How ideology explains
In a great post on a slightly rubbish article by Terry Eagleton, Chris Brooke says:
> It seems to me that in these kinds of cases the ideology follows the strategy, rather than
> determining it, whatever people may say about themselves on video just before they blow
> themselves up in Israel/Palestine. Which means that we might not learn very much about
> the phenomenon of suicide bombing by talking or writing or thinking much about
> whatever religious claims are made on its behalf by religious extremists and apologists for
> murder.
I don’t think the argument here quite works, and the reason why shows an interesting point about what a theory of ideology should do. It seems to me it’s a mistake to think that ideology is simply false and therefore irrelevant. Ideology is not just the lies that people tell to cover up some material situation; it’s the lies that _people in that material sitatuon_ tell about their material situation. It’s true, then, that ideology does not provide explanations in the sense of giving the causes of actions; but, precisely because ideology is an _effect_, studying it can tell us something about the actual causes of action.
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