the ideological connection: or, smuggling in the goods, part ii
TRANSCRIPT
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T H E I D E O L O G I C A L C O N N E C T I O N
Or, Smuggling in the Goods , Part I I
JOHN S. NELSON
Synopsis o f Part I
The primary concern o f Part I was an account and critique o f Phillip E.
Converse's distinction between logical consistency and psychological consistency as the cement o f ideologies. The author demonstrated that
these provided neither necessary nor sufficient conditions to establish ideological connections. Moreover, the conception o f logical consistency
forces an equation o f the ideological with the rational and ignores the substance of any given ideology. The author concluded that the Converse school's method of study "smuggles in the goods," i.e., tacitly assumes one ideological position as the standard by which all other beliefs are measured. Hence he proposed an alternative account o f ideological connection as theoretical or "position dependent," and of political ideology as political theory.
.
In general terms, the conception of political ideology as political theory has
been well expressed by Nigel Harris: "a group-discovers a common purpose in
seeking to overcome a common problem, and in this process of discovery it
creates appropriate theoretical formulations of what it is seeking to do, why it is doing this and what differentiates it from other groups; it creates an 'ideology'. ''39 Clearly this conception treats ideologies more as constants than
as variables. The Converse insistence upon asking first and foremost whether a
given person or group is ideological reverses this emphasis, making ideologies into research variables. It might be thought that this is merely a definitional
matter:
Department of Political Science, University of Iowa
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Can some people have ideologies (or be ideological) and others not, or is
everyone (equally) ideological? The issue is fundamentally a definitional one. Some authors, such as Converse, Luttbeg, and Putnam, make a
pre-empirical assumption that (at least in principle) "ideologicalness" is a
variable, and thus for them a central question, though not the only
question, is whether a given person or group is ideological and to what
extent. For other authors, such as Lane [and] G e e r t z . . . , "ideological-
ness" is definitionally presumed to be a constant, and for them the central
question is what ideology a particular person or group has. Both schools of
thought are respectable, and since the issue between them is definitional rather than genuinely theoretical or empirical, it is not one easily settled or
even debated. In the everyday language of social science the term
"ideology" is used both ways, and both usages have appropriate historical
pedigrees. 4~
To concede this, however, would be a serious mistake. The issue here goes beyond mere definition into the bowels of the metatheory of belief systems
research.
According to my argument, it is likely that some account ("saving move")
can supply prima facie plausible connections for a vast array of belief
patterns. Thus there will be few instances in which a pattern of beliefs may be
accounted non-ideological simply because it is in principle impossible for that
pattern to manifest "ideological constraint." This conclusion is reinforced by recalling Converse's notion of social constraint. For the raison d'etre of this concept was that, quite apart from consciously thinking through political
issues, almost all of us routinely learn coherent "packages" of beliefs. Re- spondents may espouse such beliefs with little or no understanding (let alone
ability to articulate) why they "go together." But whether respondents themselves can give the connections is irrelevant, since under the Converse
research strategy they are never given the chance to succeed or fail at that
task. From this standpoint all that matters is whether someone (anyone)
could coherently connect a significant part of the beliefs evinced. This is a lax
standard, to be sure. But if a more stringent one is applied, the Converse- inspired investigator is once again in the business of establishing criteria of proper content for what is and is not an ideology, running the severe risks
indicated above.
Note ~ilso that socialization, if nothing else, practically guarantees a modicum of coherence among a significant part of each individual's political beliefs.
Because all conceivably coherent patterns of beliefs must be treated as idedlogical, the Converse approach without reliance on tire illicit criterion of
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logical constraint must find most people to be at least to some degree
"ideological" in the sense of having potentially coherent beliefs about some
political phenomena. One would think this especially likely in post-modern
industrial societies. To put this another way, we could say that, without the disqualified criterion of logical constraint, the Converse school has only
psychological constraint to fall back on. This, however, offers little in the
way of actual constraint, since only statistical correlation among beliefs is required for them to be ajudged ideological or rational. That some populist
critics of Converse "discover" near-universal ideologicality and rationality
when taking psychological constraint as the criterion only corroborates what is basically a metatheoretical point: the question of whether an individual or
group is to some degree ideological is not of great moment because we have
good reasons for believing in advance of investigation that some degree of
ideologicality is nearly universal.
On the other hand, it clearly is impractical (and even "irrational ''41) for each
person to think through all conceivable political issues and interrelations
thereof. Instead, each considers only those matters thought most salient.
Moreover, socialization cannot be expected to work unconsciously to main-
tain fully coherent belief systems, if only because "new" issues prompt
"new" beliefs. Hence, there are strong reasons for believing a priori that nearly everyone is in some degree "non-ideological" in the sense of having incoherent, "random" views-or no views at al l-about some political pheno- mena.
