IDEOLOGY UTOPIA - Studyplace

76 Ideology and Utopia
the advantage of their adversary in the competitive struggle.
must of necessity themselves make use of this point of view.
This is the case with the notion of ideology. Marxism merely
discovered a clue to understanding and a mode of thought.
in the gradual rounding out of which the whole nineteenth
, century participated. The complete formulation of this idea
i is not the sole a!=hievement of any single group and is not
Ilinked exclusively with any single intellectual and social
Ii position. The role that Marxism played in this process was
!one that deserves a high rank in intellectual history and
Ishould not be minimized. The process, however, by which
ithe ideological approach is coming into general use. is going
Ion before our very eyes. and hence is subject to empirical
\observation.
It is interesting to observe that, as a result of the expansion
of the ideological concept, a new mode of understanding
has gradually come into existence. This new intellectual
standpoint constitutes not merely a change of degree in a
phenomenon already operating. We have here an example
of the real dialectical process which is too often misinterpreted
for scholastic purposes-for h~!.:...w~_~~..j!!~ed._~_
matter of differ~nce.JI1g.egre~,.becomiIlgamatter of dTffe.!7
enre iriK:ind. For'as soon as all parties are able to analyse
lhcnaeasoI their opponents in ideological tenns, all elements
',of meaning are qualitatively changed and tl.!,~.~'.?~~ideoI9gy
)acq~ir~~J~:~~()t~IIy.J)~~_IJ1~~E!!1&In the course of this all the
'{actors with which we dealt in our historical analysis of
the meaning of the term are also transformed accordingly.
~he .'proble~!_~f .~ fa!.s.~5