In my previous post, I tried to clarify some of the misconceptions on philosophy in general by defining philosophy, concept (as the philosophical tool) and the difference between philosophy and psychology. To me, definitions are fundamental to understand and elaborate.
You can check my post here Misconceptions on philosophy I
Moving to more fun parts of the misconceptions, a distinction must be made with politics. The latter is responsible for creating some damages in the name of philosophy by imposing ideologies.
Ideology:
Ideology is a body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group with reference to some political and social plan, as that of fascism, along with the devices for putting it into operation. Ideology is always to be linked with politics in both large and strict sense, to religion and to society. It shapes up citizens political behaviour and way of thinking, alongside an economic plan to back it up.
An ideology is not solely the specialty of totalitarian States. Globalization for example is an ideology without being a totalitarian regime, although it has some facets of it as in forming the way of being and thinking.
The tricky part is that some ideologies, in there headlines and big titles, were in a way inspired by philosophy but with major twists. Here is the typical example of the perversion made to philosophy by politics.
Marxism, communism and Leninism:
Karl Marx had earned a bad reputation mainly because of Lenin. Let’s start by saying that Marx’ ultimate goal is the disappearance of the State, replaced by the communist society based on equality among people. He wanted this because he pointed out the exploitation of workers by the state through capitalism. So he aimed for a more liberal form of capitalism.
Lenin, who read Marx very well, did all the opposite. He implemented a gigantic State, the USSR, with a guided economy. Apart from the apparatchik or the members of the Soviet State apparatus, the rest of the people lived equally on less than average compared to the West.
Forever the name of Marx will be linked to the poorly applied communism which was spread on half of the planet. It must be noted that Marxism as in Marx’ works was never applied. The Marxist world is a utopia.
This is one example among many others were ideology and philosophy get confused. Same goes for Nazism and Nietzsche, Consumerism and the concept of freedom, the Cartesian definition of a man and nature’s exploitation and the list goes on.
