on ideology

And now, for some philosophy...

Within a given society, political consciousness may be said to emerge through the realisation that certain opinions paraded as a priori truths by influential figures may in fact be relative and open to investigation. If they have been declaimed with sufficient confidence, however, these truisms may seem to belong to the fabric of existence no less than the trees and the sky, though they have been - a political perspective insists -- wholly invented by individuals with specific practical and psychological interests to defend.

If such relativity is hard to keep in mind, it may be because dominant beliefs themselves are typically at pains to suggest that they are no more alterable by human hands than are the orbits of the sun. They claim to be merely stating the obvious. They are, to use Karl Marx's helpful word, ideological -- an ideological statement being defined as one that subtly promotes a bias while pretending to be perfectly neutral.

For Marx, it is the ruling classes of a society that will be largely responsible for disseminating its ideological beliefs. This explains why, in those societies in which a landed gentry controls the balance of power, the concept of the inherent nobility of landed wealth is taken for granted by the majority of the population (including many who lose out under the system), while in mercantile societies, it is the achievements of entrepreneurs that dominate the citizenry's concepts of success. As Marx pointed out, "The ruling ideas of every age are always the ideas of the ruling class."

Yet somewhat paradoxically, these ieas would never come to rul if they were perceived as ruling too forcefully. It is the perfidious nature of ideological statements that unless our political senses are well developed, we will fail to spot them. Ideology is released into society like a colourless, odourless gas. It pervades newspapers, advertisements, television programmes and textbooks, always making light of its partial, perhaps illogical or unjust take on the world and meekly implying that it is only presenting age-old truths with which one but a fool or maniac could disagree.

Courtesy of Alain de Botton's book, Status Anxiety.

A big stack of books awaits me in 2007. I read some great ones in 2006, some of which are deserving of a mention. I've had to re-sort my bookshelf as a result of some recent purchases, evenly spread out across the categories of Design, Environmental/Societal Collapse, Theory of Technology, Urban/City/Vancouver themes, and (of course) Cycling. A few biz books are at work waiting to be read as well.

On the environmental/societal catastrophe/information design/urban-city front (all it's missing is Vancouver and Cycling themes), I cranked through Steven Johnson's Ghost Map in two days at Christmas. His London cholera whodunnit has been receiving favourable reviews (one appeared in the Vancouver Sun this weekend) and I found it a quick and enjoyable, if not a bit disgusting at times, read. Two thumbs up for that one.