Most people don’t want their teachers, scientists, or journalists to be too ideological. Calling someone an “ideologue” isn’t a compliment. But what is ideology and why exactly is it a threat? I propose that ideology is fruitfully understood in terms of three ingredients: a basic moral claim, a worldview built on top of that claim, and the attempt to politicize this worldview by injecting it into social institutions. I further argue that the central danger of ideology is that activating these three ingredients tends to undermine liberal social institutions. And yet a certain amount of ideology is both unavoidable and desirable, as I show, since it supplies us with important goods like social cohesion and mobilization. This means the best we can do is to try and set boundaries on ideology.

大多数人不希望他们的老师、科学家或记者过于意识形态化。称某人为“理论家”并不是一种恭维。但什么是意识形态？为什么它是一种威胁？我认为，意识形态可以从三个要素方面得到有效的理解：基本的道德主张、建立在该主张之上的世界观，以及通过将这种世界观注入社会机构而将其政治化的尝试。我进一步认为，意识形态的主要危险在于，激活这三个要素往往会破坏自由社会制度。然而，正如我所表明的，一定数量的意识形态既是不可避免的，也是可取的，因为它为我们提供了社会凝聚力和动员等重要物品。这意味着我们能做的最好的事情就是尝试在意识形态上设定界限。