a. Ideology to me is beliefs and ideas that create and mold individuals. These beliefs and ideas play a big part in how they see the world around them. Their political views, their economic views, social issues and how they believe things should be resolved or ran. There are different political parties that have their own different thoughts on how governments should go about issues and how much they should be a part of worldly problems. The ideas and beliefs that people have help them understand the world around them and influence their behavior.
b. Ideology has a lot to do with how the government goes about different issues. Some examples being like I mentioned, socialism for one. Socialist ideology contains collective ownership, strong state control, prioritizing the working class, and aiming for equality. Socialists advocate for a more democratic government.
c. I understand ideology is broken up into different political parties. There’re many different ones. Liberal, conservative, liberation, socialist, anarchist, etc. One’s ideology depends on their values and core principles, their belief on how society should be, their beliefs on social relationships/humans and their beliefs on their government. There are many different political views and different social values. A lot of the influences on someone’s ideology is family, education, social groups, gender, religion.
Conservatives believe that a large government poses a threat. On the other hand, liberals believe that the government can solve a lot of problems. A main issue being taxes. Liberals believe that the rich need to be taxed more. Conservatives believe that the government should be involved as little as possible. One example of this is abortions. Conservatives are against abortions and feel as though the government should not be funding them. Conservatives favor minimal regulations. They also believe in the equality of opportunity in general, while liberals emphasize equality of outcome and highlight historical inequalities.
Althusser’s definition of ideology is that if you are not self-conscious then you will reply on ideology. Althusser believes that someone’s ideology depends on how they were taught to live. He believed ideology is internalized by everyone. Politics give us a choice and make us feel like we have some say. Everything is really just an illusion, and we aren’t really getting a fair opportunity or chance to actually be involved enough in political decisions like who’s running for president. We only have the opportunity to vote between who is already picked out for us. But people are content with this illusion, and it makes them feel like they a voice through this process. Usually, people aren’t thinking enough about the inequality. Althusser also highlights how school highlights discipline. You’re taught to do things a very specific way and if you don’t cooperate correctly then there’s consequences. We either accept and comply or face what comes with not have a real choice.
