Description

After theorists around 1960 proclaimed the death of ideology ideological divides and clashes have reemerged with renewed intensity throughout the world In the United States they have become particularly venomous Each side in Americas escalating ideological civil war charges the other with concocting fake news and alternative facts The other side is widely viewed as malicious irrational or downright stupid and often as barely legitimate The zeal of the opposing sides is often scarcely less than that which characterized the religious ideologies of old Indeed historical religious ideologies have largely been replaced by secular religions or religion substitutes

Ideology consists of normative prescriptions regarding how society should be shaped together with an interpretive roadmap indicating how this normative vision can be implemented in reality Ideological Fixation is the result of tensions and conflicts between these two elements The book focuses on ideologies factual claims about the world typically subordinate to and often distorted by their normative commitment In exploring this phenomenon the book combines insights from evolutionary psychology regarding the nature of some of our deepest proclivities with a broad sweep through history and around the world