Against Ideology

Photo: Diario 16

Published by: LA ESPERANZA December 16, 2022

It may come as a surprise that the noun «ideology» is not accompanied by some adjective to refer to one or another particular ideology to be opposed. But no, the objective is precisely the condemnation of all ideology. And by ideology we do not mean any political doctrine or ideas, but a way of thinking -or rather, of not thinking- typical of modernity and with some peculiar features that we will briefly mention. In this sense it has been analyzed and criticized by various eminent figures of tradition and political philosophy, such as Danilo Castellano, Miguel Ayuso, Vallet de Goytisolo, Dalmacio Negro and many others.

It can be said that ideology is a substitute, surrogate or subversion of philosophy, an anti-philosophy. Philosophy, as cultivated by the classics and scholastics, has as its object the being or reality of things, which is cognizable and communicable through language. The aim of philosophy is truth, which consists in the correspondence between our intelligence and reality, even if that reality is complex and inexhaustible, and ultimately mysterious. On the contrary, ideology is self-founding, enclosed in human subjectivity, which sets itself up as the absolute principle and measure of all things. Its origin is nominalist, Protestant and rationalist. It disregards the truth, always more concerned with convincing than with demonstrating, preferring the emotional rather than the rational. Rather than truth, it aspires to a certain internal coherence based on a priori ideas or a previous scheme. And these prior ideas are usually partial truths elevated to absolute truths in a reductionist way. Hence the political expression of ideology through parties, with interests that are also partial and that ignore the part of reality that does not suit them or does not fit into their framework. False political representation is typical of ideology, which pretends that one or several parties embody in the State the spirit of the people or the general will, abstractly representing the ideas of the nation. Of course, these ideas have been previously inculcated by ideologues and the mass media that shape public opinion.

Having rejected the natural order of things, ideology also sees society as something to be constructed or designed, just as it wants to redesign reality as a whole. With the help of the mass media it seeks to construct this new reality – and new man – by means of a new artificial, purely emotive and repetitive language, which resembles what Orwell called Newspeak. Neologisms or new concepts are created (as well as a proliferation of slogans, acronyms and abbreviations), while other terms are re-signified and others are censored and banished. In this sense, ideology is self-referential, unconnected with reality, incommunicating and closed. For the same reason, it is exclusive and absolute. It turns politics not into practical knowledge, but rather poetical, destined to continuous creation – and frustrated, because of its clash with reality – but also destruction, in order to be able to implement the new models coming out of the laboratory of the ideologists, making a tabula rasa of what came before. Ideology is also revolutionary, totalitarian and utopian. It pretends that man transcends history and establishes forever a paradise on earth, which is why it is not only a substitute and a subversion of philosophy, but also of religion.

Ideology, especially democratic ideology, thus becomes a substitute for religion with a creed that is not transcendent, but immanent and naturalistic. Marxist materialism also has its utopian and messianic component, expressed in the idea of human emancipation and of a happy future in communist society that puts an end to the deterministic dialectic of social classes throughout history. Democracy, for its part, Kelsen said, is incompatible with the existence of any absolute truth, which paradoxically leads it to become itself the absolute source of all truth. The general will, as Rousseau understands it, infallibly chooses the good or is itself the creator of good and evil. A thesis in which the suppression of original sin, ascertained in the idea of the naturally good man, is essential. In this way, the State replaces God and makes pure human will the only law, outside of reason and the recognition of any higher order. Thus we arrive at democracy as the foundation of government or democratic fundamentalism. Democracy makes rationalist human rights, as ideological and denaturalized substitutes for true law, its founding dogmas. It has been said of them – displaying an absolute irrationalism – that they do not require justification, but compliance. Compliance that, on the other hand, admits anything, given its abstract nature, which in essence contains nothing more than the cult of freedom without rules and the free development of the individual. This freedom includes leaping over human nature itself, which the new ideological utopias of posthumanism and transhumanism seek to destroy or transcend. It is, in short, the consummation and fulfillment of ideological thought, which carries in its bosom the seed of technocracy and scientism. However, they do not represent an overcoming of ideologies, but rather, as is evident in our times, become the perfect allies of liberal democracy transformed into a secular religion and ideology that is irrational, nihilistic and totalitarian.

Written by Enrique Cuñado, Salamanca (Reino de León)

Translated by Daniel Rodríguez