Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 00:11:17 -0600

Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 13:21:44 -0500
From: "H-Ideas Co-Editor (David Bailey)"
Subject: Re: History of ideology

Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 11:59:07 +0900 (JST)
From: JLM@twics.com

In a private message, Nick Clifford (Emeritus Professor of Chinese History, Middlebury College) tells me that he's always been happy with the definition of ideology offered by Feurwerker in a book on the Taipings, i.e., a system designed by an elite to convince everyone else that a particular set of social, political, and cultural arrangements serve everyone's best interests; or,conversely, a system designed by those who wish to overthrow the status quo and to convince others that a new set of s,p,c arrangements will serve everyone's best interests.

In reply I would note that while I like the definition, it doesn't explain why some ideologies become bestsellers while others disappear from the intellectual marketplace.

Victor Bondi writes that,

"A soft-sell ideology works because it establishes a "brand" consumers rely upon. The "nonideological" character of '40s and '50s democracy could succeed because like a good brand it latched onto a pre-existent American conceit that only real government was democracy -- anassumption validated by US success in WWII (and shaken by Sputnik and Vietnam)."

It seems to me, then, that soft-sell ideologies must always fall into the first of the two types that Clifford mentions: those which support a status quo. I suppose that a very sneaky soft-sell ideology might undermine a status quo, but I can't think of any good examples. Can anyone else?

Bondi continues,

"Good marketing strives for an unconscious appeal; but in dealing with ideologies, marketing strives for a subconscious culturalappeal: democracy sells because the market was ripe for it (and American cultural isolation kept the market protected against potentially competing brands -- at least until the '70s)."

Here, I feel, we need to be a bit more subtle. As someone who has been involved in business for over a decade, I'd be inclined to say that good marketing requires a combination of conscious and subconscious appeals. In marketing textbooks these are usually conceptualized as a combination of functional benefits and emotional benefits, and strong marketing companies like Unilever, Coca-Cola, and BMW (to name three I've worked with directly) always insist on both in materials prepared for them.

Returnng to "soft ideology," I still wonder how much an ideology can soften before it dissolves into common sense and ceases to be the "system" that is mentioned in Feuerwerker's definition?

Has anyone noticed that the great "isms" that are prototypical examples of ideologies are all secular analogues to "religions of the book," i.e., they all appeal to primary TEXTS: Mein Kampf, the Communist Manifesto, the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, the Four Books (Confucianism). Note the similarity to Christian Fundamentalism (the Bible), Orthodox Judaism (Torah), Islam (The Koran). In all these cases, the indifferent, the lapsed, the apostate, the heretic are perennial problems, which, of course, is why the "selling" can never stop.

John McCreery
Yokohama
January 31, 1996

Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 12:53:23 -0500
From: Hart71@aol.com

In a message dated 96-01-31 09:34:58 EST, you write:
"A soft-sell ideology works because it establishes a "brand" consumers rely upon. The "nonideological" character of '40s and '50s democracy could succeed because like a good brand it latched onto a pre-existent American conceit that only real government was democracy -- an assumption validated by US success in WWII (and shaken by Sputnik and Vietnam). Good marketing strives for an unconscious appeal; but in dealing with ideologies, marketing strives for a subconscious cultural appeal: democracy sells because the market was ripe for it (and American cultural isolation kept the market protected against potentially competing brands -- at least until the '70s)."

It appears to me that the "cultural isolation" you are referring to has never existed. In fact, America has been less culturally isolated than most countries (because of constant immigration and minimal government control of telecommunications). And if, as you seem to suggest, the ideological market was open starting with the 70s, why is it that other "competing" brands of ideology did not catch on, while "democracy" as ideology is more widely accepted than ever.

Regards,
Michael Hart

Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 14:07:32 -0500
From: "H-Ideas Co-Editor (David Bailey)"
Subject: Re: History of ideology

Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 23:37:50 EST
From: Charley Shively, (617) 287-5727, 661-7534

For marketing specialists, an old and unresolved question (as far as I've heard) is why Comte & positivism did so poorly in the U.S. and did so well in Mexico and Latin America.