Reading through Terry Eagleton’s article this week, I felt both extremely frustrated and simultaneously fulfilled. Often when I read of ideology, most often in history books (let’s admit historians in grad school have little time for much else), I am stricken by the complexity of the concepts and the layers of discourse that often exaggerated ideals intersect. However, time after time I find myself frustrated with the author’s inability to grasp the concept that just because some people may have agreed or articulated certain points of view that it does not make the conceptualization universal. I have, I must admit, found myself yelling at history programs on television for example that oversimplify such things as the Ideology of the Mexican Revolution, or the racial understandings at play in US slavery. I find that many scholars and television producers seem to think that if they disuse their confusion around the very concept of ideology and hide the extreme variety of individual and group opinions that viewers/readers will be happier and they can sell more commercial space with the extra time it would have taken to discuss alternative realities.
The most rewarding contribution of Engleton’s work, besides saving me from having to curse angrily at the television (Now I can say, WHY HAVN’T YOU READ TERRY EAGLETON ALREADY!), is that he allows us to wrap our minds around the fact that two, three, let’s just say many, ideologies can co-exist within a desired space and can contradict and support each other at the same time. As scholars it is our job to make sense of the many layers of a situation rather than try and fit all the square pieces into a round globe. While we will inevitably be asked to bring focus to our work (most likely by a dissertation adviser or committee) we do not have to be guilty for thinking there is more to ideology than meets the eye.
- Sarah Howard
For those interested: Marx and Ideology… A dry but interesting short lecture on Ideology by Ron Strickland (Professor at Illinois State)
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