Certainly it may be conjectured that some very few individuals are fully politically disinterested, incompetent, and/or unsocialized: only such un-
fortunates could be fully "non-ideological" in the sense of having absolutely
no coherent- i f any at all-beliefs about political phenomena. It seems equally
obvious, however, that this portion of the population must not only be
miniscule, but almost wholly among those considered so generally retarded as to be irrelevant for belief systems research. Although some degree of ideolo-
gicality may not be universal, it is nearly so. Thus the investigation of
whether an individual or group is at all ideological, while neither meaningless
nor totally insignificant, can be expected to be of decidedly inferior im-
portance when pursued by the Converse-inspired canons and strategies of research.
Several rejoinders to this argument are conceivable. It might be objected that it is not whether prima facie plausible connections are possible in principle that is to be studied, but whether respondents themselves actually can
provide coherent theoretical connections among their beliefs. Or, it might be
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argued that it is not the presence of connections plausible only prima facie
that is at issue, but the presence of connections still plausible upon further
examination.But in both cases, answering the revised question requires that
respondents make connections for the investigator, who must then decide if
they are coherent. This entails the research strategies discussed in the next
section, at least as an addition to those of the Converse school. Bu t - and this
is the crucial po in t - such additional strategies amount to investigating what are the respondents' ideologies, together with appraising the qualities thereof.
It seems arbitrary in the extreme to simply discount as non-ideological all
connections other than those with which the investigator agrees. It is the very
heart of the research project of the Converse school that is to be abandoned.
No longer do we mainly ask whether an object of study is ideological; now we
ask what its ideology is.
What, then, of inquiry into degrees of ideologicality among various individ-
uals or groups? Here it must be remembered that such measurement requires
specification of a characteristic to be measured. And this is where the
troubles of Converse and company began. If one particular pattern of beliefs is specified a priori as the ideological touchstone, there is "smuggling in the
goods," as argued above. If political ideology is viewed more generally as
political theory, Converse-type research into degrees of ideologicality could be
conceived as the study of percentages of coherent versus incoherent (per-
sistent versus fleeting, etc.) connections among beliefs evinced by an individ-
ual or group. Since practical limits on research mean that the set of beliefs
studied must be (severely)limited in scope, the measure of degree of ideolo-
gicality would have reference only to the initially specified ideological com-
ponents. There would be no general measure of ideologicality, only various specific measures concerning particular beliefs and connections thereof. More-
over, again the measures would tap only statistical correlations (~ la Con-
verse's psychological constraint). The investigator could not tell whether the
individual actually makes theoretical connections among espoused beliefs,
merely has been socialized into expressing a given "package" of beliefs as a "natural whole" without understanding why these views go together, or is "connecting" the beliefs for mostly private, idiosyncratic "reasons" (i.e., is
offering no theoretical connections at all). I suspect that few would want to consider this last case a manifestation of ideologicality. But without finding out what the individual believes, without probing for the types of connec- tions he perceives among those beliefs, it is not possible to evaluate his degree of ideologicality in a general sense. The point is not that Converse-type research into degree of ideologicality makes no sense, but rather that its sense is quite different from what the Converse school has thought it to be. By the same token, it is not that such research is unimportant, but rather that its
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importance is considerably less than has been assumed. Identifying the
"degree" to which an individual or group possesses a particular ideology or
espouses a particular pattern of beliefs provides considerably less (politically
important) information than identifying the respects in which that individual
or group both follows and departs from the pattern of beliefs in question.
Far from being a merely definitional question, then, the issue goes to the
central foundation of belief systems research. If the arbitrary and largely tacit
introjection of standards of ideologicality or even rationality is to be avoided,
the what question must take precedence over the questions of whether and to
what degree. Certainly this claim holds for Converse-type research into the
substance of ideologies. 4 z
.
Most of the time, it will be more fruitful to presume the presence of some
sort of ideology and instead to ask: what ideology does this particular person
or group have? The challenge is not so much to know whether there is a
correlation among a person's beliefs, or even between his beliefs and his
actions. Instead, the first project of the student of ideologies should be to
understand the connections among ideological components. Following Lane,
we might say that this includes specifying the ways in which the person's
beliefs (or even actions) are useful to him. 43 Or, we might say that the key
question is not that there are connections among ideological components, but
what those connections are. Rather than attempting to predict issue beliefs
from issue orientations and the like, our prime concern should be to elucidate
the respondents' patterns of belief. Lane's "motivational variables" become
much more important under this schema. 44 The aim is to discover the
content or character of the ideological connections, so that we can under-
stand how the ideological components hang together as an ideology.
The Converse school typically concludes in advance both that there should be
such-and-such connections and what the character o f the connections is
(strict logical deduction). The elitists' key research problem is to find out
whether a given population actually makes those pre-determined connections.
Even if issues and issue positions continue to be pre-selected, however, the
more pressing and theoretically interesting procedure would be to find out
which responses are connected--and why. As Brown would put it, the
researcher needs to discover the logic of the respondent(s), not impose his
own logic as a standard of ideologicality or rationality so that he can say,
"Yes, this one's rational (ideological); no, that one's not ," depending upon
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how respondent patterns of connection accord with his own standard.
