Ideas influence people. In particular, extremely well-developed sets of ideas shape individuals, groups, and societies in far-reaching ways. This book establishes these “idea systems” as an academic concept. Through three intense episodes of manipulation and mayhem connected to idea systems―Europe’s witch hunts, the Mao Zedong-era “revolutions,” and the early campaign of the U.S. War on Terror―this book charts the cognitive and informational matrices that seize control of people’s mentalities and behaviors across societies. Through these, the author reaches two conclusions. The first, that we are all vulnerable to the dominating influence of our own matrices of ideas and to those woven by others in the social system. The second, that even the most masterful manipulators of idea programs may lose control of the outcomes of programmatic manipulation. Amongst this analysis, sixty-plus central conceptual terminologies are provided for readers to analyze multiform idea systems that exist across space, time, and cultural contexts.This is an open access book.
Author(s): Gordon C. Chang
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 423
City: Cham
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Contents
About the Author
List of Figures
List of Tables
Chapter 1: Introduction
The Spontaneous Formation of Ideological Ideas
Scholarly Engagements with “Ideology”
Utilities of a System Perspective
Considering the Dynamic Part-Whole Relations
Delineating Causal Relationships
Identifying Situated, Competent, Artfulness Ideological Works
Definition and Characterization of Idea Systems
Invisible Control of Building Block Patterns
Observing and Deconstructing Codification
Seven Domains of Components for Idea Construction
Social Actors Who Design, Manipulate, and Activate Idea Systems
Active, Grand-Scale Manipulators or Designers
Small-time Manipulators
Passive, Conduit-Like Users and Activators
Methodological Choices to Study Idea Systems
Three Cases of Idea Systems
Academic, Humanistic, and Practical Connections
Engaging Ideological Problems in the Present Time
Part I: The European Witch Hunts
Chapter 2: Making Compact Symbolic Structures
Preexisting Knowledge
Compact Symbolic Structures
Seven Domains of Components
Pre-coding Assembly
Compactness of Idea Sets
Structures of Idea Sets
Diverse, Intricate Justification Structures
Flexibility and Restrictedness of Empirical Referents
The Case of Anna Fessler in Langenburg
Causal Linkage from Repeated Associations, Copresences, and Correlations
Data Set: How Much Correlative Evidence Is Enough?
Using Language to Organize Copresent and Sequential Correlations
Causal Linkage from Experiments and Miscellaneous Testing Mechanisms
Backstage Manipulation
Interpretive and Design Manipulations
Types of Definitive and Uncertain Signs
Chapter 3: Building Internal Coherence
A Common Code System and Its Set of Coded Things
Defining a Cohesive Pool of Qualifying Evidence
Converged Matching Evidence as Seen in Confession Accounts
Remarkable Account Convergence and Detail-Congruity
The Trier Episode
Backstage Processes and Internal Coherence
Coercion, Seen and Unseen
Narrative Shell and Other Institutional Elicitation Structures
Undisclosed Informational Leakage
Material Verification and the Loudon Possession Episode
The Loudon Possession Episode
Chapter 4: Building External Coherence
Relational Bridges: Thin Versus Thick Parallels
Multiple Voices and Multivocality
Preemptive Design and Secondary Elaboration
Parameters of Acceptable Contradictions
External Coherence with Competing Knowledge Systems and Authorities
Chapter 5: Stepwise Inferences and Chain-Complexes of Ideas
Two Types of Stepwise Inferencing
Step-by-Step, Chain-by-Chain Constructions
The Bizarre, Brutal Acts Toward Magdalena Bollmann
Long Chain Extensions: Unto the Very Far
Portal-Like Chain Extensions: Unto the Very Fast
Extending and Multiplying Errors: Unto the Very Wrong
The Chain-Complex that Entrapped Magdalena Bollmann
Chapter 6: Ideas as Chemical and Biochemical Reactions
Empirical Rigor: A Physical Safeguard or Chemical Poison?
