We are often asked: “What determines a person’s ideology?” The established answer (so far as anything about systematic ideology is established at all) has been that so far as each individual person was concerned it was a matter of chance. The relative size of the different ideological groups are determinate, but it is a matter… read more »
The intellectuals of the left commonly take it for granted that an authoritarian social system must have been established against the will of the general body of the people. The overwhelming evidence, that the general body of the people (which includes most of the poor) find such systems to be well within their range of… read more »
In one’s more optimistic moments it is tempting to think that the “ban-the-bomb” movement, the resistance in America against the Vietnam war, and the widely expressed opposition to war indicate the growth of a substantial and determined movement for peace, a movement that will prove an effective barrier against war. But if one is to… read more »
Exact science is able to be exact only by excluding inexactitude. In Euclidean geometry (paradigmatic of exact science) a proposition will begin: “Let ABC be a triangle… ” This establishes that what follows relates only to figures which are, exactly and without qualifications, triangles, figures bounded each of them by three lines (possessing length but… read more »
I have said and written a good deal about Harold Walsby’s theories and have always set myself as it were on his side, accepting what he said and trying to take it farther. But there is one paper he issued which I am not able to accept; his diagram entitled “Attitude to Paradox,” which appears… read more »
This is intended to be the first of a series of articles (it will probably not be a regular series) speculating on the future development of systematic ideology, its future development not just as a theory but as a body of opinion, in relation to society at large. The main features of the theory, so… read more »
Everybody who tries to introduce new ideas has to face the problem of terminology. It is sometimes solved by inventing new words, but to go far in that direction is to isolate oneself. Another method is to use standard words in a specialised sense. Thus “atom,” an established term meaning a body incapable of further… read more »
After generations of effort the Left are no closer to their long-term objectives. The free society – communism, socialism, anarchism – is as far away as it ever was. To say this is to be told: “Yes, this may be so; but the fact, that socialism (or communism, or anarchism) has not yet been established… read more »
Ideology affects all our volitional behaviour, but there are large areas of volitional activity, occupying much of the attention of a great many people, to which ideological theory has hardly been applied at all. One of these is religion. To treat this very extensive and difficult subject with any great depth will be a massive… read more »
If we consider the ideologies studies in s.i., in terms of what they are actually doing, we can look at them also in ways which will enable us to give them action definitions, which relate them dynamically, and will perhaps help us more easily to predict their results. Thus, let us start with the protostatic,… read more »