The conception of political ideology as political theory which I am proposing
converges with the conceptions of ideology offered by Geertz and Erikson,
although differences remain. In the first place, both Geertz and Erikson reject
treatments of ideology which have the effect of discovering large numbers of
the population to be totally without ideology. (This is not to say it need be
assumed either that everyone is ideological or that anyone is "totally"
ideological.) Both proceed on the assumption that most people do have an
ideology, so that the interesting things to be said concern what the ideologies
are, what the people who have them are like, and how those classes of factors
are related. Additionally, both insist upon the necessity for "inter-subjective"
information-the data of Verstehen-if the ideological connections which
bind together components into various ideologies are to be understood. Since
these sorts of data are often frowned upon by social scientists, some elabora- tion here is in order.
Geertz's concern is with ideology "as a cultural system." As Harris has
summarized this approach, "the central role of culture . . . is to present us
with a diversity of partial or coherent systems with which to organize our
experience, so that, by identifying objects and attributing systematic meaning
to them, we shall be able to overcome the problems we face in seeking to
survive. ' '4s As an anthropologist, Geertz turns to the study of cultural
structures, traditions, myths, and the like through the intersubjective "partici- pation" of field-study techniques. 46 This involves "content analysis," but not
in the rather mechanistic, social-scientistic sense in which political scientists are wont to employ the term. Geertz's concern is the study and compre-
hension of cultural symbols. 47 Cobb has called for a similar focus on the
study of symbols in the social scientific examination of belief systems. 48 But curiously enough, hardly anyone discussing the concept of ideology as it
relates to political science has even given casual citation to Geertz's rich and valuable work-and Cobb is included in those who overlook Geertz. 49
Erikson, on the other hand, focuses on so-called "clinical data." As a psychoanalytic therapist and theorist, Erikson draws on the interviews and
(for small children) play situations which are the grist for his work. Such clinical data are characterized by being gathered in a situation of therapeutic
interaction among the therapist and his patients. Thus "clinical evidence is characterized by an immediacy which transcends formulations ultimately derived from mechanistic patterns of thought. ' 's~
. . . the clinician's basic v i e w . . , asserts that scientists may learn about the
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nature of things by finding out what they can do to them, but . . . the
clinician can learn of the true nature of man only in the attempt to do
something for and with him . . . . clinical evidence is grounded in the study
of what is unique to the individual case-including the psychotherapist's involvement. Such uniqueness, however, would not stand out without the background of t h a t . . , study of what is common to verifiable classes of cases, s l
Erikson stresses the uses of ideology in affording self-identity to persons, s2
And in order to ascertain a person's sense of self-identity, the investigator
must ascertain the nature of his ideology(ies). Erikson's and Geertz's proce-
dures of in-depth interviews are very much like Lane's method of studying political ideologies. All consider the open structures of the interview format
essential. Not only can the interviewer vary his questions and probing to
correspond to the questions raised in his mind by previous responses on the
part of the subject, but there is a very real possibility that unsolicited remarks
by the subject will prove very enlightening as to the character of his ideology.
Indeed, it seems that such clinical (inter-subjective) data are not only useful
for the social scientific investigation of political ideologies, but essential for
such investigation to be thorough. They are crucial to methodologies com-
patible with a dialectically critical social science, making possible distinctions
important for the study of ideologies. They allow assessment of the extent
and character of what Lane has termed "forensic" and "latent" ideologies- those aspects of a person's ideology which he can easily articulate (forensic)
and those which he is not himself easily, or perhaps at all, able to coherently express (latent).
The Converse school has been most at home with forensic aspects of
ideology, whereas the latent aspects typically either have gone undetected or
have been lumped in with the forensic aspects. And yet susceptibility tO
articulation is just one of the potential differences among the forensic and
latent. For it can often happen that those aspects of ideology the systematic relations among which a person is least likely to be able to articulate will be
those most resistant to change. Not clearly realizing that his beliefs cohere
into a particular sort of pattern on some set of issues, the person simply may
not recognize that counter-arguments apply to his ideology. On the other hand, approaches emphasizing depth-interviews and inter-subjective data not only allow, but may encourage dialogue between the subject and the inter-
viewer. This dialogue may help the subject and the interviewer to formulate
more cogently some aspects of the subject's latent ideological patterns. Moreover, as the respondent comes better to comprehend his own positions,
580
he can and often does volunteer information of great importance for under- standing his belief system-information which he himself has just, through the
dialogue of the interview, come to recognize as relevant. In the absence of
this dialogue, concurrent exploration of forensic and latent aspects of
ideology is almost impossible.
