Dialogue on Ideology Anyone?

Re: Dialogue on Ideology Anyone?


That surprises me. My impression has been the reverse... it seems to me that universities are now being criticized for spending too much time exposing ideologies and agendas. This is partly why academia is being increasingly criticized as a bastion of Leftism and being hostile to conservative points of view. Of course this accusation is hotly contested. Here are a few links from boths sides of the debate:

http://chronicle.com/free/v51/i05/05a00801.htm

http://www.aaup.org/Issues/ABOR/Articles/Academiaundersiege.htm

http://www.peterlevine.ws/mt/archives/000568.html

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/04/11/liberal_bias_in_the_ivory_tower/


Some weeks ago the NY Times ran an article about a Christian "retreat group" in Colorado which offers a week-long seminar for high school graduates about to leave for college. The seminar is apparently aimed at intellectually equipping Christian students with the tools needed to resist what the group perceives as academia's secular bias.

I have a web page of a college course wherein we have a complete course outlined and detailed in ideology and discourse. I think this would be something worth studying for ideas about this matter we wish to discuss.

http://www.discourse-in-society.org/ideo-dis2.htm

Summary
What is ideology? We all use the notion of ideology very often, and so do newspapers and politicians. Most of the time, we do not use it in a very positive sense. We may speak of the ideologies of communism, or neo-liberalism, pacifism or consumerism, and many other -isms, but seldom qualify our own ideas as an "ideology". But what are ideologies exactly?
Ideology in cognition, society and discourse
In this course, a multidisciplinary introduction to the notion of "ideology" is presented --involving cognitive and social psychology, sociology and discourse analysis. The cognitive definition of ideology is given in terms of the social cognitions that are shared by the members of a group. The social dimension explains what kind of groups, relations between groups and institutions are involved in the development and reproduction of ideologies. The discourse dimension of ideologies explains how ideologies influence our daily texts and talk, how we understand ideological discourse, and how discourse is involved in the reproduction of ideology in society.
Racism
Racism is one of the major problems of contemporary European societies. To illustrate the theoretical discussion, we shall therefore specifically pay attention throughout the course to the example of racist ideology and how it is expressed by discourse.
Discourse Structures
Discourse plays a fundamental role in the daily expression and reproduction of ideologies. This course therefore pays special attention to the ways ideologies influence the various levels of discourse structures, from intonation, syntax and images to the many aspects of meaning, such as topics, coherence, presuppositions, metaphors and argumentation, among many more.
________________________________________

Aims
At the end of this course you must be able to:
1. Give an overall definition of ideolog
2. Explain what cognitive aspects an ideology has
3. Explain what social aspects an ideology has
4. Define what racism is
5. Make a systematic ideological analysis of a discourse
6. Analyze more specifically the racist ideology expressed in a discourse
________________________________________
Contents
1. Defining ideology
2. Ideology as Social Cognition
2.1.The structure of ideologies
2.2 From ideology to discourse and vice versa
2.3.Mental Models
2.4.From Mental Models to Discourse
2.5.Context Models
3. Ideologies in Society
4. Racism
5. Ideological Discourse Structures
5.1. Meaning
5.2. Propositional structures
5.3. Formal structures
5.4. Sentence syntax
5.5. Discourse forms
5.6. Argumentation
5.7. Rhetoric
5.8. Action and interaction
6. Examples
7. Conclusion

Sounds very thought-provoking. My experience with ideology in academia has tended to be from the perspective of the arts. Much of what I do involves studying the ideologies that inform the creation of and (more importantly, in my opinion) the reception of art.

Of course, the more difficult and interesting question is what to do once you've "found" an ideology. Having acquired the mental tools to see ideology for what it is, are there ways we should use this information?

Shapless

One need not be a Sherlock to find an ideology. We are swamped with ideological propaganda 24/7.
The best thing we can do with the ideologies in our life is to understand them and especially those that we love the most. The greatest enemy is probably those ideologies we embrace as our own. When we learn to place those in proper perspective I think we can easily remain free of foolishness from the others.