Is Ideology Just a Post Hoc Rationalization of Coalitions?

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In contemporary U.S. politics, liberals and progressives—through the Democratic Party primarily—form a coalition of interests among labor unions, racial minorities, feminists, environmentalists, anti-war activists, the New Left, gay-rights activists, academia (particularly in the humanities), functionaries of the civil service (e.g., teachers), and of course various for-profit corporations (much of the entertainment industry, some in the finance industry, the automobile industry, and some service-focused industries), a lot of college students, hippies, stoners (if they can get out of their stoned stupor long enough to vote), and probably a few more factors I didn't think of.

Conservatives form a mostly opposing coalition through the Republican Party as their formal apparatus. This includes members of the stultifying WASP establishment, the Christian Right, some of the more hardcore Zionist Jewry, much of the pro-business class (upper-management types and large shareholders of corporations), the military establishment, police and law-and-order conservatives, gun-rights enthusiasts, right-libertarians, militia types, social/religious traditionalists, etc.

From these coalitions, an ideology is elaborated to provide a common vision that all interests can broadly share. As new interest groups become conscious of their cause, they'll gravitate to existing parties and ideologies that can most easily be adapted to further their goals. So gay-rights activists borrowed from the identity politics and civil-rights rhetoric of movements for racial minorities and women.

I would say more so in voting patterns than in actual beliefs. Just to use myself as an example, my strong belief in gun rights often forces me to vote more conservative and Republican than I'd otherwise care to, but I'm not actually changing my philosophy to fit a predetermined ideology. I still often violently disagree with the people I vote for on many issues and don't see changing that, but the manner in which I weigh my priorities shapes my voting record in a way that doesn't reflect the full spectrum of my beliefs. Other people may have had different experiences and paths to their views, but I fully own all of my views regardless that some of them aren't easily reconciled in today's political environment, hence having to prioritize what's the most important to me come election time.

Some are, and some aren't. Just think of the US Libertarian party. It clearly expresses an ideology, but who would be their ally? The same with the US constitution party or the Green party, they express *something* but they clearly lack allies. To some extent though, given the tensions within many mainstream political parties, one can sense that there are different ideologies within the group that actually conflict, and some ideologies that are really the result of the coalition.

Libertarians more often work with the Republican Party than with the Libertarian Party just as environmentalists and progressives pragmatically work with the Democratic Party.

The collapse of the old left is a major tragedy. They'd get lots of those "gun nuts" to vote for socialism if there was an old left.

Well, yes, pragmatically groups ally, but the issue is that there is still a distinct ideology that is outside of this alliance. The Green Party and the Libertarian party are not alliances and they are not pragmatic, but they do express ideologies.

I mean, I am not ignorant of the fact that these ideologies will ally with parties, but your question in the threat title is "Is Ideology Just a Post Hoc Rationalization of Coalitions?" these groups show us that it isn't JUST that, even if some of it is partially that.

The plutocracy has started to better exploit the possibilities of libertarianism. Young people think it's stupid to make marijuana illegal, and it is, so they set up a libertarian party that is for this but is also for extremely pro-feudal policies so young people vote for them because of the marijuana but unfortunately this puts pro-feudal coalitions in power that force them to flee the country and marijuana probably will remain illegal. That's what happened recently in Slovakia.

Before, it was the threat of being penned in there in Slovakia that got young people to vote for pro-feudal parties and so Dzurinda was in there for eight years. When Slovakia got into the EU and young Slovakians realised that they couldn't be forced to stay in Slovakia, an anti-feudal coalition government took power. This angered the usual plutocratic scum and so the latest trick has put pro-feudal people back in power.

Lack of prohibition laws is a fundamental part of libertarian political philosophy. It was not tacked on in order to gain support from youngsters. That's an absurd accusation.

No.

Of course individual members of the broader partisan/ideological coalitions have their own specific tenets and ideologies. A broader ideology allows specific interests with sometimes differing goals and priorities to mostly work together. The civil libertarians who align with the Democrats, for example, may support pornography and even prostitution on grounds of privacy and individual liberty, but the feminist wing may sometimes oppose both these things based on their purported exploitation of women.

Some of the most idealistic libertarians and environmentalists rather work within an independent party apparatus, but I think these idealists are the exception to the rule. They conform to the ideology first, and their ideology may not tightly align with an obvious bottom line (beyond the realization of their ideal). That said, given the libertarians I've met, I still think their ideology can be an instantiation of post hoc rationalization: Many are in business. Then you'll see another sort of libertarian on sites like Slashdot who have a very paranoid stance: fearful of "big government" tyranny (not simply opposed to regulation of commerce mostly out of self-interest), anxious to express their gun rights, seething with anger over taxation that they perceive always as theft. Hardcore environmentalists feel a protective stance towards the environment and the animals and plants within it, and they may especially enjoy nature: trails, animals, and the like. There can also be something almost radical in green politics because environmental critique can also be used as a criticism of capitalism (indeed "crimes" against the environment are often used as an indictment of capitalism); this anti-capitalist element can link greens with other aspects of the Left that are less sympathetic to an unreformed capitalism.

Well, I think we probably are at this point perhaps talking past each other. Yes, broad ideologies both can bind smaller ideologies, but to a large extent even CREATE the ideological structure of society, so while your question taken absolutely is false, it has a good grain of truth within it, as it likely explains a lot of what is going on.

As for the ideologies themselves, yes, in some sense many of them are post-hoc rationalizations of individual perspectives, which are not the same as coalitions, but still address the basic point. As such, many libertarians are paranoiacs who are in business, many Republicans are overmoralizing Christians who feel bonded to a right-wing culture or business-men, many Democrats are union workers, nature-lovers, and so on. And really, to a great extent, the entire political process isn't about policies, but rather about identity: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/09/p ... snt-a.html (which I think is a great reason to reject social conservatism, simply because this question isn't about "the definition of marriage" but rather about whether gays and other groups are equally human). And the "teams" are the actual ideologies of many people in the populace, because they are teams that people can identify themselves with. As such, the "idealists" are in some sense oddballs, as they are rejecting the common identity norms for their special little absurdities. (and as such are probably going to be odder members of the populace anyway)

That being said, your statement "Is Ideology Just a Post Hoc Rationalization of Coalitions?" is still in the strictest sense false, and I hope we both agree with that, and I hope we can both agree that there is a lot of truth in the statement "Ideology is just a post-hoc rationalization of coalitions".