Related to, but not identical with, the Lane forensic/latent distinction is a
distinction between those aspects of ideology which may be conscious and
those which may be unconscious from the standpoint of the subject. Whereas latent ideological patterns may involve beliefs of which the respondent is
partially aware, but which he has not yet seen as patterned, some ideological
components may be held quite unconsciously. Speaking of an unconscious
belief may seem a bit odd. But when considered psychoanalytically, some of
the peculiarity of that usage fades. An individual may evince a pattern of
behavior from which an observer can reasonably infer beliefs informing the
acts of the individual. And yet those beliefs need not inform the acts
consciously. Repression of awareness of these beliefs can, according to
psychoanalytic theory, serve important psychic needs of the individual. Here
again, access to unconscious ideological components or patterns is greatly
enhanced by depth-interview, inter-subjective data approaches. Indeed,
thereupon is founded the very possibility of psychoanalysis, s3
This raises the question of the relation of ideology to action as well as thought. Sartori, for example, insists that "the ideologist cannot have it both
ways, he cannot claim at the same time an intellectual and a practical primacy. ''s4 Maybe not, but it is not clear that this amounts to anything
more than careful phraseology. While two "primacies" may not be possible,
this does not mean that ideology cannot importantly embrace both thought and action. Potentially, ideology has just this scope, for it serves both to
comprehend and to direct practice. As Mount has exclaimed, "How can it be possible to practise a craft without any idea of what we intend to do? ' 'ss As a
theory of politics it is a theory of practice. Thereby it not only grapples in
thought with the problems posed by political phenomena, but also provides
the necessary ground for action. Sartori's posture implies an acceptance of modern bifurcations of thought from action, bifurcations which are fun- damentally destructive to both the theory and practice of politics. Although ideologies and behaviors are not kept in some a priori constant relation for all cases, they are not left in utter disconnection either. Certainly the Converse school would insist as much, for otherwise the elitists would not be inclined
s6 to study ideologies at all. However problematic it may be for other reasons, the notion of selective perception (or perceptual screening) is based-and soundly so -on the bedrock belief in significant interrelations among
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ideologies and behaviors. Thus even though I am urging the treatment of
ideology as a theory or set of theories, this does not suggest a divorce of
ideology from practice or action. If that were an implication of this treat-
ment, it would surely discredit the approach altogether. That such an implica-
tion is insisted upon in Sartori's treatment seems to me to speak forcefully against his conception of ideology.S 7
.
This question of the relation of thought and action in its turn raises the
further question of the relationship of ideology to rationality. In many ways,
the complexity of this question is such as to put it beyond the scope of
thorough treatment in this essay. But a few words of clarification are appropriate here. The social science literature on ideology seems to have
suffered badly from a failure to appreciate the analytic distinction among
three levels of this relationship.
First, and perhaps foremost, is the substantive rationality of ideologies. Any
ideology or part thereof may itself be said to be either rational, a-rational, or
irrational. The substantive rationality of ideologies involves judgments as to
their adequacy in accounting for and directing action in regard to the political
phenomena to which they are supposed to relate. (Ideologies need not
comprehend the totality of political phenomena. However, ideologies are
often regarded inadequate because they fail to address or cope with phe- nomena which they themselves do not account relevant, but which on a more
sound view are seen to be within their proper scope of concern.) Given my
conception of ideology, of course, this notion of substantive rationality is
very much like notions of theoretical adequacy developed in regard to the
sciences. It is important to note that the vast literature of the philosophy Of
science, replete as it is with controversies and disagreements, is for the most
part at one in rejecting extreme relativisms that undermine every ground
whatsoever for potentiaUy sound conceptions of theoretical adequacy. Al-
most no one would argue that, because there neither is nor can be in principle
any logical procedure for deciding among competing theories, therefore all
theories have equal claim to accuracy. Of course, it is not easy, either with regard to scientific theories or political ideologies, to specify substantively the nature of criteria or procedures of rational evaluation and comparison, s8 But
this only argues that what is needed is not an absolutist, universal judgment regarding any single criterion or procedure as the standard of rationality. Certainly this does not justify a universal pronouncement of the possibility or
impossibility of such rational appraisal of adequacy. Instead, one must
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investigate and assess individual cases for the purpose of unearthing the nature of rational standards, if any, operative in each case.
From this conception of the substantive rationality of ideologies can be distinguished two other dimensions of rationality salient for ideologies:
genetic rationality and instrumental rationality. The distinction between
substantive and instrumental rationalities, stressed by Weber, has been very
important for political thought in this century. Given the psychoanalytic
twist that I give to that distinction here, my use of it may not be identical
with Weber's, but certainly the relation is close. An ideology or part of it is
instrumentally rational when the individual's holding it promotes that in- dividual's maturation and well-being as a moral creature. In the narrow sense,
then, the notion of instrumental rationality is relevant within the context of
Lane's question: of what use to the individual is his ideology? Or, to put it
another way, instrumental rationality has to do with the individual's reasons
for holding or being committed to the ideology he has. By thus getting at the
reasons for the individual's commitment to his particular ideology, one gets at
the character of his commitment. In psychoanalytic terms, an instrumentally
irrational commitment to an ideology occurs when the individual holds the
ideology that he does because of neurotic or psychotic impulses rather than
psychically healthy ones.
