ABSTRACT
This chapter distinguishes two branches of ideology: religious and sociopolitical. It examines what may be called the major classical sociopolitical ideologies, from anarchism and socialism to conservatism and fascism, every one of which has had its intellectual champions. Cynics tend to downplay ideology as just epiphenomenon or even window-dressing. This may hold for self-righteous leaders but not for their followers. Presumably, the peasants who volunteered for the Crusades were motivated by their religious beliefs, not by the greed of their military leaders. In particular, people can be politically mobilized or paralyzed not only by material interests but also by ideals, whether noble like democracy and equality, or ignoble like ethnic cleansing and world domination. In any event, because it rejects political action, anarchism is an antipolitical philosophy rather than a political one. The neoliberals see every social issue through the narrowest possible social peephole. They practice both individualism and economism.
