Ideologies play a significant role in a historical account cause history captures the past, present, and future. The past and the present shape the presentation of history about the future. Through the understanding of the past and the present, a historian presents their view on the future. The ideological elements, however, play their important role in the historical account to commingle all those aspects.
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An example will illustrate this point: in the 4th and 5th centuries BC, a citizen of Athens, named Thucydides, wrote about the Peloponnesian War, which was fought between Athens and Sparta. Athens was a democratic state and passed through democratic advances, maritime extensions, and naval power. On the contrary, Sparta was under oligarchic rule and extremely conservative in its attitude to economic activity and social plans. And Thucydides, though an Athenian, was anti-democratic and did not favor changes in Athens.
In several places of the Peloponnesian War, he made descriptions and comments which betrayed his oligarchic sympathies. Also, as per his plan, the event ended with the defeat of Athens in 404 BC, though the actual course of the events moved in different directions. His presentation of history was influenced by his ideology of the status quo in the social order.
Meaning of Ideology
An ideology can be defined as a set of views, beliefs, and ideas. Such ideas are likely to differ from one class to another, reflecting separate class interests. An ideology of a class tends to justify particular interests. The word ‘ideology’ was first used in France by nationalist philosophers as the philosophy of the human mind. In English, the word ‘ideology’ means the science of ideas.
The term ideology has been used in two different senses in the evolution of human thought about history and society. First, it is a set of ideas belonging to any particular society. Such ideas are likely to differ from one class to another, reflecting separate class interests, and this is how ideology became ‘bourgeois’ or ‘proletarian’. The other usage of the term ideology is pejorative – a delusion born of false observation and inference. Napoleon’s criticism of ideologies of popular sovereignty comes under this category.
In their early writings, Marx and Engels used the term ideology in this sense while criticizing the mode and content of Hegelian idealism. Marx criticized the Hegelian philosophers of the state and the right. While criticizing Hegel’s view that God created man, Marx said religion is the sigh of the oppressed creatures, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of the soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
Capitalism abounds in contradictions and brings severe distress to the exploited. Marx has taken account of an entire cultural complex and its manifold dimensions. Lenin also, while using the term ‘ideology’, focused on the capitalist and the labour class. In this way, the ideology came into existence and it was given importance in the social system and gradually helped in understanding different aspects of society, religion, art, culture, philosophy, and politics.