Ideology is a discredited term in some circles. The geopolitical map of the twentieth century is pockmarked with ideologies gone bad. With the Utopian thinking of the Enlightenment came the conviction that “Ideals can transform reality.” But ideologies that undermined one repressive order in the name of progress became the zealous gods of another. Ideologists credit their Idea with omnipotence, borrowing the techniques of medieval casuistry) to reduce the more blatant discrepancies between the ideal and real.

It is true, streets plastered with slogans and millions of people waving little red books are frightening. But the possibility that the technocrats shall inherit the earth is also somewhat disconcerting. The excesses to which “total” ideologies lend themselves should not blind us to other aspects of the ideological enterprise; bloody revolutions and totalitarian regimes do not exhaust the possibilities.