Marxism, facism, socialism, feminism, colonialism, communism, totalitarianism, etc.

 Isms. What are they? What do we think they are? How do they play a role in our culture and the politics of our country?

To be clear, the isms discussed here are ideologies. An ideology is a philosophy or system that seeks to explain the state of things and change them. 

Erika Wolters, an assistant political science professor at Oregon State University, explained that within our political system there is an ideological spectrum that allows us to categorize people. 

“This is our representation of internally held beliefs and values, that we can then put out there, or again, (use to) define ourselves,”  Wolters said. 

“This idea of pluralism, that was supposed to be a part of the American experiment as well, right? We have all of these ideas and we’re sort of mixing them all together and then, in theory, coming out with the best ones. In part also to make sure that there’s no factions that get too powerful,” Wolters said. 

Henry Banning, an economics major and political science minor, explained that ideologies are tools that categorize ideas and topics even when their true definitions are unclear. 

“When we say the words capitalist, Marxist, feminist, I don’t think we know what that means,” Bannock said. “We’re all still learning a lot.”

Similarly, Fox Perez, a political science major, said the primary goal of ideologies is to make the world easier to digest. 

“Our generation has fallen into this love, or obsession, with categorization,” Perez said. “We like to put ourselves into little boxes because it’s more comfortable to be in there.” 

Wolters said that what concerns her is when “we voluntarily sort ourselves based on our isms.”

Wolters also explained that when this happens, and we are stuck in an echo chamber of ideas, we are “not being cognizant of other perspectives, other decision-making.”

“I think that’s a really key point in politics,” Wolters said. “We are talking past each other and probably in many ways because of our isms.” 

Wolters explained that each ideology has its “pure form.” However, our understanding of these ideologies brings along subversive meanings. “If we talk about feminism, there’s a big swath of that, but what it does is it sort of encapsulates all of those other meanings in this one way,” Wolters said. 

Wolters said isms act as queues that take us to that subversive meaning and because of that, she said, they can be leveraged to create political division. 

Banning said ideologies hurt discussion and when we stick to ideology we could become defined by them. 

“They all hate each other,” said Banning, adding that this could be avoided if we “weren’t so defined by the ideas.”

“While isms are good, they tend to isolate certain ideas,” Banning said. “There occurs a sort of devolution of every idea until it gets super specific.”

With this, it would seem as though our understanding of ideology has become quite estranged from an actual understanding of their doctrines and pure forms. 

For example, as Wolters pointed out, when the word socialism is used, it elicits a negative reaction from certain political groups.

Similarly, Banning explained that the usage of words like Marxism or capitalism can evoke a strong emotional reaction from people. 

Politicians, therefore, can use these isms in political debates and combine it with dog whistling and fear-mongering to undermine or put down their opponents.  

An example of this is former President Donald Trump calling Vice President Kamala Harris and her father Marxists during the 2024 presidential debate.

“(The false usage of ideologies) helps the cause of the politician more than the public,” Perez said. “To fill in the gaps (of their argument), they create lies.” 

Via what Perez calls a game of telephone, we have lost all connection with the real meaning of the words we use. 

“(Ideologies) play out in reality differently than they actually are,” Perez said. “Marxists in Western society in their young twenties overlook that.” 

Perez said the popular Marxism of today is radically different from the original doctrine created by Karl Marx.

Instead of relying on politicians to learn the correct definition of ideologies, Banning urges people to read more. 

“Reading is a better way to find out what you agree with,” Banning said. 

If the false definition of ideologies, like Marxism, feminism, etc., keep spreading, then the public perception of these terms could get more and more skewed. 

“(That way) when the truth is in front of us, we will no longer be able to recognize it at all,” Perez said.