Table Of ContentThe Age of Ideology
Also by John Schwarzmantel
STRUCTURES OF POWER: An Introduction to Politics
SOCIALISM AND THE IDEA OF THE NATION
THE STATE IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY
The Age of Ideology
Political Ideologies from the American
Revolution to Postmodern Times
John Schwarzmantel
© John Schwarzmantel 1998
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1998 978-0-333-65044-8
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First published 1998 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LT D
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and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 978-0-333-65045-5 ISBN 978-1-349-25941-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-25941-0
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
07 06 05 04 03 02 OI 00 99 98
Copy-edited and typeset by Povey-Edmondson
Tavistock and Rochdale, England
For Ernst and Maria Wangermann
in gratitude and affection
Contents
Preface xi
Introduction: Ideology and the Crisis of Modernity 1
PART I ENLIGHTENMENT AND EMANCIPATION
1 The Politics of Modernity 17
The Origins of Modernity 19
The Rise of the Masses 22
Enlightenment Philosophy 23
The Philosophy of Emancipation 26
The Ideal of the Republic 28
Civil Society 31
Public Opinion and the Public Sphere 34
Towards Revolution 37
2 The Revolutionary ChaUenge 40
The Discourse of Democracy 41
Sovereignty and Representation 43
America: The New Republic 47
France: The People-Nation 52
The Idea of Citizenship 56
PART II IDEOLOGIES OF MODERNITY
3 Liberalism and Modernity 63
The Modernist Agenda 64
Liberty and Progress 67
Danger of Revolution 72
Individualism and Equality 76
Dilemmas of Liberalism 82
4 Socialism and Emancipation 87
The Organisation of Production 87
Harmony and Association 92
vii
viii Contents
Marxism and Modernity 94
Problems of Marxism 100
Socialism in Crisis? 103
5 Conservative Critiques 110
Defining 'the Right' 112
Conservatism and Modernity 115
The Organic Community 120
The Revolutionary Right 123
The Future of the Right 126
6 Nationalism and its Ambiguities 131
The Paradoxes of Nationalism 133
Nationalism and Modernity 137
The Malleability of Nationalism 141
The Resurgence of Nationalism 144
Nationalism in Postmodern times 145
PART III THE CRISIS OF IDEOLOGIES
7 The Crisis of Modernity 151
Theoretical Critiques of Modernity 152
The Transformation of Modernity 157
The Crisis of the Nation-State 158
Problems of State and Citizenship 160
Crisis of Civil Society 161
The Decline of Class Identity 164
The Challenge of Postmodernism 168
Pluralism and Diversity 173
8 Critiques of the Enlightenment Ideologies 175
Critique of Liberalism 176
The Dissolution of Socialism 179
Nationalism and Identity 184
9 The Future of Ideology 187
Problems of Subject and Agency 187
Assumptions of Unity 190
Ideology and Totalitarianism 191
Contents IX
Ideology and Common Citizenship 193
Ideology and Democratic Politics 195
Bibliography 200
Index 207
Preface
The aim of this book is to analyse the contemporary relevance of
some of the main ideologies that have been central to political
struggle over the two centuries since the American and French
Revolutions. While there are many texts on this topic, this book
offers a distinctive approach on several grounds.
First, it seeks to present the main political ideologies not as
separate and unrelated sets of ideas, but as sharing a common agenda,
the agenda set by modernity. Modernity is seen here as both a
distinctive type of society and a broad philosophy.
Second, this book addresses the contemporary crisis of ideology
and analyses the challenges to the whole ideological tradition of
modernity. The focus is thus on a double crisis: the crisis of the
ideologies of modernity, the question of whether they are still valid as
frameworks for political thought, discussion and action in the chan
ged circumstances of the contemporary world; and the crisis of
modernity itself, as identified by the critique of post-modernist
theorists.
Third, the book contrasts the more traditional analysis of political
ideologies - their main themes, historical development and contem
porary relevance - with the discourse of postmodern theory in order
to identify the main lines of theoretical challenge to ideological
discourse in general, to the specific ideologies of the Left-Right
spectrum and to the whole tradition of modernity. The book contends
that this tradition is still relevant today, and that ideological discourse
is still necessary to the process of democratic politics, despite the
disastrous consequences of imposing totalitarian thinking on society,
as illustrated by the communist and fascist regimes of the twentieth
century.
Finally, it aims to relate the theoretical discussion and analysis of
ideologies to the transformations occurring in the real world, to
identify the problems faced by the ideologies of modernity in their
adaptation to a fundamentally changed social reality. It thus attempts
to provide some kind of answer to the question 'where do we go from
here', in terms of the ideas and theories that are necessary to stimulate
political thinking and citizen action in the postmodern world of
globalisation.
Xl
