CHAPTER II: IDEOLOGY AND UTOPIA: 6. THE NON-EVALUATIVE CONCEPTION OF IDEOLOGY.

This section discusses the non-evaluative conception of ideology. Interrelationships have now become evident, both in the presents and in history, which formerly could never have been analyzed so thoroughly. The recognition of this fact in all its ramifications gives to the modern investigator a tremendous advantage. He will no longer be inclined to raise the question as to which of the contending parties has the truth on its side, but rather he will direct his attention to discovering the approximate truth as it emerges in the course of historical development out of the complex social process. Only in a rapidly and profoundly changing intellectual world could ideas and values, formerly regarded as fixed, have been subjected to a thoroughgoing criticism. In no other situation could men have been alert enough to discover the ideological element in all thinking. It is true that men have fought the ideas of their adversaries, but in the past, for the most part, they have done so only in order to cling to their own absolutes the more stubbornly. It is imperative in the present transitional period to make use of the intellectual twilight which dominates our epoch and in which all values and points of view appear in their genuine relativity.