RCL #2- Ideologies

As stated in our Rhetoric and Civic Life book, “an ideology is a coherent set of beliefs that people use to understand events and the behavior of other people; they are also used to predict events and behaviors.”

I would describe an ideology as an in depth stereotype. Ideologies are how you categorize yourself and other people based on what you know or assume.

One ideology that circulates around me a lot is the ideology of a team. There are many expectations from others when you are part of a team. These expectations are aspects of the ideology of being on a team. Some of these aspects include being friends with or respecting your teammates, always putting the team first, working together to achieve something that you couldn’t do alone, and having each others backs when you need it.

These are all things that people think of when they think of a team. Ideologies, or aspects of the ideology, can change over time or in different circumstances though. For example, the idea of always being a friend and respecting your teammates may change if one of your teammates isn’t a friend to you. You might alter your ideology a little, from being friends and respectful to teammates to only being respectful to them if a teammate is not friendly back. Someone could also change their view on the entire ideology of a team through life. They could go form thinking a team as their family to believing that a team is only something required by the activity but their individual success is what is most important.

Ideologies to me are in depth stereotypes, which can be right or wrong, but it is how a person thinks and organizes aspects of their lives. Without ideologies people would have no expectations for certain things or predictions on how something may turn out. Ideologies guide us through life, altering as we go, without them we would be walking blind.

 

3 thoughts on “RCL #2- Ideologies

  1. rwp150

    I like this, it’s a change of pace from all the political stuff. It’s so easy to equate ideologies to politics, I like how you showed that ideologies exist everywhere and affect everything we do.

  2. Jack Delaney

    I think the idea of an ideology as a stereotype is very interesting. “Stereotype” has a negative connotation, though positive stereotypes definitely exist. I think ideology goes beyond a stereotype because sometimes your ideology is more hidden/beneath the surface, and won’t be as readily apparent to others. I thought this was a very unique take on the word ideology and using a team as your example worked out well.

  3. Ky McCool

    I really like the example of a team that you gave for an ideology, I think the way you explained that changing an ideology can be like changing your perspective on a teammate or your team as a whole was a good way to help the reader comprehend the idea of an ideology. I also like how you equated ideologies to expectations, I think that was a great way of putting it and I agree completely with that idea.

    However, I would’ve liked it if you had gone more in depth as to what you meant when you said that ideologies were in depth stereotypes. I think it’s a really interesting concept and I would’ve enjoyed hearing your two cents on it.

    Keep up the good work! 🙂

Leave a Reply