Some thoughts about philosophy, ideology and religion /part 3/

It is opium - it is not dogma.

It is not difficult to notice that Marx inserts the religious term fetish not only in the sphere of religion but also into social and economic relations. But not only is this essential. The most important thing, in my view, is that in marking the functional significance of these three fetishes in this plan, Marx with a genius insight points to the problem of alienation. One central problem, which today in our post-industrial reality is connected with the deepest and most crucial corrosion, both for the individual person and for society as a whole.

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Secondly, there are some non-criticism, discipline, and critico-rationalist formulations that define ideology as a science opposing power, as a myth or, respectively, as a hermaphrodite formation of myth and science. In this series are the concepts of G. Sorel, V. Pareto and partly of T. Adorno. The craze of a scholarly model excludes religion in the explanation of the picture of the world. Third, the views of ideologies as value-based open systems of action against the world. These are the ideologies of Western democracy. They are built to a large extent on the basis of philosophical pragmatism and of the rational non-gymatic scientific socio-economic prognosis. In this case, the famous Carl Mannheim can be mentioned. In such a functional model, religion justifies its place as a component, stabilizing morality and contributing to more effective communication in a participatory society.

Special contribution to the critique of ideology has Marx Weber with his postulate on science-free science. Postulate, which builds on the elementary difference between fact finding and value evaluation. His research has shown that traditional worldviews combine both information, interpretations and evaluations. This makes the norms even more clear, and it is no longer possible - for example, from an everlasting world law - to derive universally significant norms of social behavior. Regulation of the individual. The next problematic complex is related to the structures of the ideological way of thinking. What does their analysis mean from a genoese, linguistic and partly socio-psychological point of view? The first structural feature of the ideological way of thinking is the dichotomous scheme of interpretation or the bipolar world interpretation. Man is inclined to simplify complex phenomena from the outside world. It responds to the various environmental stimuli with relatively simple specimens and variants. This reduction in the complexity of the world is also one of the main preconditions for its activity.

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part 1

part 2