The Ego and the Function of Ideology

As the purpose of psycho-analysis is not to cure isolated symptoms of neurosis, but to modify the life of people entirely, the problems of ideology acquire increasing importance in the process of analysis. Since the ego of a civilized human being is expressed by means of certain ideological attitudes, the patient's ideology becomes 'analytic material', even before we know the exact meaning of this 'material'. It belongs—partly, at any rate—to the ego. It plays a part in psychic balance. We cannot ignore its function or its relationship with the ego.

In most cases we receive the ideology from without (by introjective identification). Therefore ideology has one first form of existence—anthropological or sociological—which we will set aside, for it escapes direct psycho-analytic observation. Neither are we going to deal with the specific problems set by each type of ideology.

Above all we shall set aside the problem of truth. Not because the difference between scientifically 'proved' knowledge and an erroneous ideology is not essential. But our purpose is to examine the psychic function of ideology, whether it is 'appropriate' or not in its relationship with the ego. The psycho-analytic problem of the adequateness of an ideology should be taken up at a subsequent examination.

By ideology we mean every system of abstract ideas (conscious or unconscious) whose function it is to represent that which is real and man's action upon that which is real.

This is the widest possible definition. It includes scientific knowledge as well as philosophical or religious systems, and ethical, aesthetic, and political conceptions.

It implies a method of examination based on a certain number of principles, the fruitfulness of which has been proved by psycho-analytic experience.

• a.Owing to the principle of genetic continuity, the most abstract and complex forms of thought are based on the simplest and most concrete forms.

• b.