not much . no . yes . maybe . ;)

I take a couple principles that seem okay and I run with them until I think I need to change them, at which point I do. I suspect most people are the same way.

Define ideology.

As defined according to Wikipedia's "political ideology" subsection (which is what I meant): "a certain ethical set of ideals, principles, doctrines, myths, or symbols of a social movement, institution, class, or large group that explains how society should work, and offers some political and cultural blueprint for a certain social order"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology

Then my answers are:

1) It's necessary to make sense of the world
2) Depends if you have any interest in making sense of the world
3) Most people do.
4) If the ideology is of any value, yes.

What do you folks think of ideology? People who espouse an ideology tend to be pushy.

Should everyone have one? Enh, not really.

Does everyone have one without knowing it? No.

Should a person be ideologically consistent? If they are trying to promote an ideology, yes.

Hmm. I'm not wholly certain I agree with your point #1 Putin, but I suspect I might just be misunderstanding. Under what circumstances do you consider an ideology to be helpful in making sense of the world?

I'm asking because I think there may be a causational issue in the relationship between ideology and comprehension of the world around us. The way I read your statement (and I could just be misreading, hence the question), it sounds like you're saying that one's understanding of the world is derived from one's ideology. I think people operate the other way - their ideology is derived from their understanding of the world; and that instead of applying principles to the surrounding world to make sense of it, principles arise from observing certain patterns or trends in the surrounding world.

I more or less agree with putin. Like PE, I would quibble with his first point, and in the same way.

Actually I should give more direct answers to the questions in the OP.

1-2) To the extent that an ideology helps someone make sense of the world, yes, one should have an ideology. I think a deliberate search for one is probably a waste in that respect - ultimately everyone makes sense of the world through their own experiences, and those experiences predispose them to particular ideologies. But inasfar as ideologies are simply observed patterns about the human experience, and recommendations for just action based on those patterns, they're useful tools for understanding the world and making it a better place.

3) Absolutely. Socioeconomic background and parental political affiliations are two of the strongest correlative variables to political identification in American society, and ostensibly neither of those should have much relevance to a conscious, deliberate search for the truth - which means that the circumstances into which one is born have a far stronger effect in biasing an individual toward a particular political outlook than you'd expect. I'd go far enough as to say that one's political outlook is largely deterministic, which means yes, most people have an ideology even if they don't know it.

4) One would hope, but I would sacrifice ideological consistency for... accuracy? I'm not sure what word I'm looking for here, but my first post in the thread alludes to it. An ideology is a heuristic (or series of heuristics) for understanding the world, and every time that heuristic fails you have to ask yourself if the failure rate is acceptable or not. If it is, you stick with it and own the errors where they occur. If it is not, you abandon it and find a better set of heuristics.

People acquire values before they observe the world and its patterns. Furthermore, whether people even see patterns is a function of their values.

OK, that's fair. I agree with that. I misread your post as though it were a conscious process, but I'd agree that we start off with certain values before we're capable of deciding them for ourselves (at which point those values - the basis for an ideology - would of course inform our findings from the world rather than the reverse).

Are some ideologies more correct than others? How does one discern a correct ideology from an incorrect ideology?

PE,

Your third point seems to not be entirely consistent with your other points. If background and parents shape values, then the causal arrow is ideology - > observations and not observations - > ideology.

Yeah, I recognized that after I said it, hah. You're correct.

I posted before you issued that clarification.

@ Tendmote,

"Are some ideologies more correct than others?"

Ideologies have different goals and values, so no. There is no objective measurement to judge ideologies.

"How does one discern a correct ideology from an incorrect ideology?"

One cannot do so.

How are conflicts between ideologies to be resolved?

Politics or violence (politics by other means).

Define politics.

"How are conflicts between ideologies to be resolved?"

On large scales, inevitably force; hopefully nonviolently, in the spirit of peace through strength.

If we can agree on the Wikipedia definition of politics as "the practice and theory of influencing other people on a global, civic or individual level", should one compromise ideologically in order to gain influence, if it is plausible to do so? Should one sacrifice consistency for utility?

Decision making by the legally constituted sovereign authority.

"Are some ideologies more correct than others? How does one discern a correct ideology from an incorrect ideology?"

Tough question that I think only an individual can answer. Kind of alluded to in my answer to #4 - an ideology is a set of heuristics for understanding the world, and so by extension if you feel a particular ideology helps you understand the world more effectively/coherently/wholly than another, then that ideology is better. It's certainly possible to argue that some ideologies are logically more satisfying than others (more internally consistent), but I don't think this evaluation gets very far in any significant sense. You can knock out some bogus ideas with a logical analysis but I don't think for instance that you're going to resolve which of libertarian capitalism or communitarian socialism is a more logically coherent ideology.

I'm not a huge fan of my answer here because it relies a lot on moral/philosophical intuition as a deciding force, which is unsatisfactory in attempting to give any objective answer to these questions, but like it or not, I think most people approach it this way anyway, so if the goal is crafting the best explanatory answer this is probably it.

"should one compromise ideologically in order to gain influence, if it is plausible to do so? Should one sacrifice consistency for utility?"

Presumably most ideologies seek to achieve certain goals. To the extent that compromise assists in moving the dial in the direction of one's goals, compromise seems fully consistent with one's ideology. Depends on how goal-driven the ideology in question is and what compromises are involved.

I have no further questions. Please inquire further into each others' responses.

I don't honestly have anything to inquire into Putin's responses lol

Kind of surprising almost since we're on pretty divergent ends of the political spectrum despite having a very similar conceptualization for what ideology is and how it's to be used.

Actually further question: Under what circumstance should one abandon an ideology?

When ideology --> injustice.

Which is tantamount with the ideology being directly contradictory to itself.

Francis Fukuyama claimed that we have entered a 'post-ideological' age. The argument was that more or less there is a consensus that liberal democracy is the highest form of human society, and that everybody is attempting to achieve this. Societies are more or less successful at obtaining this goal, but there is no dispute that this is the goal.

Do you agree that there are no real challengers to liberalism?

Surely radical Islam would be an example of a challenger to liberalism, Putin? It's not one, of course, that almost anybody in the west finds compelling, but that is just to say that people who don't share that ideology disagree with that ideology.