Ideology is a system of ideas and beliefs deeply embedded within culture, history, and rhetoric that provides us with meaning and helps us make sense of the world around us. It is an abstract concept that is grounded in material or communicative components that are recognizable and help us determine what is “normal and socially acceptable”. As a society, we fundamentally participate in language, social norms, and values because they are significant to us. We are constituted in relation to others when we make connections based on similar beliefs and values because of our society. For example, one instantly recognizable ideology within our own culture is “The American Dream”. It outlines the idea that if you work hard enough in America, you will succeed. Rather than tying success to a circumstance, it refers to the idea of personal effort.  It is an ideology that is a lived and shared experience among Americans that helps legitimize the interests of specific groups, despite the ideology containing both elements of truth and distortion. We see this ideal or belief in our television shows, school curriculum, advertisements, etc. With this constant reinforcement, it becomes a familiarity and normalcy within our culture. While it is shaped by culture, it shapes culture itself by dictating our discourse and consequently opening the doors to connection with others. If someone else resonated with this specific ideology, it becomes easier to connect with them because “The American Dream” reflects their values, work ethic, etc. This also means that if someone’s beliefs do not align with an ideology, it makes it harder to connect with them. Likewise, it would become more challenging to persuade a person with conflicting beliefs to your own, and easier to persuade them when they align. 

Ideology is a complex system that presents its relationship to persuasion with a contradiction. That ideology can both aid and hinder one’s ability to persuade. This is because of an ideology’s dichotomous nature in and of itself, being that it both clarifies and limits understanding; and it is both shaped by culture and, in turn, shapes culture itself. 

Persuasion is the process by which a speaker, writer, or message influences the beliefs, attitudes, values, or actions of an audience through means of language, images, or arguments. It is symbolic, intentional, and a driving social force. “When speakers or writers try to persuade us of something… they are appealing to our capacity to respond to what they are saying by drawing upon and reorganizing our existing patterns of thought or emotion.” (Garsten, 2009, p.9) Persuasion has been used since the dawn of time; in politics, education, and daily interactions. We see political figures persuade us with the use of ideologies. They tap into what we “know” or, more accurately, recognize, with the intent to make us agreeable. And it works. It is able to legitimize the interests of the groups because it is a lived experience. In contrast, if a group does not identify with the ideology, it becomes more challenging to persuade them. In short, this is because it requires us to rework what we “know”, which is hard. We don’t want to modify or reshape our preconceived notions that we are comfortable with, so we don’t. Our reaction or response is heavily and subconsciously influenced by ideologies. What we already believe, assume, and value determines how receptive we will be to the information. 

Ideology’s complexity greatly impacts persuasion, and the reason it’s so successful is that ideologies aren’t just a fact or a lie. It’s seemingly more complicated than that. These individual and shared experiences contain both truth and distortion, skewing how we make sense of the world. Despite this inconsistency, ideologies continue to direct our lives. We do this because, to us, they seem legitimate. Ideologies go through a “process of legitimation,” which persuades us that these ideologies are rational. “A dominant power may legitimize itself by promoting beliefs and values congenial to it; naturalizing and universalizing such beliefs as to render them self-evident and apparently inevitable.” (Eagleton, 1991, p.5) Without a system reinforcing the beliefs and ideas we have become familiar with, there is no call to fact-check the misinformation presented as a value. Likewise, “if there are no values and beliefs not bound up with power, the term ideology threatens to expand to vanishing point.” (Eagleton, 1991, p.7) Power is the driving force that persuades us to identify with an ideology, regardless of its accuracy. 

This power cultivates the culture to adopt this ideology, and when it is adopted, it cultivates the culture as well. Ideologies are ways of meaning characteristic of a social group. They help us perceive what is normal for our culture. In turn, the culture we are surrounded by influences what ideologies we identify with. The powerful and deeply rooted subconscious assumptions produce meaning in the service of power. They are manifested within a culture based on something similar to a group consensus. If deemed reliable, our actions, discourse, and behavior will reflect that. If we see our community around us aligned with an ideology, we will be more persuaded to participate as well. Similarly, our shared practices, traditions, and customs fortify the ideologies we support. Culture does not exist without ideologies, and ideologies do not exist without culture.  

An ideology’s complexity goes far beyond what has been discussed. It is a system that cannot be tied down to just one definition. It is important to understand that an ideology’s dichotomous nature directly affects persuasion because it is our connection to language, beliefs, and subject position. Our understanding of who we are as people and how the world works is indebted to the intricacy and convolution that is an ideology. More specifically, they embody multiple dichotomies within themselves that can both aid and hinder their relationship with persuasion.