Historically necessary ideologies organize masses while arbitrary ones only stir individuals

Evidence

To the extent that ideologies are historically necessary they have a validity which is “psychological”; they “organise” human masses, and create the terrain on which men move, acquire consciousness of their position, struggle, etc. To the extent that they are arbitrary they only create individual “movements”, polemics and so on (though even these are not completely useless, since they function like an error which by contrasting with truth, demonstrates it). — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1343

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes historically necessary from arbitrary ideologies by their organizing function.
• XREF: Feeds the reader’s toolkit on hegemony and how ideas organize mass consent — the core vocabulary for later Islamophobia readings on ideology doing social work. — connects to: Sacred monuments only mobilize masses through a politically directed agenda — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 1568