Due to the character of neurotic and psychotic attachments as fixations, compulsions, and the like, the nature of such instrumentally irrational com-
mitments to an ideology can have the totalistic and !ncipiently self-destructive
aspects which many twentieth-century critics of "totalitarian" systems and
movements have come to see as endemic to all ideological commitment.
Sartori's connection of "ideology" to "rationalism" (unrealistic; conducive to misjudgment, intolerance, and evil), as opposed to his connection of "prag-
matism" and "empiricism" (realistic; conducive to effective political judg- ment, compromise, and good), smacks of this approach, s9 Arendt asserts in
some detail an intimate connection between ideology and totalitarianism. 6~
But as the implicit condemnations of ideology per se which these views
represent, they rest on a failure to distinguish.between instrumental ration- ality and irrationality in commitments to ideologies. While, as theories of
politics, ideologies can be held for bad reasons or in the wrong ways, they can
also be held for good reasons and in healthy ways. Here the Erikson con- ception of ideology as important for self-identity comes to the fore. Holding
some ideologies for some people can thwart the development of self-identity by providing a sublimation of energies which could be directed toward fuller, more mature self-identity. But ideologies can also serve as both the context for healthy maturation of political self-identity and the expression of healthy
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comprehension of the political world and its relation to oneself (this latter
also involving, of course, substantive rationality of ideology).
Also quite distinguishable is genetic rationality. This involves the sources from which and the ways in which ideologies' components and patterns of
connection are learned. Genetic rationality, it might be said, has to do with whether the psychic processes through which ideological components or
connections are acquired are psychoanalytically rational or irrational. If a
person acquires an ideology through neurotic processes, the ideology is genetically irrational for that person. This need not imply, however, that the
ideology must be substantively or even instrumentally irrational for that
person. Conceivably a person could come to be committed to a substantively rational ideology because it served neurotic needs. But if this is possible, then
the possibility of surmounting the neurosis through therapy makes con-
ceivable a situation in which the person could come to reaffirm his com-
mitment to that ideology on the basis of good, non-neurotic reasons.
Ideology also may be genetically a-rational. This is the case when the
individual acquires the ideology or parts thereof without regard to any reasons, good or bad, neurotic or healthy. Presumably, the earliest acquisi-
tions of ideology typically are genetically a-rational in this sense. Then we can speak of being socialized, rather than educated, into the ideology. 62 Here is
where Converse's conception of social constraint figures most prominently.
For it perhaps stresses the acquisition of ideologies by socialization rather than education. Parallel to this genetic a-rationality is instrumental a-ration-
ality, about which nothing more need be said here.
This concept 6f genetic rationality can help to clear up problems persistently
encountered in the political science literature on belief systems. For it is
often overlooked that even though an ideology may be genetically irrational
or a-rational for a particular person, it nevertheless may be substantively
rational and may even come to be instrumentally rational. In the terms
adopted above, that many persons are socialized into very enduring ideologies very early in life need not entail that those ideologies fail of either substantive
or instrumental rationality for those same persons later in life. Neither the socialization nor belief systems literatures in political science have evidenced
substantial recognition of the significance of such distinctions.
It must be stressed, however, that these distinctions should not be pushed too far. The conceptions of instrumental and genetic rationality sketched here remain dependent upon species of substantive rationality in several obvious and important ways. Substantive rationality is very important for, although it does not by itself fully determine, instrumental and genetic rationality.
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Certainly substantive rational!ty provides the ground necessary for these other rationalities. Various kinds of theories, political and otherwise, are needed to assess the rationality of acquisition and commitment to ideologies. I have made my position deceptively easy to argue by relying upon psycho-
analytic theory for a context in which standards of rationality can be applied intelligently. But I have clone so without offering any argument for the viability of psychoanalytic theory generally (let alone in the special form used
here) or recognizing and dealing with several problems which admittedly trouble it. And, of course, it should also be mentioned that psychoanalytic theory is itself penetrated by political ideologies, so that there is no pretense here of making a fully non-ideological argument. Still, I think that the procedure of simplification I have followed is justified on grounds of ar- gumentative clarity and brevity.
.
An outgrowth of questions concerning the relation between rationality and ideology concerns the topic of evaluation already broached. Having main- tained that ideologies can be judged according to their substantive, instru-
mental, and genetic rationalities, I have in essence claimed the possibility of assessing the relative merits of ideologies. The point of distinguishing at least three somewhat separable senses of ideological rationality is that such assess- ment cannot be conducted according to some univocal criterion providing a
general rank-ordering of all ideologies. Not only are some ideologies or parts thereof not competitors, in the sense of being about different political phenomena, but these three conceptions of ideological rationality (at least)
make it important to specify the purposes of evaluation. Nor should there be any misunderstanding concerning the standard of substantive rationality. Because this interpretation of political ideology as political theory presents a theory of morally-relevant practice, the criterion of substantive rationality spans both "factual" and "moral" adequacy. Hence, the sort of evaluation of which I am speaking is not narrowly scientific or purely moralist.
