1. Dominant ideology: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The dominant ideology, in Marxist or Marxian theory, is the set of common values and beliefs shared by most people in
a given society, framing how the majority think about a range of topics, from art and science to politics and economics.
It precedes and overlaps with the idea of a paradigm. Compare with Gramsci's hegemony.
Ideologies in history
In feudal societies, the dominant ideology took religious forms, such as Christianity, making sense of nature and society
by means of traditional teachings, established authority and faith. In capitalist societies, the dominant ideology takes a
secular form, founded on property rights, but extending to rights in general, and other iterations of a fundamental
individualism. It can also extend to include representative democracy.
Class conflict
The dominant ideology is understood by Marxism to reflect, or serve, the interests of the dominant class in that society -
if the dominant ideology conflicted with the legitimacy of the dominant class's rule, then society would have to be in a
state of war with itself, with the dominant class appearing as an illegitimate occupation force. This theory is
summarized in the slogan: The dominant ideology is the ideology of the dominant class. One way to understand Marxist
revolutionary praxis is that it seeks to achieve just that situation of social unrest in which the ruling class is seen as
illegitimate - a necessary precursor to achieving the aim of overthrowing the dominant class of capitalism, the
bourgeoisie. The ideology of the working class has to achieve dominance, in order for the working class to become the
dominant class.
Two versions
There are two distinct, rival models offered by Marxists to characterize the operations of the dominant ideology. A crude
summary of both models follows:
Top down
In the first model, ideology is constructed in a more or less deliberate fashion by bourgeois or petit-bourgeois
intellectuals. Since the bourgeoisie owns the media, it can select which ideas are represented there, and selects just
those ideas which serve its own interests. The working class is overwhelmed by the barrage of bourgeois ideas, since it
owns no media of its own, and perhaps because it lacks intellectuals of its own. It adopts a bourgeois outlook on its
own exploitation (sometimes termed false consciousness) and loses its political independence as a class.
Bottom up
In the second model, ideology emerges spontaneously at every level of society, and simply expresses the existing
material structure of that society. Members of every class construct their own understanding of the society, based on
their personal experiences. Since those experiences are primarily of capitalist social relations, their ideology tends to
reflect the norms of capitalist society. Here the content of, for example, a newspaper is determined not by the
prejudices of the relevant media mogul, but by the social narrative to which both proprietor and reader contribute.
Workers in this model are not passive victims of brainwashing.
The working class begins to experience and express a different type of social relation, one that challenges the
legitimacy of capitalism, with the birth of trade unions. Workers gradually achieve successes by taking a collective
approach to their individual problems. This new material structure in capitalist society forms the base of a new ideology,
one which expresses the interests of workers and which is contradictory to the dominant ideology. Certain Marxists
term this phenomenon "embryonic class consciousness".
Critical note
In Marxist theory, a particular class comes to dominate society when that class is a progressive force powerful enough
to overthrow the previous ruling class. For example, the great bourgeois revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries
occurred because the bourgeoisie had become the standard-bearer for social progress, the universal class. The
bourgeoisie gradually began to lose its progressive character and became increasingly reactionary once it came to
power (since it began to support the status quo rather than seek further social progress). As a consequence, the
dominant ideology may contain an admixture of socially progressive and regressive elements. Therefore, Marxists do
not reject everything and anything related to the dominant ideology of capitalism; rather, they agree with its progressive
elements and criticise its regressive elements. In other words, Marxist critiques of the dominant ideology of capitalism
are not normally crude rejections of their content, but rather of their limiting, capitalist form.
Vulgar versions of such marxian critiques, in which both form and content of bourgeois rights are devalued, have been
deployed by repressive states to justify denying their citizens basic human freedoms. It is a matter of controversy
between Marxists and their critics whether such outcomes are necessitated by the theory, or are rather perversions of
the theory.
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