Modern political life is a confusing and disorientating terrain of competing ideologies. Jason Blakely offers readers a lively, fresh and insightful guide through the labyrinth of conflicting and competing ideas in order to better understand why ideology in the modern era can be so divisive.Lost in Ideology sets out from the conviction that the current disorientation engulfing the world’s liberal democracies is in no small part ideological in origin. People feel confused because there are multiple ideological maps, so to speak, each marked by dramatically different points of interest, rivers, summits, roads, and total topographies. Ideology in the modern era has the paradoxical effect of orienting millions even as it disorients millions. This leads us to the present-day predicament in which individuals of every imaginable political stripe confidently declare: “I have a theory – but you? You have an ideology!”
Jason Blakely is Associate Professor of Political Science at Seaver College, Pepperdine University, Malibu. He is the author of We Built Reality: How Social Science Infiltrated Culture, Politics and Power (2020) and Interpretive Social Science (2018).
Introduction: in search of ideologyPart I: Strange roots: early American ideology1. Liberal by nature: varieties of classical liberalism2. Other foundings: civic republicanism and white supremacyPart II: Polarizations: the left and the right3. Evolving liberalism: progressives versus neoliberals4. In the name of the past: conservatives and neoconservatives5. There is no “fascist minimum”: fascistic bundles and hybridizations6. Is socialism still taboo? From Marxism to Bernie SandersPart III: Ideological scrambling: beyond the left and the right7. Hiding in plain sight: nationalism and multiculturalism8. There are many feminisms: the advent of sexual politics9. The meaning of the earth: the challenges of ecological politicsConclusion: the age of ideologies
Accessible and rich, detailed and comprehensive, well-argued and well written … it helps us better make sense of this crazy political world in which we live … a book that will necessarily find itself on to the syllabi of almost every course in political philosophy ... At a time when academia is in crisis, and many academics are busily chasing fads, here is a bright light.
Mark Bevir, Jason Blakely, University of California Berkeley) Bevir, Mark (Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for British Studies, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for British Studies, Pepperdine University) Blakely, Jason (Assistant Professor of Political Science, Assistant Professor of Political Science
Mark Bevir, Jason Blakely, University of California Berkeley) Bevir, Mark (Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for British Studies, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for British Studies, Pepperdine University) Blakely, Jason (Assistant Professor of Political Science, Assistant Professor of Political Science
Mark Bevir, Jason Blakely, University of California Berkeley) Bevir, Mark (Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for British Studies, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for British Studies, Pepperdine University) Blakely, Jason (Assistant Professor of Political Science, Assistant Professor of Political Science
Mark Bevir, Jason Blakely, University of California Berkeley) Bevir, Mark (Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for British Studies, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for British Studies, Pepperdine University) Blakely, Jason (Assistant Professor of Political Science, Assistant Professor of Political Science