We have distinguished three main stages of social development (four if one reckons the presence of the eidodynamics as constituting a distinct stage), each of them marked by the emergence of an ideological influence not previously active. We cannot precisely locate the first appearance of these influences and probably never shall be able to do… read more »
Ideological Commentary was published by George Walford between 1979 and 1994, and was devoted to the study of systematic ideology. It was published in London, England and was ISSN 10960-8761. It was the third such effort, preceded by the Social Science Association (circa 1940 – 1953) and the Walsby Society (1953 – 1979) and followed… read more »
Pipes R. 1990 The Russian Revolution 1899-1919 London: Collins Harvill. Final judgments about Soviet Russia will remain premature until the authorities there have fully opened their archives and scholars had time to study them, but Richard Pipes does not try to hide his opinions. He sees Lenin as a brutal coward who urged his followers… read more »
George Walford published (and often revised) this introduction to systematic ideology in each issue of Ideological Commentary from January 1985 to August 1994. This revision of August 1993, published June 1994, is his final version. – Trevor Blake Ideological Commentary announces itself as a journal of systematic ideology (s.i.), but it does not claim final… read more »
ON MAX STIRNER Sir, Apropos your reply to the letter from Bob Black regarding Stirner. What you seem to me to be saying is that if someone tells you he has a ‘commitment to truth’ you will take any statement he makes as ‘true,’ whereas if someone says he has no such ‘commitment’ you will… read more »
I The diagram known as the ideological pyramid, now appearing in each issue of IC, offers only a crude graphical memnonic for an immensely complex developmental process. Serious understanding of this has to start from a grasp of its beginnings, and here we look at a feature prominent in the first, expedient, stage of ideological… read more »
Systematic ideology points to regularities in political behaviour, one of the more important being that as hostility towards existing society increases, so numbers diminish. At one end of the range, acceptance of existing conditions displayed by thousands of millions. At the other, direct opposition to society as it is, manifested by numbers that approach vanishing… read more »
IC 57 invited readers to send in new titles for IC. The limited response suggests that few find the present one bad enough to justify a search for alternatives and nobody, we are glad to say, proposed SISYPHUS. ENGLISH Heritage, managing Hampstead Heath, have one excellent arrangement: small railed-off areas in which dogs can attend… read more »
Attendance at lecture-and-discussion meetings of this party often turns out less of a penance than might have been expected. Sometimes a plodding repetition of the same narrow arguments reveals unimagined vistas of boredom, but other speakers display a wit, and rhetorical ability, that turn the occasion into entertainment; one of them used to define truth… read more »
Sir, I was at the Anarchist Forum on the 4th June to hear George Walford speak on From Anarchism to Ideology. It was a stimulating and well-delivered talk and I’d like to thank him again for presenting it. I find it difficult to make immediate, off-the-cuff criticisms or observations so excuse me if I take… read more »
By positing the ideological pyramid systematic ideology raises an apparent difficulty for itself: If only the tiny minority towards the peak can be expected to appreciate the importance of s. i., how can this theory ever exercise any general influence? Physical science offers an illuminating parallel; few of us know much about it, yet it… read more »
WILL THE WORKING CLASS SUPPORT THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN? A Written Debate Between George Walford (Editor of Ideological Commentary) and The Socialist Party of Great Britain Introducing the Participants Opening Statement by George Walford Reply by the Socialist Party of Great Britain Answer to the Reply by George Walford Note by George Walford… read more »
Harold Walsby circa 1973 I met George (GW) in 1976 when he gave a talk to another organisation, now defunct. I liked what he had to say and engaged him in private conversation at the end. When the meeting closed completely he took me away in a car to his shop in Upper Street, Islington,… read more »
A paper delivered at the Second International Conference on Ideology, Bureaucracy and Human Survival, New York. This paper draws attention to the theory formulated by Harold Walsby, an early student of ideology whose results have been almost completely overlooked. Walsby was working on ideology from 1937 until 1947, when he published a book entitled The… read more »
reprinted from Dumpster Times. Would it surprise you to know that someone is paying attention to the anarchist movement? George Walford, editor and publisher of ldeological Commentary, an independent quarterly of systematic ideology, has put together a collection of his essays which I thoroughly commend as both thought-provoking and essential anarchist reading. Walford is not… read more »
A constant theme of the intellectuals is that people generally are becoming less inclined to accept what they are told by authorities and traditionalists, more inclined to guide their behaviour by their own critical thinking. Against this, systematic ideology draws attention to the weight of evidence showing that the mental attitude favoured by the intellectuals… read more »
Systematic ideology indicates that the ideological structure of a developed society resembles a stepped pyramid, the larger numbers of people on the lower levels and the more sophisticated ideologies toward the top. This being so, one would expect to find the same structure appearing in party politics, with numbers diminishing as one moved from the… read more »
Adherents of the eidodynamic ideologies tend to maintain that society as a whole is coming to accept their own assumptions, growing increasingly peaceful and egalitarian. Support for the view can be found, but only by careful selection, by ignoring the mass of evidence pointing in the contrary direction. When a broader scope or a longer… read more »
Winner, 2012 George Walford International Essay Prize. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION 2 A BRIEF SURVEY OF THE THEORY OF SYSTEMIC IDEOLOGY 2.1 Assumption, Identification, and Behavior 2.2 Inverse Characteristics of the Major Ideologies 2.3 A Brief Description of the Walsbeian Ideology Levels 2.3.1 Protostatic Ideology or “Expediency” 2.3.2 Epistatic Ideology or “Principle” 2.3.3 Parastatic… read more »
