"Feminist Ideology" Cartoon Stock
Definitions:
a)
the
process of production of meanings, signs, and values in social life;
b)
a
body of ideas characteristic of a particular social group or class;
c)
ideas
which help to legitimate a dominant political power;
d)
false
ideas which help to legitimate a dominant political power;
e)
systematically
distorted communications;
f)
that
which offers a position for a subject;
g)
forms
of thought motivated by social interests;
h)
identity
thinking;
i)
socially
necessary illusion;
j)
the
conjecture of discourse and power;
k)
the
medium in which conscious actors make sense of their world;
l)
action-oriented
sets of beliefs;
m)
the
confusion of linguistic and phenomenal reality;
n)
semiotic
closure;
o)
the
indispensable medium in which individuals live out their relations in a social
structure;
p)
the
process whereby social life is converted to a natural reality (Eagleton 1-2)
The most common thread in these
definitions is the idea that ideologies are the ways people think about their
world. As literature is a part of the world in which we live, the way we think
heavily influences our views about and our interpretations of literature. The
implication is that interpretation is subjective to our thought processes. We
can learn and adapt to new ways of thinking, but the main framework for thought
comes from the experiences we have had and how we have identified with things
we have learned.
However, the way I interpret literature
(and the world around me) will be very different from another person’s way of
interpreting. While I might conclude that the novel Moby
Dick is simply about a white whale and a bitter old man who can’t let go, another might
classify the book as an insight into the life of Christ (as was discussed in one of my
previous literature classes). My ideological perspective was completely different
from that of my professor’s. Ideology is one of the major reasons why there are
so many different schools of theory. While the schools overlap in some ways, in
others they contradict one another. It all comes down to what people value and why they value it—what matters is how people think about literature and the world.Because of the differing backgrounds, values, and beliefs, coming to a consensus on what is considered “right” or “correct” is nearly impossible. In his article “The Threads of Literary Theory,” Joseph Margolis refers to Hans-Georg Gadamer, a German philosopher who studied and taught hermeneutics. Margolis paraphrases Gadamer’s ideas regarding personal ideologies and how our histories, which are recorded by ourselves and others, are not necessarily accurate (Margolis 101-102). He states that the way we construct literary meaning is heavily emphasized by “our own profound prejudices and bias formed by a historical existence” (Margolis 102).
For example, the following clip shows two men with different backgrounds and different definitions of what is valuable. Each one has a belief that has been taught to him by various institutions. One man has been taught to value physicality and obedience; the other has been taught to value intelligence and determination. One sees physical strength as the defining characteristic of goodness; the other sees mental strength and heart as most important:
In the end, the idea that mental strength and determination to do good no matter the cost wins out, but it isn’t easy to convince the opposing side. The conflict starts from different beliefs as to what is most valuable. The same thing happens when it comes to reading. For example, there are certain things that I read because I find them valuable—the Harry Potter books and Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, for instance, and religious texts that ring true with what I have been taught to believe. Others, though, may not find these works particularly stimulating or important. Others criticized some of my reading preferences, and I have been guilty of doing the same thing. As Eagleton says, “one person’s rigidity is, notoriously, another’s open-mindedness” (Eagleton 4). Instead of seeing differing tastes and interpretations as rigidity or closed-mindedness, though, it is important to recognize that these differences stem from personal values and that just as we can find value in a text, we can find value in the multiple ways of seeing the world.
