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Theory vs. Ideology
What is ideology?
Ideology is a belief system that supports and promotes personal or a group's social or religious agenda. In some cases its nature will be obvious to most people, but in other cases an ideology will be disguised as scientific fact based on nonexistent or reinterpreted empirical evidence. Ideologies are invariably supported by personally- or collectively-held religious or political beliefs, rather than extant empirical evidence or objective observation. Concepts within the ideology are typically framed in a black and white manner, such as right vs. wrong, just vs. unjust, and Evil Empire vs. God's Country. The use of such terminology has the effect of erasing the inherent complexity common to most social issues. From the perspective of a social scientist the most important characteristic is that ideologies are refractory to scientific inquiry and may go so far as to attack opposing beliefs to preserve its existence. Another self-protective strategy often used is circular reasoning. For example, creationism is an ideology because it is almost always presented as fact by its proponents, but is inherently un-testable...
Ideologies are used to promote a religious or political agenda, whereas a scientific theory is formulated to provide an intellectual framework for conducting scientific research. In other words, the former discourages thoughtful questioning, sometimes through violent means, while the latter encourages it.
There are a number of safeguards that protect theories from wandering across the line into ideology that help distinguish theories from ideologies. These include stating the theory in a manner that is inherently testable through empirical means, being open to revision and reinterpretation when confronted with conflicting empirical evidence, and the strength and scope of the theory's acceptance depends on independent, redundant empirical confirmation. In other words, how widely a theory becomes accepted depends on whether other researchers are able to replicate a…
Bibliography
Cusac, Anne-Marie (2009). Cruel and Unusual: The Culture of Punishment in America. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Ideology in the News Ideology vs. Discourse on Affirmative Action The fact that ideology is first based on society and politics in today's media is fairly easy to understand. The role of the journalist is to suspend their viewpoint and remain autonomous in constructing the angle offered by the story. Though most media news outlets newspapers, journals, magazines and such claim that the viewpoint of the journalist reporting is unbiased, this will
In this paper, he discusses the role of culturel in relation to the present age of "barbarism." He makes the important statement that in the age that has produces barbaric events such as Auschwitz, cultural activities such as the writing of poetry are no longer possible. By this he implies that the age that produces barbaric events can no longer act as if their cultural products or creations are
Finally, logic consists of the study of formal argument and is fundamentally related to other branches of philosophy and to the process of human reason, more generally. The metaphysician might study such things as where the lines are properly drawn between identifying something as living or nonliving, whether our perception of being alive necessarily means that we are alive, and whether or not we can trust that we are awake
Louis Althusser (1918-90) was one of the foremost Marxist theorists in the Western world, and advocated an especially orthodox version of Marxism that was always close to the Communist Party line. He regarded Bertolt Brecht as one of the great Marxist-revolutionary playwrights of the 20th Century, who used the theater to oppose the capitalist system and bourgeois ideology. In the 2ns section, the paper will examine how Althusser insisted on
I often worry that my partner doesn't really love me or won't want to stay with me. I want to get very close to my partner, and this sometimes scares people away. (Fraley, 2004) Fraley relates that it was found in the study of Hazan and Shaver "...based on this three-category measure...that the distribution of categories was similar to that observed in infancy. In other words, about 60% of adults
While there are clearly circumstances where the civil society sector is at odds with the state, there are at least as many where the relationship is one of interdependence and mutual support…. The state has thus emerged in the modern era not as a displacer of nonprofit activity but as perhaps the major philanthropist… (Salamon & Anheier 1997, p. 63-64). Evidence Calprig is an independent statewide student organization that works on issues