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Sociological Theory Paper

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Finding a specific definition of ideology is crucial, due to the ideas of ideology changing as it encompasses many different concepts. One way to describe ideology is to think of it as being a shared system of values, beliefs and attitudes or a way that help enable individuals to understand their realities. Ideology can be portrayed as a system of attitude that helps us understand the world. Ideology does not belong to individuals but to social groups and in particular, larger capitalist political groups that shape the world in today’s society. Louis Althusser (1993) described ideology as an imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence (Althusser 1993), explaining that it is more about people being profoundly …show more content…
His theory consisted of the economic base and the superstructure (Morris 2016). The economic base being the relations of production and the means of production. Means of productions are the things that produced the commodities and was owned by the capitalist class while the proletariat class were the relations of the production that were exploited by the capitalist class. He then stated that there was a superstructure that maintained and legitimized the base which came from education, religion, family, mass media and politics. These concepts worked together to stabilized the social structure that was in place. An example of this is religion; the Bible and church being the base and religion being the superstructure. Religion itself is not an ideology, rather, subscribing to the ideas of religion that doesn't allow you to question anything about it is an ideology. Ideology in religion is the collection of ideas that influence people to follow the commandments and instructions within the Bible, believing that it is the way God had wanted them to live. Both base and superstructure of religion are what maintains the structure of beliefs and the behaviour of the people. Marx quoted “they do not know it, but they are doing it” (Marx 1953), meaning the people do not realise that they are supporting a perpetual system that corrupts the base and continue to contribute to these ideologies because of what they were taught or believe in. Usually, no one challenges these

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