Few people would describe themselves as ideologues - it’s a pejorative term and almost always describes the other guy. Yet there is something called “ideology”, which I’m going to define as “an army of convictions about how the world is and how it ought to be.” As befitting a military force, ideologies are often fueled by a sense of threat - kept at bay through a fortress-like structure called the ideological square (Van Dijk (1995), a nifty construct consisting of two exaggerations and two minimizations:

  1. Exaggerate how bad things are now

  2. Exaggerate how much better things will be if We prevail

  3. Downplay the current system’s capacity to make things better

  4. Downplay Our capacity to screw things up

In contrast to ideologues, reformers still have faith in the current system’s capacity to make things better. To reformers, the system needs to be fixed, not overturned. Reformers identify specific problems and propose narrow solutions. Ideologues identify existential threats and fight for “structural change”.  Reformers are cool. Ideologues are hot, hot, hot. Of course, reformers can get excited about their vision of a better world but they tend to lack the ideologue’s righteous passion.

That’s partly because reformers have a healthy respect for human frailty and fallibility. Reformers may think they have good ideas - but not the Answer. They know these good ideas could be wrong and so proceed with caution, careful to monitor the progress of their reforms and to change course if needed. They will listen to opposing points of view, because they are not convinced they are right. The popular saying “be informed, not influenced” makes no sense to reformers, because the essence of an open mind is a willingness to be influenced. We become informed as we are influenced by what we read and hear.

Ideologues give lip service to the “marketplace of ideas” as a tactic to gain more converts to their cause. When ideologues gain power, the marketplace of ideas is shut down - replaced by purity debates on how to best align practice with the One True Vision.

Reformers are children of the Enlightenment. Ideologues are children of the Counter-Reformation. Reformers embrace of spirit of scientific inquiry and incremental progress. Ideologues embrace the spirit of the Medieval Church, an assertion of authority and certainty.

Reference:

Van Dijk, TA (1995). Discourse Semantics and Ideology. Discourse & Society, 6(2): 243-289. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926595006002006