The word "ideology" has become a fixture in American political rhetoric, invoked by leaders to cast opponents' beliefs as dangerous, stupid or unfounded.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump vowed to "defeat the toxic poison of gender ideology," saying he would take "historic action" to reaffirm what he described as a divinely created gender binary. Education Secretary Linda McMahon has similarly criticized "DEI ideologies" in hiring and admissions, arguing instead for merit-based practices. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox has said a "leftist ideology" motivated the alleged assassin of Charlie Kirk.
Those on the left have used the term as well. Scholar Brad Onishi, author of the book Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism — and What Comes Next, describes Christian nationalism as an ideology asserting that the United States was founded as — and should remain — a Christian nation.
It wasn't always this way. For this installment of NPR's Word of the Week, let's trace ideology back to its origin during the French Enlightenment. Philosopher Antoine de Tracy coined "ideology" as a neutral concept for the scientific study of ideas, said Samuel Chan, who teaches political thought at Occidental College. De Tracy thought that an idea should be studied and interrogated the same way science studied the natural world. He believed this study of ideas would help bolster Enlightenment ideas of liberalism, including personal liberty and private property.
But Napoleon quickly turned it into a pejorative to attack political opponents — influenced by de Tracy — whose republican and liberal commitments conflicted with his own ambitions. Essentially, Napoleon described those who questioned his military might and authoritarian tendencies as "ideologues," in part because they favored legislative powers over executive power.
Karl Marx later adopted the word to describe what he saw as a false consciousness among workers who supported the interests of the ruling class. If laborers failed to revolt, Marx argued, it was because they were "beholden to the ideology of the ruling class," Chan said.
Today, "ideology has essentially become a form of name-calling," said Jason Blakely, a political scientist at Pepperdine University and author of Lost in Ideology. He argues conservatives often deploy the term to describe what they view as faddish beliefs that threaten traditional moral orders, while liberals use it to criticize inherited hierarchies they see as limiting human flourishing.
Chan favors other words — "worldview" or "narrative" — to describe how communities understand their histories and assign meaning to their lives. That framing, he said, can create greater empathy across political and cultural lines.
Blakely offers a different approach: treat ideology more like religion. "Religious people think their religion is true," he said, "but they also understand it's a cultural tradition that you have to speak out of and persuade people into." Demonstrating the merits of one's own viewpoint, he added, may prove more effective than dismissing others' beliefs outright.
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