
These ‘reflective’ ideologies have been born out of the crisis of dogmatic ideology after WWII and the beginning of the Cold War. Unfortunately it might need another crisis of ‘dogmatic’ ideology to get back to more deliberative alternatives (I see the irony here, as this tactic of waiting for the crisis, was part of the Communist dogma of the 1920s/30s and probably still is for some on the far left).
On a more hopeful note: Maybe movements (or phenomena) like the politics of the governed, OWS, Arab Spring, etc do offer (if not solutions) at least starting points for politics that are focused on ‘bare’ necessity rather than ideological shadow boxing.
Ps: Please excuse my rather Eurocentric post, I know there are probably many more positive examples in the world, I am not aware of.
Tim, I obviously want to reserve the term ideology for what you call dogmatic ideology. I do so, following the usage of Arendt. Also following her, I want to identify a particular intellectual development, scientized politics, connecting the understanding of past, present and future in a neat package, deduced a simple idea, e.g. race or class “theory.” I am struck that this continues in sometimes in new forms, more often with only slight variations on old themes.
On the need for more reflective ideology: I would agree but use different language: the need to well considered political principles enacted in a careful way. Thus, for example, the type of political ideas and practices enacted by Vaclav Havel. There will be a series of posts on him and his ideas starting today. I think they will reveal why it is best to look for an alternative to ideology.
I don’t agree with you on the Democrats and Obama. I think they and he do stand for something and that they and he are trying to implement a vision of the good society, radically different from what the Republicans have to offer. In the rough and tumble of daily political contest the vision can get lost, but it’s there to see and hear in the President’s speech and in the coherence of his actions. He may not be succeeding but it is clearly there. I develop this in my new book, Reinventing Political Culture. More about this in future posts on DC.
Principled politics of the sort that Havel sought are evident in many of the revolutions of the recent past, including the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street. This was apparent in the meeting between Michnik and OWS. More about this in a future post, also. So though we disagree on Obama, I think, we agree that the grounds for hope are in the emerging social movements.
It appears to me that there are 2 forms of discussion on policy. The technocratic details that policy makers and theorists engage in. And the vague ideological narrative spun and debated for the benefit of the electorate. Ideology is a necessity because of democracy, while voters are unable to partake in discussion of the details of policy they look for solutions in ideology.