Ideology vs. Principle

[Valin]

Townhall:

Paul Greenberg
10/1/10

(Snip)
You have a point, for one man's ideology can be another's principle. Someone whose politics we don't much like we call an ideologue, while someone we agree with is of course a person of principle. But your point has its limits, for there's a reason one word is usually offered as criticism and the other as praise.

Ideology is a modern term (for ours is an age of ideology), and we even know just where, when and by whom it was first used:

In France in 1796 by one Destutt du Tracy. The concept of ideology is one more unfortunate legacy of the French Revolution. Even though definitions of it may vary, the word has come to mean a set of ideas, usually in politics, that narrows the mind while enflaming the passions. Which is why it has become a term of opprobrium rather than description.
(Snip)

Or consider the scene at the 1992 GOP convention in Houston after Pat Buchanan delivered a ring-tailed roarer of a speech denouncing all the Enemies of the Republic from liberals to homosexuals (as if one couldn't be both). It was a resounding blow in the Kulturkampf that was dividing the country at the time. In spirit it could have been that of a harangue delivered in a Munich beer hall circa 1923. But the mob -- excuse me, the convention delegates -- ate it up.

That performance of Brother Buchanan's provided a stark contrast with a farewell address delivered during that same convention by an aging but still strikingly handsome and eloquent Ronald Reagan, who radiated good will in every direction as he left the national stage. As he told the delegates, "whatever else history may say about me when I'm gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears, to your confidence rather than your doubts. ... My fondest hope for each one of you -- and especially for the young people here -- is that you will love your country, not for her power or wealth, but for her selflessness and her idealism."

Ronald Reagan's appeal to the better angels of our nature provided the perfect counterpoint to Pat Buchanan's hateful tirade. At that one convention you had the perfect, back-to-back contrast between ideology and principle. One lowers the tone of public discourse; the other raises it.