ABSTRACT
Roy Pierce identifies Albert Camus as the first person to have used the expression "end of ideology" and analyzes Camus' thoughts in some detail. "The end of political ideology" is a theme also developed by H. Stuart Hughes in a 1951 article surveying the European political scene. Hughes identifies a "process of ideological dissolution" and a "wreckage of political faiths" in which radical ideologies have lost their sway. He approvingly quotes Isaiah Berlin to the effect that "disagreements about political principles" have been replaced by "disagreements, ultimately technical, about method." Raymond Aron elaborates the theme of ideological decline. In a book published in 1955, he emphasizes the passing of fanaticism in political belief and the erosion of ideologies that were at one time sharp, distinct, and explicit. The most significant impetus to the spread and acceptance of the decline thesis was provided by a conference on "The Future of Freedom," sponsored by the Congress of Cultural Freedom in September 1955.
