In “What is Reality” it was briefly discussed that reality is the sum of one’s actual perception and hence reality itself takes on various meanings depending on the individual. With this in mind let us now consider the nature of Ideology.

Well, firstly Ideology is a set of ideals that are held from within the human context. It is a concept highly subjective in nature as it centers around the human context. As previously discussed, an individual’s perception of reality can vary greatly from that of another, like a spotlight illuminating the surface of a ball. Likewise it also follows that even individuals with a pseudo-identical perspective would possess a different developmental history, different experiences, hence also different interpretive processes to other individuals.

In other words two individuals can perceive the same reality from similar standpoints and yet come up with differing ideals. And ideals are little more than the human extrapolation of that which is real into that which an individual would personally consider to be ideal - as per that person’s applied parameters of quality.

Therefore if reality could be simplified to being ‘that which is’ then ideology could likewise be simplified to ‘that which (positively) could be’. This is why reality and ideology are ultimately related within at least the human context.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 29th, 2007 at 8:43 pm and is filed under A matter of perspective. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.