The Converse school and even many of its critics are quite comfortable with the idea of evaluating the different ideologies of different persons. I would locate the source of this reluctance in the acceptance of the Converse school's picture of the structure of belief systems as hierarchies. For the Converse school (as for some of its critics) the connection among ideological com- ponents is strictly deductive. The deductive hierarchical picture of belief systems is quintessentially Weberian. Components are said to vary in degree of centrality to the system. Those in the very center serve as the "root
585
values" of the system. They are the elements most dearly held and hence are
the most resistant to change. The range of other elements can vary quite
drastically from one ideology to another, but they usually are depicted as forming the following structure. The trunk is the realm of the most general
scientific statements-so general as to appear at some points suspiciously like
values rather than empirical generalizations. These, too, are quite central and
resistant to change. The trunk divides into many branches, which in turn
sub-divide, and so forth-until the finest branches of the tree are said to make
"direct contact" with experiences. These finer, farther out branches may be
thought of as "all the little facts" that are the basis for the belief system. As
the most peripheral components, these are the most susceptible to change. At
the farthest reaches they may even be thought to change momentarily since
they usually are viewed as the realm of immediate experience.
This structure may be viewed either deductively (from the roots out through
the trunk to the branches-ultimately making contact with sense experience)
or inductively (from sense experience and the finest branches traced back to
the trunk and roots). When Converse and company think of ideologies as
influencing actions, the tracing is largely deductive. When they think of
ideologies being changed by experience, the tracing is inductive. Many also use this metaphor in elucidating how ideologies can come to be "out of touch
with reality." The contact of the finest branches with experience can atrophy
if the more central parts of the structure do not change to accord with
experience as transferred inward through the farther reaches of that structure.
in such cases "selective perception" or "perceptual screening" is said to occur. 63 As a result of the atrophy of the finest branches and the con-
comitant withering away of the ideology from experience, when the directing of action from the center outward would occur, the project "'fails to reach
reality." That is, the intended results are not realized, but instead some warping occurs. The degree of the disjunction between intention and effect
depends, of course, on the degree of disjunction between the finest branches
and experience-reality. This structural ordering of components fits well with
the previous conceptions of social science that inform the Converse posture,
as well as the positions of its critics. '"In the tree metaphor reason and fact,
separately or in combination (as, for example, in science) serve the function
of justifying an action in two ways. First, they inform us of what subsidiary
or alternative goals our ultimate value preferences entail; second, they tell us what actions are likely to achieve the desired state of affairs. ''64 The key
point for present purposes is that such ultimate value preferences (the "root values") are treated as idiosyncratic to each individual. There is no ground for
rational argument concerning which central elements are to be preferred.
586
For Converse, rationality ostensibly involves the presence of deductive con- nections among the elements of the hierarchy. Presumably it is not to refer to any particular content of ideological components, either in the center or throughout the structure. In arguing that Converse and company "smuggle in the goods," then, I am claiming that they fail to observe faithfully their own distinction between the structure and the content of belief systems. Or, to state this contention more accurately, my claim is that the Converse research project encourages-indeed, demands-the collapse of its own form/content
dichotomy in order to generate findings that avoid apparent triviality. Much the same allegation has been made by Marcus, Tabb, and Sullivan: "current operationalizations of the structure and the content of belief systems are confounded with one another. Thus, findings that indicate that mass publics
have unsophisticated ideologies (i.e., structure) may be confounded with the acceptance or rejection by mass publics of conventional political wisdom as expounded by political elites. ''6s In other words, form/content distinctions
are useful only to a point, only for a'certain range of settings and purposes. They must never be used as absolute dichotomies, for, past the point of
usefulness, such distinctions obfuscate rather than clarify.
Converse and company push their form/content distinction far beyond viability, treating it as a dichotomy. The arguments of the populist critics of the Converse school highlight the inviability of such strict form/content
dichotomies in the study of political ideologies. Unfortunately, however, such critics remain committed to purely formal conceptions of ideologicality and rationality. They react to their discovery of smuggled content within the putatively formal conception proposed by Converse by seeking a formulation which will remain unalloyed with content and pristinely formal. If Converse fails to keep his ideological connections strictly deductive, strictly "logical" in the narrow sense, his critics have responded only by rebuking the failure, instead of repudiating the mistaken goal. By insisting upon a strictly de- ductive conception of ideological connection or opting for a merely correla- tionist version of constraint, even Converse's critics have neglected to orient their conceptions of ideologicality and rationality anew, so as to focus on content as well as structure, on components as well as connections.
