ABSTRACT
"A set of beliefs, values, and opinions that shapes the way a person or a group such as a social class thinks, acts, and understands the world," ideology is both epidemic and encyclopedic. The history of the term ideology begins with the French Revolution of 1789, when a group of intellectuals calling themselves "ideologists" set about planning how best to educate the citizens of the new republic. Napoleon considered the French ideologists his enemies, so he used the term ideology in a pejorative sense, as false consciousness. In-house commentators identify the problem and its parameters, creating a box that dissenters struggle vainly to elude. N. Gregory Mankiw's stick-figure version of human nature is based on Homoeconomicus, or the notion of the individual as a supposedly completely rational figure, behaving strictly according to what he or she judges to be of personal utility or benefit.