In the Domain of Ideologies Walsby speaks of a process by which the conformity of the great majority of members of a large group, such as a nation, is ensured: “If… there arises a comparatively strong, critical faction… which threatens the group with dissension and disruption, the mass suggestion will increase in strength, volume, intensity… read more »
SUBSCRIPTIONS Contrary as usual, IC reduces its subscription charges. Beginning with this number a subscription for one year (six issues) will cost £2 including postage. Subscriptions outstanding at the old rate will be extended to compensate. (No subsidy yet from the CIA, let alone MI5 or MI6, but we keep hoping.) WHY ANARCHISM? When correspondents… read more »
Robert Michels’ book, Political Parties, a sociological study of the oligarchical tendencies of modern democracy [1], first appeared in 1911, and quickly became famous [2]. The English translation has been available since 1915 (there were also Italian, German, French and Japanese versions) and in those seventy-five years nobody, so far as I have been able… read more »
Winner, 2014 George Walford International Essay Prize. 1. Introduction “Perhaps,” begins an essay by George Walford, “we should pay more attention to science fiction.” [1] He proceeds to analyze the novel Soldier, Ask Not by Phillip K. Dick. In Dick’s novel, the evolution of the human race causes it to split onto different planets, the… read more »
The major ideologies, outlined on the facing page, have developed through history. Each of them provides the conditions which permit the next one to emerge, and each of them has fewer people attached to it than the one before. The diagram below indicates the outcome, the ideological structure of contemporary society, but the model needs… read more »
Continued from IC54. Under this title IC54 pointed out that although Buddhism, Christianity and Marxism each had its origins in the idiosyncratic vision of a powerful personality, as they have grown to exercise social influence, becoming established and institutionalised, each of them has departed from the intentions of its founder, coming under determination by one… read more »
The major ideologies, outlined on the facing page, have developed through history. Each of them provides the conditions which permit the next one to emerge, and each of them has fewer people attached to it than the one before. The diagram below indicates the outcome, the ideological structure of contemporary society, but the model needs… read more »
In recent decades physical science has declined from the position it once held. Its connections with pollution and weaponry have lowered its prestige, its representatives are less welcome to pontificate, and even the literary genre still known as science fiction has turned towards occult fantasy. Neither the profession nor its supporters have retreated willingly, and… read more »
The major ideologies have emerged in sequence, each of them more highly developed, and having fewer people identified with it, than the previous one. Each of them has persisted to support the next, giving the ideological pyramid. An inverse ratio obtains, between the level of ideological development and the number of people attaining it. The… read more »
IC56 bore on its cover a stepped pyramid, IC57 a straight-sided one; the change indicates recovery, if not from an error then at least from an imbalance. It also illustrates the importance, when theorising, of striving to formulate assumptions, bringing them out where they can be seen and criticized. The stepped pyramid suggests that each… read more »
The major ideologies, outlined on the facing page, have developed through history. Each of them provides the conditions which permit the next one to emerge, and each of them has fewer people attached to it than the one before. The diagram below indicates the outcome, the ideological structure of contemporary society, but the model needs… read more »
The major ideologies, outlined on the facing page, have developed through history. Each of them provides the conditions which permit the next one to emerge, and each of them has fewer people attached to it than the one before. The diagram below indicates the outcome, the ideological structure of contemporary society, but the model needs… read more »
The major ideologies, outlined on the facing page, have developed through history. Each of them provides the conditions which permit the next one to emerge, and each of them has fewer people attached to it than the one before. The diagram below indicates the outcome, the ideological structure of contemporary society, but the model needs… read more »
The major ideologies, outlined on the facing page, have developed through history. Each of them provides the conditions which permit the next one to emerge, and each of them has fewer people attached to it than the one before. The diagram below indicates the outcome, the ideological structure of contemporary society, but the model needs… read more »
The major ideologies, outlined on the facing page, have developed through history. Each of them provides the conditions which permit the next one to emerge, and each of them has fewer people attached to it than the one before. The diagram below indicates the outcome, the ideological structure of contemporary society, but the model needs… read more »
The Inquisition destroyed the bodies of its victims (or had the secular authorities do so) for the good of their souls. For its first cenury or so, while still enthusiastic (and still feeling itself insecure) the Anglican Church followed suit. Later it stopped going to such extremes, but it long set the spiritual above the… read more »
Joshua Feldman: Reconceptualising (systematic) ideology in the wake of political psychology: Positivism, classical conditioning and the Tree of Knowledge (ToK) System Winner, 2016 George Walford International Essay Prize. For man’s intellect, though it has mastered a great deal of the universe which is its environment, has not mastered itself… Hence the need for systematised knowledge… read more »
Winner, 2021 George Walford International Essay Prize. Introduction ‘When we consider humanity in its context we see the concrete outcome of evolution to be the whole system of being, from inorganic matter to sophisticated society, and this can usefully be envisaged as a stepped pyramid, with each level resting upon the one below and each… read more »