This lapse stems from a failure to offer an alternative account of the nature of ideological connections. The account I have proposed here departs from a strict form/content dichotomy by offering a characterization of ideological connection which alloys form with content. That account demands that the structure and content of ideologies be studied simultaneously: to understand" an ideology's connections requires understanding its contents, and vice versa. Instead of the Converse form/content dichotomy, I propose a form/content distinction. 66
587
This new conception of ideological connection mandates that both the
structural visualization (metaphor, model) for ideologies and the standard of
rationality (evaluation) for them be recast. Ideology is to be envisioned as a
theoretical matrix or language stratum. This new conception recognizes that
components vary from one ideology to another; moreover, it recognizes that
this is equivalent to saying that connections vary from one ideology to
another. Homogeneous logical connections, as Waismann insists, obtain only within, not between language strata (theories). Since these are connections of
meaning ("weakly analytic") which reach out to experience ("weakly ana-
lytic"), the character of the connections is closely related to the character of
the components. No more is the character of the connections to be treated,
however implicitly, as independent of the character of the beliefs connected. The essence of the notion of language strata is that one can learn about the
components only by learning about the connections among them, and vice
versa. To assess the rationality of an ideology, knowing that some sort of
"logical" connections bind it together no longer suffices, since on this view logics vary across ideologies.
Under the conception of ideological connection as weak-analytic connection, the tree (or, pyramid) metaphor of belief system structure must be
discarded in favor of a network or web schema. Scriven has given a very cogent rendering of this picture:
The best model for a value-system is a web or net of webs stretched across
the ground of experience, serving as one of the structures that unifies it.
The intersections or terminations of strands represent values, the strands
represent empirical or logical connections. The more important values
serve as the focus for many strands of the web, and are not necessarily
anchored to the ground. The peripheral strands-and some internal ones-
terminate in points of attachment to the ground which represent the most
specific applications of the value system. The net is extended by the enlargement of experience, which brings with it the need for new choices
and new orderings of the alternatives, i.e., new tie-points at the periphery.
The selection of these is governed by the general principle of organization
of the net, which is roughly the principle of maximizing strength by minimizing strain. A particular series of choices at the periphery can set up
a considerable asymmetrical strain on the net which will either leave it in a weakened condition or lead to substantial readjustment of the internal organization. Similarly, reflection on the internal structure may uncover purely internal strains that can be relieved by altering the relationship, i.e, the interconnections of the internal nodes. This model is deployed in a very different way from the tree-pyramid. There is no single apex/trunk;
588
but there is recognition of the fact that some values are considerably more
general than others. The impact of experience is felt throughout the
system and not just at one end. The constant process of adjustment is
represented more realistically, with experience operating on values at all
levels; after all, experience sometimes obliges us to make choices between
alternatives couched in very general terms. The connections between
values of different levels of generality in the net model, as in reality, are not always through the same intermediary values. The more crucial values
can be seen as deriving their status from the attempt to reduce the tensions
imposed by particular choices rather than being the primary source from
which the particular choices flow; but the element of truth in this view is
preserved in the description of the way in which a new anchor-point is selected. 67
One major correction is needed to make Scriven's account acceptable: the
connections among components (the strands between the nodes) should not be regarded as in some cases empirical and in others logical. 68 Instead, they
are to be regarded as homogeneous, weakly analytic links. Otherwise, Scriven
is faced with the problem of accounting for how there can be two different
types of connection. Note that he gives no analysis of why some connections
turn out to be empirical and others logical, nor does he indicate in even metaphorical terms which differences the different connections might make.
Such difficulties are eliminated under the Waismann-inspired homogeneity view. 69
With the web metaphor, it readily becomes apparent that no values are strictly
idiosyncratic as in the tree model. As Scriven stresses, "some values are
considerably more general than others," but "experience operat [es] on values
at all levels . . . sometimes obliging us to make choices between alternatives
couched in very general terms." Hence the barrier to evaluation which
perplexes populist analyses is removed.
Evaluation of ideologies is a viable project, although a very complex one. Prohibitions against "smuggling in the goods" thus can be justified, not because there is no way of handling values fairly, but because values can and must be considered as fully and consciously as possible. Under the new
ideological connection, smuggling is no longer necessary because the goods have been legalized. Attempts to smuggle, then, must be held against those who undertake them knowingly and called to the attention of those who
undertake them inadvertently.
589
N O T E S
39. Harris, op. cit., p. 44. 40. Comment by an anonymous reviewer of this essay. 41. See Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory o f Democracy (New York, 1957). 42. Among critics of the Converse school, only Brown seems to have a clear view of this
fundamental point; and he lacks the conceptual apparatus to drive the point as deeply as it needs to go.
43. See: Robert E. Lane, Political Ideology (New York, 1962) and Political Thinking and Consciousness (Chicago, 1969).
44. Cf. Searing, Schwartz, and Lind, op. eit., p. 425, footnote. 45. Harris, op. cir., p. 36. 46. Elf. Michael Polanyi, The Study of Man (Chicago, 1959); George Devereux, From
Anxiety to Mettiod in the Behavioral Sciences (New York, 1967). 47. Clifford Geertz, "Ideology as a Cultural System," in Apter, op. cit., pp. 47-76 . 48. Cobb, op. tit., pp. 146-152. 49. The signal exception to this observation is Harris, who makes extensive use of
Geertz's work. Also deserving mention in this regard is Thomas Remington, The Origin o f Ideology (Pittsburgh, University Center for International Studies, 1971). The only other exception of which I am aware among recent essays on ideology in the political science literature is Willard A. Mullins, "On the Concept of Ideology in Political Science," American Political Science Review, 66, 2 (June, 1972), pp. 498-510 . And Mullins, whose concern is slightly different from that of this essay, gives Geertz scant mention indeed, considering the importance of symbols for Mullins' own conception of ideology (see p. 503, footnotes 36 and 37).
