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George Walford: Meet Systematic Ideology

June 28, 2021

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 »

George Walford: Ideological Notes

September 3, 2012

SECURING THE BASE Social development renders the earlier ideologies not less but more secure as, with each further advance, the successors who arose in opposition to them undergo division. Expedience became more secure against any threat from Principle with the emergence of Precision. This brought liberalism, drawing into the new movement (which emphasises the rights… read more »

George Walford: Red and Black

September 3, 2012

Having failed to elicit the expected support from the workers, the left now show an increasing tendency to turn to minority ethnic groups, in America especially the blacks. This appeal has met with no better response than the first; in a recent Washington Post survey some 35% of blacks described themselves as “conservative” or “very… read more »

George Walford: Seeing Things as We Really Are

September 3, 2012

Over recent decades ideology has grown more respectable but it still gets valued below science, an activity commonly seen as the impartial and disinterested pursuit of objective knowledge. Alan Gross has studied the way in which scientists present their results, and in The Rhetoric of Science [1] he comes up with a picture differing radically… read more »

George Walford: Ideology in the Reviews (53)

September 3, 2012

Systematic ideology presents political movements as expressions of stages in ideological development. In establishing this view it criticises the Marxist view that they arise, fundamentally, from class interest. Daniel Bell reviews Arpad Kadarkay’s George Lukacs: life, thought and politics. [1] Lukacs ranked with Gramsci and Marcuse as a major figure in Western Marxism. His father,… read more »

George Walford: The Price of Precision

September 6, 2012

Exact science is able to be exact only by excluding inexactitude. In Euclidean geometry (paradigmatic of exact science) a proposition will begin: “Let ABC be a triangle… ” This establishes that what follows relates only to figures which are, exactly and without qualifications, triangles, figures bounded each of them by three lines (possessing length but… read more »

George Walford: The Problem of Solutions

August 21, 2014

IC has received a paper announcing the establishment of Problems Researching Exchange (PRE). The aim of this project is “to provide a point of contact and focus for institutions, groups and individuals concerned with human problems and their solution” (If you would like to make contact, a note sent to IC will be forwarded). PRE… read more »

George Walford: Distinction

September 9, 2012

James Lovelock helps us to grasp the distinction between the two ideologies of Precision and Principle. He points out that the accuracy of predictions derived from them provides the best test of scientific hypotheses (Precision), while facts in law (Principle) are tested in debate between adversaries and established by judgment. He goes on to note… read more »

Julia Stapleton: Review of Beyond Politics

September 10, 2012

Review by Julia Stapleton from Durham University Journal (July). Reprinted by permission of the Journal and the reviewer. – GW. The emergence of this book suggests that grand narrative in the human sciences lives on, despite the attempts of postmodernists to sign its death warrant. For Walford contends that ideology forms part of an evolutionary… read more »

Martin Stuart-Fox: Review of Beyond Politics

August 21, 2014

This review first appeared in The Australian Journal of Politics and History Volume 39 Number 2, October 1993. Systematic ideology is not a well known body of theory. In fact it is largely due to two men. Harold Walsby and George Walford. The work under review is an elaboration and refinement of earlier studies: Walsby’s… read more »