Every single person in our world has their own personal beliefs, whether they be influenced by religion, family, or personal experience. We see our world through our own ideologies. But, what is an Ideology? The word itself does not have an agreed upon definition, but there are different ways people have interpreted it. The word first made its first appearance in French as “idéologie” at the time of the French Revolution It was introduced by a philosopher named Destutt de Tracy, as a short name for what he called his “science of ideas,” which he claimed to have adapted from the epistemology of the philosophers John Locke and Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, for whom all human knowledge was knowledge of ideas. Today, we interpret the word to mean such things as “a political belief system”, “an action-orientated set of political ideas”, or “the ideas of the ruling class”. It really depends which ideology you live by for how you define the term “ideology”, which is pretty meta if you ask me. 

Ideologies, in modern day, are very relevant to politics. The use of the term “ideology” as a political term has a lot to do with the work of Karl Marx, who is credited to creating Marxism. Ideologies do not only influence politics, as they influence all of our lives as well. In our class, we took a look into many different ideologies. These ideologies consisted of ideas such as Liberalism, Conservatism, Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Capitalism, Totalitarianism, Anarchism, and many more. I took these notes in class to obtain a better insight into each of the categories.

Finally, our class looked into the Political Compass test. The political compass test is used to assist people in assessing their political stance, and their ideologies. You are asked an assortment of political questions, and then placed on a four-part scale measuring your beliefs. The website that provides this service also compares you to many historical political figures, and their stance on the compass.

The Canadian Political Parties.