50. Erik H. Erikson, "The Nature of Clinical Evidence," in Insight and Responsibility (New York, 1964), p. 77.
51. Ibid., p. 80. 52. Erik H. Erikson, Identity: Youth and Crisis (New York, 1968). Also see Herbert G.
Reid, "The Politics of Time: Conflicting Philosophical Perspectives and Trends," The Human Context, 4, 3 (Autumn, 1972), pp. 456-483 .
53. See: Alasdair C. Maclntyre, The Unconscious (New York, 1958); John S. Nelson, "On Pdnetrating Psychoanalytic Explanation: Its Several Levels," unpublished paper; R. S. Peters, The Concept o f Motivation (New York, 1958); Philip RicE, Freud: The Mind o f the Moralist (Garden City, N.Y., 1959). Of course, the reader is encouraged to examine the source writings of Freud, Erikson, and other psycho- analytic theorists.
54. Giovanni Sartori, "Politics, Ideology, and Belief Systems," American Political Science Review, 63, 2 (June, 1969), p. 402.
55. Ferdinand Mount, The Theatre o f Politics (New York, 1972), p. 21. 56. The conceptions of "selective perception" and "perceptual screening" as they have
been used by Converse and other associates of the Survey Research Center have very serious conceptual difficulties. See: Charles Helm, "Party Identification and Perceptual Screening: Deviancy and the Ceteris Paribus Clause," unpublished paper; Helm, "Perceptual Screening: Or Peek-a-Boo I See You," unpublished paper.
57. For a devastating critique of the historical adequacy of Sartori's conception of ideology (as well as his counter-conception of pragmatism), see John P. Diggins, "Ideology and Pragmatism: Philosophy or Passion?" American Political Science Review, 64, 3 (September, 1970), pp. 899-906 .
58. For an interesting discussion of scientific rationality and its relations to species of rationality in other fields, see Stephen Toulmin, Human Understanding, Volume I: The Collective Use and Evolution o f Concepts (Princeton, N.J., 1972). Some of the inadequacies of the Toulmin approach to this question are discussed in: L.
590
Jonathan Cohen, "Is the Progress of Science Evolutionary?" British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 24 (March, 1973), pp. 41 -61 .
59. Sartori, op. cit., pp. 402-403,4(19-411. 60. Hannah Arendt, "Ideology and Terror: A Novel Form of Government," Review of
Politics, 15, 3 (July, 1953), pp. 303-327. Also see: Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism; Eric Voegelin, "The Origins of Totalitarianism," Review of Politics, 15, 1 (January, 1953), pp. 68 -76 - toge the r with "A Reply" by Arendt, pp. 76-85 .
61. On the difference between the acquisition of belief and the validity of belief, see Roger Trigg, Reason and Commitment (Cambridge, 1973), especially p. 123.
62. On this distinction between socialization and education, see Robert J. Pranger, The Eclipse of Citizenship (New York, 1968).
63. Again, the papers by Helm are very good in drawing out these problems. 64. Paul F. Kress, "The Web and the Tree: Metaphors of Readon and Value," Midwest
Journal of Political Science [now the American Journal of Political Science], 13, 3 (August, 1969), p. 397. On this conception of evaluation, cf. Runciman.
65. George E. Marcus, David Tabb, and John L. Sullivan, "The Application of Individ- ual Differences Scaling to the Measurement of Political Ideologies," American Journal of Political Science, 18, 2 (May, 1974), abstract on p. 405.
66. Dichotomies between form and content, or structure and function, have come in for heavy criticism in recent years, especially in the philosophy of science literature.
67. Michael Scriven, "Value Claims in the Social Sciences," paper presented to the Northwestern University Conference on Social Scientists and the Normative Ana- lysis of Political Life, Evanston, II1., February 17, 1966, pp. 22-23 . This citation may be found in Kress, op. cit., pp. 398-399.
68. This vacillation between empirical and logical connections can be understood best in the context of Scriven's discussion of "selective immunity to counter-example" as exhibited by many scientific and historical propositions. See Scriven, "The Covering Law Position," in Leonard I. Krimerman, ed., The Nature and Scope of Social Science (New York, 1969), pp. 94 -116 .
69. This metaphor of the web in the treatment of value, social science, and ideological systems comes through clearly in John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), especially including discussion of the method of "reflective equili- brium." Also see A. R. Louch, Explanation andHuman Action (Berkeley, 1966).
Theory and Society 4 (1977) 573-590 �9 Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam - Printed in the Netherlands