WHATEVER happened to the Community Charge? Our choice now seems to lie between a government determined to introduce a poll tax and an opposition half-heartedly resisting it. The difference between them rests on political-ideological rather than economic grounds; many supporters of the government know the new tax will cost them more than their rates and… read more »
Since 1945 no major power has used warfare to subjugate another; tensions which in the past would have led to a head-on collision have been kept under control. The change has been ascribed to the presence of nuclear weaponry, raising the stakes to an unacceptable level, and that is doubtless a factor, but we cannot… read more »
In several issues of IC we have quoted passages, expressing observations and insights forming part of s.i., by writers who were unaware of the theory. Now we can add Shakespeare to the list. The hunter-gatherers, and the non-political people (the expedient or protostatic group) in our own society, largely confine their area of moral responsibility… read more »
We have commented before on the way themes of s.i. appear in the writings of people who had not heard of it. In IC29 we gave a quotation from Cardinal Newman that brought out neatly some of the distinctions between the ideologies of expedience and of domination. The following quotation comes from “Conflicting Theories of… read more »
It does seem to me that the “old” series of terms for the major ideologies – “protostatic,” “parastatic” and so on – has one big advantage: just because they are so outlandish they force people to stop and think. This is something I noticed also in the context of what Ron Hubbard’s critics used to… read more »
In IC30 we quoted Walsby’s mention of the response – it can almost be called a mechanism – that tends to maintain conformity among the great bulk of the people in a state. He said: If… there arises a comparatively strong, critical faction… which threatens the group with dissension and disruption, the mass suggestion will increase… read more »
ETHOS AND EIDOS Since its origination by Harold Walsby systematic ideology has concentrated upon the assumptions and identifications which go to constitute ideologies. Insisting that each ideology is a whole, its form as well as its content significant (in the Foreword to the Domain of Ideologies Walsby presents this insistence upon form as a distinguishing… 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 »
We don’t always realise how widespread is the concern with the problems and relationships tackled by s.i. One sometimes feels that, at least for the earlier ideologies in the series, it has all been said, and well said; all we need do is to assemble the pieces. Here we turn to Loss and Gain a… read more »
The feminist movement is losing impetus. In a long and thoughtful article in FORUM (an American journal, privately circulated) for December 1985 Riane Eisler and David Loye ascribe this to a dividedness in its ideology. Only in their manifest ideology, they say, are the feminists opposed to domination of the female by the male; deeper… read more »