Ideologies are crafted as political weapons, not theories

Evidence

The tremendous power of persuasion inherent in the main ideologies of our times is not accidental. Persuasion is not possible without appeal to either experiences or desires, in other words to immediate political needs. Plausibility in these matters comes neither from scientific facts, as the various brands of Darwinists would like us to believe, nor from historical laws, as the historians pretend, in their efforts to discover the law according to which civilizations rise and fall. Every full-fledged ideology has been created, continued and improved as a political weapon and not as a theoretical doctrine. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 433

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ideology as fundamentally a political weapon whose plausibility rests on appeal to immediate political needs, not on scientific or historical truth.
• XREF: Connects directly to Gramsci’s concept of hegemony and common sense — ideology as political instrument rather than doctrine — a scaffolding concept for the Islamophobia field readings. — connects to: Ideologies claim total explanatory keys to history or nature; Ideologies are not what is shaped at power’s base; Ideologies become dangerous only when their claim to total validity is taken literally (+11 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 433

Broader Connections

• Ideologies are not what is shaped at power’s base #corroborates (0.80)
• Ideologies become dangerous only when their claim to total validity is taken literally #qualifies (0.78)
• Marxism is not economic reductionism and requires attending to ideas in their own terms #complicates (0.75)
• Ideologies act on people structurally through a process that escapes them #complicates (0.72)
• Vague ideological slogans can mask rather than resolve real political contradictions #corroborates (0.72) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2766