Continuing a discussion from a Vox Nova thread on whether Russell Kirk was an ideologist, I would like to explain precisely what Kirk meant by ideology. As Jonathan Jones notes, we need to agree on what Kirk meant before we can really ascertain if he, as Henry Karlson claims, qualified as an ideologue. The question is important chiefly because opposition to ideology was a hallmark of Kirk’s political philosophy. Indeed, Kirk often reiterated the remark of H. Stuart Hughes that conservatism is the negation of ideology.
In The American Cause, Kirk defines ideology as “political fanaticism, a body of beliefs alleged to point the way to a perfect society.” He then contrasts ideology with beliefs that merely secure our order, our justice, and our freedom. Kirk writes in Prospects for Conservatives, “The ideologist is convinced that in his rigid closet-philosophy all the answers to all the problems of humanity are plain to be discerned. We have but to be governed by his rules, and the earthly paradise is ours. He may be an a priori reasoner, or an a posteriori reasoner, but in his system no room is left for Providence, or chance, or free will, or prudence. He is the devotee, often, of what Burke called 'an armed doctrine.' His ancestor was Procrustes, and he is resolved to stretch or hack all the world until it fits his bed.”
Kirk devotes the opening chapter of The Politics of Prudence to the errors of ideology. Here he speaks of the ideologue as one who “thinks of politics as a revolutionary instrument for transforming society and even transforming human nature.” “In his march toward Utopia,” Kirk writes, “the ideologue is merciless.” The ideologue “endeavors to substitute secular goals and doctrines for religious goals and doctrines.” Politics for him is messianic, an instrument of salvation, the instrument of salvation, to be more specific. Political compromise is impossible because “the ideologue will accept no deviation from the Absolute Truth of his secular revelation.”
Ideology according to Kirk, then, is not a simply a political philosophy or worldview, as some people use term. Nor is it tantamount to preferring one political philosophy to all others or believing oneself to be right and another to be wrong. We see ideology rather in the idea that all the oppressed can be liberated by Communism, the notion that war can be defeated by making the whole world Democratic, the assertion that one is either with the leader and his methods or one is with the enemy and his designs. The ideologist doesn’t just see his ideas as better than everything else under the sun; he sees his ideas as beyond critique. He has nothing to learn from anyone. All others must learn from him, and he is merciless in his teaching methods.
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