Ideologies that gain enough support become self-sustaining social realities.

Evidence

A striking example of the strength of these beliefs was recorded by Victor Klemperer (1998) in his diary of life in Nazi Germany; Klemperer witnessed a woman, upon first seeing her severely wounded husband in a military hospital, scream, “It’s the Jews’ fault! It’s the Jews’ fault” (p. 128). Ideologies, once they gain sufficient support, create their own social realities and become self-sustaining by doing so. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 842

Categorization

• SEED: A witness-account angle: how grief is recruited into an ideology before the mourner has even spoken to her husband.
• CANDY: One sentence — a woman screaming ‘It’s the Jews’ fault!’ over a bandaged husband — is a compact, visceral illustration of ideological capture.
• XREF: connects to: Self-transformation narratives dominate precisely when institutional support collapses — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1934; An ideology can outlive and outspread the demographic group that created it — Andrew L. Whitehead, Samuel L. Perry, and Joseph O. Baker, Make America Christian Again: Christian…, 142; Ideology functions as signification that attains societal validity and justification — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 819 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Ideology functions as signification that attains societal validity and justification #corroborates (0.90) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 819
• An ideology can outlive and outspread the demographic group that created it #expands (0.85) — Andrew L. Whitehead, Samuel L. Perry, and Joseph O. Baker, Make America Christian Again, 142
• Reified social wholes are objective forces that decide individual existence #expands (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 735