Concretising your discussion with reference to specific examples, Essay

Concretising your discussion with reference to specific examples, identify and discuss the main components of the ideology of the artist - Essay Example The term Gramsci is given to this socialization process of influencing people’s perceptions of society (Lye 1997). The concept of ideology essentially means beliefs, whether true or false, in society that has become institutionalized so they can serve the interests of a ruling class. Ideological beliefs are similar to propaganda but vary in the way that they are much more deeply embedded in the peoples conscious and influences how a person thinks about the society he or she lives in. For example, Americans tend to have certain beliefs about the nature of the democracy but may find democracies elsewhere alien if they do not follow the same pattern. Some beliefs configure our actions, like going to the polls to elect our leaders turns out to be a duty. Critics might mention that these beliefs might actually work against most people for the obscure interests of those leaders who rule America. Assuming the critic is right, then those would be ideological beliefs and represent a "false consciousness" about American democracy. The issue raised with the notion of ideology implies that there are objective truths in the world that do not depend on our idea of them in order for them to be true. The natural sciences were for quite some time in history considered as the only dependable starting place of these objective truths. The first followers of the concept of ideology supposed that by employing scientific methods, the false beliefs of ideology could be uncovered. Early Greeks thinkers contested the idea of objective truth by saying that truth lies in the eye of the beholder and that science reveals no hidden truths about the world but only helps us in reshaping things in a manner that suits the needs of the elite ruling classes. Without a clear idea of objective truth, the whole idea of ideology appears unfeasible. In history the concept of ideology