An ideology is an army of convictions about how the world is and how it ought to be. As befitting a military force, ideologies are fueled by a sense of threat - kept at bay through a fortress-like structure called the ideological square. The ideological square comes in many flavors.

The Basic Us versus Them Square:

  1. Exaggerate our wonderfulness: our vision is good and true
  2. Exaggerate their awfulness: their vision is evil and false
  3. Downplay our bad side: our vision has no serious downside
  4. Downplay their good side: their vision has no merit

 The Incompatible Visions of the Future Square:

  1. Exaggerate how good things will be if we prevail
  2. Exaggerate how bad things will be if they prevail
  3. Downplay the potential harm if we prevail
  4. Downplay the potential good if they prevail

And then we have the Ideological Half-Square:

  1. Exaggerate how awful things are now
  2. Downplay how good things are now

Reference:

Van Dijk, T. A. (1995). Discourse Semantics and Ideology. Discourse & Society, 6(2): 243-289.