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Psychology of Ideology |
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| Posted by: | Richard Koenigsberg, Ph.D. |
| Title/Position: | Director |
| School/Organization: | Library of Social Science |
| Sent to listserv of: | SPSP, SESP, SPSSI |
| Date posted: | July 12th, 2005 |
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"Contemporary social theory suggests that mind and thought are the result of the 'discourses that push and pull us'. However, the question remains: Who has created societal discourses and why do they exist? Why have particular ideas been "selected out" (from among the multitude of ideas that people have put forth) to become elements of culture? Why are specific beliefs embraced and perpetuated, and not others? Why do certain ideologies evoke such passion? In order to answer these questions, it is necessary to articulate the meaning of culturally constituted ideas, to delineate the psychic work that these ideas perform for the people who embrace them."
Richard Koenigsberg
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WHY DO IDEOLOGIES EXIST:
The Psychological Function of Culture
Contemporary social theory does not address the question of the reasons why particular ideologies exist. People write about "dominant discourses," but the question is why particular discourses become dominant. To answer the question of why particular ideas are embraced and perpetuated, I suggest a psychological approach. What does the ideology do for the people who embrace it? What role does this ideology play in the psychic life of its adherents?
Culture is not a domain separate from human beings. Ideologies exist to the extent that people produce, espouse and perpetuate them. Ideologies are created by human beings for human beings. Ideologies perform psychic work, functioning to allow people to encounter, work through and attempt to master fundamental desires, fantasies, conflicts and existential dilemmas.
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The complete paper by Richard A. Koenigsberg is available for the first time as an on-line publication.
To read: WHY DO IDEOLOGIES EXIST: The Psychological Function of Culture
PLEASE visit:
http://home.earthlink.net/~libraryofsocialscience/ideologies.htm
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How are we to explain the nature and shape of the entire panoply of ideas, material objects and social arrangements that we call culture? What inhibits us from posing the question: Why do specific ideologies and societal discourses exist?
When people examine cultural forms such as musical symphonies, light-bulbs or air-conditioners, it is not difficult to acknowledge that human beings are the source; to say that these inventions represent a response to our desires and fantasies; that they exist to the extent that they fulfill human needs. We do not hesitate to conclude that symphonies, light-bulbs and air-conditioners exist and are perpetuated as elements of culture because they provide physical and psychological gratification.
It is more difficult for people to say that cultural inventions such as war and genocide exist because they provide psychological gratification. We shy away from the idea that ideologies of war and genocide represent the fulfillment of human desires and fantasies. We prefer to imagine that war and genocide come from a place outside the self. We would rather understand war and genocide from the perspective of the political situations out of which events grow; or to declare that what occurs is generated by "historical forces."
I theorize that war and genocide--like symphonies, light-bulbs and air-conditioners--exist because they represent the fulfillment of psychological needs. Why do ideologies of war and genocide exist? Why have they been perpetuated as elements of culture? Because--like symphonies, light-bulbs and air-conditioners--they are responsive to and serve to articulate human desires, anxieties and fantasies.
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