Catalysts and Inhibitors
Catalysts
Inhibitors
Poison or Medicine?: The Intricacy of Chemical Reactions
Creative Agency: By a Hair’s Difference
Chapter 7: A Five-Tier Model of Idea System and Ideological Creativity
Believability
Resilience
Adaptability
Developmental Potential
Ease of Use
Part II: The New Revolution in China
Chapter 8: Compact Symbolic Structures in a Futuristic Idea System
An Ideal Vision as Preexisting Knowledge
Theoretical Contents
Compact Symbolic Structures: Based on Fitting Images
Clear Categories and Categorical Aggregates
Categorical Versus Continuous Thinking
Aggregation
Categorical Aggregates as Filters
The Idea System in Basic Use
Enumeration
Escalation, Redirection, De-escalation
Chapter 9: Totality as Internal and External Coherence
Totalistic: Ideationally, Spiritually, and Institutionally
Purity-Focused and Pollution-Conscious
Outwardly Collective and Public
Preemptive Design and Secondary Elaboration
The Chicken Lot Example
The Tsinghua University Example
Chapter 10: Detailed, Rigorous Thinking in a Complex Chain of Elastic Codes
Theorizing Elasticity: Using Elastic Constructs
Elastic Constructs Versus Visual Symbols
From Resemblance to Equivalence
Substantiating Elastic Constructs with Evidence: The Case of Peng Zhen
Other Creative Inferencing
Forging Connections: Cognitive Portal and Chain-Like Complexes
Using Deep Theories: Example of a Volleyball Match Incident
Assessing the Great Leap Forward at a Time of Terrible Aftermath
Chapter 11: Destabilizing Contradictions and Implosions I: Synchronic Contradictions
A Catalogue of Elastic, Approximated Categories
Basic Origins of Unresolvable, Built-In Contradictions
The Case of the Background Theory Debate
Chapter 12: Destabilizing Contradictions and Implosions II: Diachronic Contradictions
Accumulating Diachronically Developed Contradictions
Series of National Dramas of Inversal and Reversal
External Sources of Contradictions: The Accumulation of Counterimages
A. Technical Inefficiency and Limitation
B. Hypocrisy and “Other” Truths
C. Relative Cruelty
D. Growing Personal Competence
Chapter 13: A Five-Tier Assessment
Believability
Resilience
Adaptability
Developmental Potential
Ease of Use
Part III: The War on Terror
Chapter 14: Encoding the War on Terrorism
From 9/11 to the War on Terrorism Script: Using the American Civil Religion
Days 1 and 2
The 30 Days Following 9/11
Establishing the Case for the War in Afghanistan
Equivalence Through Common Group Membership
Streamlining the Mode of Reasoning
The Design of Political Demands
The Design of “Draining the Swamp” Policy Metaphor
Maneuvering over Contesting Epistemic Conventions
Chapter 15: Extending the Idea System to the War on Iraq
The Threat of Iraq: Codification in the Face of Empirical Ambiguity
Secretary Powell’s U.N. Presentation
Intelligence Sources as a Superior Kind of Information
Detailed Congruity and Account Convergence from a Polyphony of Authorities
Accounting and Displaying Patterns in Ambiguous Empirical Materials
Defectors’ Accounts: Detailed Congruities
Using Ambiguous Signs in Stepwise Inferencing
Hybrid Codification Processes: Imbricating Ideational Codification into Empirical Codification
Displaying Nation-Terrorist Connections
Integrative Arguments Delivered to the American Public
Chapter 16: Encoding the Prisoner’s Abuse Scandal
Outbreak of the Abu Ghraib Scandal on CBS 60 Minutes II
Early Codification by the Bush Administration
Varied Codification by Republicans
Tentative Idea One: Technical, Systemic Failure to Blame
Tentative Idea Two: A Few Bad Soldiers to Blame
Varied Codification by Democrats
Tentative Idea One: Critiquing Anonymous Authorities and Administrative Incompetence
Tentative Idea Two: The Fault of Secretary Rumsfeld
Policing the War on Terrorism Script Parameters
Chapter 17: Encoding the Absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction
Timeline of the Iraq Weapons Search Scandal
Tabulating Threat from Summative Capability
Tabulating Threat from Uncertain Signs
Stepwise Division in Constructing Threat
An Alternative Theory of Threat: Iraq’s Chaotic Environment
Further Extrapolations: Judgments Encoded in “the Language of Washington”
The Hybrid Codification of Costs and Benefits
Demarcating the Causes and Nature of National Errors
Chapter 18: A Five-Tier Reflection
Believability
Resilience
Adaptability
Developmental Potential
Ease of Use
Chapter 19: Conclusion
Idea System as a Matrix
Academic Recapitulations
A Three-Stage “Life Cycle” of Idea Systems
Basic Mechanisms of Idea Systems
Typologies and Mixtures of Idea Systems
Humanistic Recapitulations
Intensified Vestiges from Past to Present
The Limitation of Scientific and Rationalist Mentalities
Fair-Mindedness as a Thought Ability, Attitude, and Principle
Index
