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Winner, 2015 George Walford International Essay Prize. INTRODUCTION The first time I heard about Systematic Ideology, I could make sense off the term ideology yet the term systematic was not clear to me at all. The systematic in Systematic Ideology, however, is the most crucial part about the theory and the one differentiating it from… read more »
Few of us have any better grounds for believing in germs than for believing in witches. – Professor Gordon Childe. IN the relationship between science and daily life two distinct and complementary tendencies can be observed. On the one hand the products of science are coming into an increasingly intimate relationship with our everyday activities…. read more »
Under this head IC presents instances of the political divisiveness displayed by the eidodynamic movements; most of these come from the movements themselves. When possible we also offer, for contrast, examples of the emphasis on party loyalty, faith in the leader and ‘don’t rock the boat’ of the eidostatics. (Co-operation being less newsworthy than conflict,… read more »
From the French Revolution Forward society seemed to be growing more open, more secular, more rational. Education and literacy spread, free thought and even outright atheism became socially acceptable, democracy largely replaced monarchy, and a prospect of socialism, communism, even anarchy, opened in the distance. The Great War revealed other possibilities, but that got dismissed… read more »
Harold Walsby (originator of systematic ideology) once spoke of Hegel as the supreme anarchist. At the time I would have said that an anarchist was the one thing Hegel was most emphatically not, but the conversation moved on and I never did ask Walsby what he had meant. For many years the remark has been… read more »
Social science has had a bad press. The wits use it as a target: ‘Forgive me Father, for I have committed sociology’; ‘It may not be dead, but the reports of its birth have been very much exaggerated.’ Ted Lewellen calls political anthropology ‘a potpourri of unrelated theories and ethnographic analyses’ [1] John Gray declares… read more »
DO YOU BELIEVE IN LIFE AFTER WORK? While other things change work persists, grinning at us every Monday morning. Those who have it grumble; those without it want it. We even hear of a right to it. Unlimited education and medical care for everybody, a big detached house, a Rolls and a luxury yacht for… read more »
Political movements vary in many ways but all of them, when in power, promote freedom. To meet the inevitable protest head-on: Nazism promoted freedom of action for anti-Semitism. To demand merely freedom, unspecified, is like asking for more without saying of what. For the demand to be capable of realisation we have to specify which… 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 »