#1 "Ideology" may be defined as a system of ideas, theories, beliefs, attitudes, norms, and social practice that is first characteristic of a class society or a class or other primary social group in a class society and second that serves principally the interests of a class, typically a class in that society, or other primary social group while putting itself forward as answering to the interests of the whole of the society. The people who have been socialized into a particular ideology will see themselves and their own position within their social environment in terms of this system of ideas, beliefs, and values, and they will explain, evaluate, and justify the way they live in terms of this system. Karl Marx's view can be considered an ideology, and marx was well aware of the fact and wrote much about the meaning of ideology.
Marx was well aware of the power of ideas in inspiring people and in giving them the ability to understand the situations in which they find themselves. He saw ideas as having power such that they could become a material force as soon as they were grasped by the multitude. When Marx was working and writing, however, it was common to give the decisive role in history to ideas and consciousness, and Marx countered this with his historical materialism, which began from the ways in which social production of the means if life is effected. The basic structure of his theory is seen in the sum of the social relations of production, but upon this foundation is built a political, legal, and ideological superstructure. Social consciousness may be defined as people's ideas, assumptions, and characteristic ways of thinking, and this is a reflection of their social being. The key to their social being is to be found in the mode of production. Once the ideas that human beings react to have been formed, these ideas react back upon the economic base.
Marx's conception of ideology determines his conception of ...