IDEOLOGY UTOPIA - Studyplace

88 Ideology and Utopia
7. THE TRANSITION FROM THE NON-EVALUATIVE
TO THE EVALUATIVE CONCEPTION OF IDEOLOGY
Thus it appears that beginning with the non-evaluative conception
of ideology, which we used primarily to grasp the
flux of continuously changing realities, w~Jlav~!.~n.~nwittingly
le~_~~._~!l:_~'y'al~~tiy'~-~.P!.~!:~ological,and finally. an
»EfOlOgrcal:.tp.~!!y'sicalaPE~~~~'IIi-our'argument thus Ear
' the non-evaluative, dynamic point of view inadvertently became
a weapon against a certain intellectual position. What
(
(was originally simply a methodological technique disclosed
itself ultimately as a Weltanschauung and an instrument
}
,from the lise of which the non-evaluative view of the world
\emerged. Here, as in so many other cases, only at the end
)of our activity do we at last become aware of thos.~.rno.uves
•which at tlle 1?eginning drove us to s~tevery established value
~~~on~...~~_~~~~!~JL~_~_a. P.~~t. ()f a,g~!!.er.cY. .. ~!~~~rical
movement.
·Wesee then that we have employe~_~et~.1sical·ontological
value-judgments of Whi9l-W~_ha'V{L~otbeen aware~i
• _.:.------......"--,-,~._,_...---,._~ .",,"._._~-~,..~-_.__.<
... Of course, the type of value-judgments and the ontology of
which we made use, partly unconsciously and partly deliberately,
represents a judgment upon an entirely different level, and is a
quite different ontology from that of which we spoke when we
were criticizing the trend towards absolutism which attempts to
reconstruct (in the spirit of the Gennan romantic school) the
debris of history. This unavoidable implicit ontology which is at
the basis of our actions, even when we do not want to believe
it, is not something which is arrived at by romantic yearning and
which we impose upon reality at will. It marks the horizon within
which lies our world of reality and which cannot be disposed of
by simply labelling it ideology. At this point we see a glimmer of
a .. solution" to our problem even though nowhere else in this
book do we attempt to offer one. The exposure of ideological and
utopian elements in thought is effective in destroying only those
ideas with which we ourselves are not too intimately identified.
Thus it may be asked whether under certain circumstances, while
we arc destroying the validity of certain ideas by means of the
ideological analysis, we are not, at the same time, erecting a new
construction-whether in the very way we call old beliefs into
question is not unconsciously implied the new decis;on-as a
sage once said, .. Frequently when someone comes to me to seek
iadvice, I know as I listen to him how he advises himself."