A political ideology is a set of principles aimed at establishing or
maintaining a certain social system; it is a program of long-range action, with
the principles serving to unify and integrate particular steps into a
consistent course. It is only by means of principles that men can project the
future and choose their actions accordingly.
Anti-ideology consists of the attempts to shrink men’s minds down to the range
of the immediate moment, without regard to past or future, without context or
memory—above all, without memory, so that contradictions cannot be detected,
and errors or disasters can be blamed on the victims.
In anti-ideological practice, principles are used implicitly and are relied
upon to disarm the opposition, but are never acknowledged, and are switched at
will, when it suits the purpose of the moment. Whose purpose? The gang’s. Thus
men’s moral criterion becomes, not “my view of the good—or of the right—or of
the truth,” but “my gang, right or wrong.”
A majority without an ideology is a helpless mob, to be taken over by anyone . . . .
Political freedom requires much more than the people’s wish. It requires
an enormously complex knowledge of political theory and of how to implement it
in practice.