Some Further Comments on “The End of Ideologyâ€

I am somewhat puzzled by Professor LaPalombara's critique of the decline or end of ideology thesis which points out that deideologisation is itself ideological behavior in a pure sense. This is obvious to most of those who have written on the subject. In an article cited in other contexts by Professor La Palombara, I., for one, have written as follows:As a final comment, I would note that not only do class conflicts over issues related to division of the total economic pie, influence over various institutions, symbolic status and opportunity, continue in the absence of weltanschauungen, but that the decline of such total ideologies does not mean the end of ideology. Clearly, commitment to the politics of pragmatism, to the rules of the game of collective bargaining, to gradual change whether in the direction favored by the left or the right, to opposition both to an all powerful central state and to laissez-faire constitutes the component parts of an ideology. The “agreement on fundamentals,†the political consensus of western society, now increasingly has come to include a position on matters which once sharply separated the left from the right. And this ideological agreement, which might best be described as “conservative socialism,†has become the ideology of the major parties in the developed states of Europe and America. As such it leaves its advocates in sharp disagreement with the relatively small groups of radical rightists and leftists at home, and at a disadvantage in efforts to foster different variants of this doctrine in the less affluent parts of the world.