The term "ideology" can cover almost any set of ideas, but its
power to bewitch political activists results from its strange
logic: part philosophy, part science, part spiritual revelation,
all tied together in leading to a remarkable paradox--that the
modern Western world, beneath its liberal appearance, is actually
the most systematically oppressive system of despotism the world
has ever seen. "Alien Powers: The Pure Theory of Ideology" takes
this complex intellectual construction apart, analyzing its
logical, rhetorical, and psychological devices and thus opening it
up to critical analysis. Ideologists assert that our lives are
governed by a hidden system. Minogue traces this notion to Karl
Marx who taught intellectuals the philosophical, scientific, moral,
and religious moves of the ideological game. The believer would
find in these ideas an endless source of new liberating discoveries
about the meaning of life, and also the grand satisfaction of
struggling to overcome oppression. Minogue notes that while the
patterns of ideological thought were consistent, there was little
agreement on who the oppressor actually was. Marx said it was the
bourgeoisie, but others found the oppressor to be males,
governments, imperialists, the white race, or the worldwide Jewish
conspiracy. Ideological excitement created turmoil in the twentieth
century, but the defeat of the more violent and vicious
ideologies--Nazism after 1945 and Communism after 1989--left the
passion for social perfection as vibrant as ever. Activist
intellectuals still seek to "see through" the life we lead. The
positive goals of utopia may for the moment have faded, but the
ideological hatred of modernity has remained, and much of our
intellectual life has degenerated into a muddled and dogmatic
skepticism. For Minogue, the complex task of "demystifying" the
"demystifiers" requires that we should discover how ideology works.
It must join together each of its complex strands of thought in
order to understand the remarkable power of the whole.
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