Effective Ideological Work & the Political Orientation of Social Thought Trends
September 2019
The author Prof. Wang Bingquan is a researcher at the Institute of Political Science, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
[Abstract] People’s public opinions and theoretical discourses on interest demands shape social thoughts which have prominent political characteristics. When expressing interest demands, the social thoughts show a clear political orientation. In the face of social thoughts with prominent political characteristics, ideological work should be based on reality, face reality, and adhere to being close to reality, close to life, and close to the masses. Researchers generally believe that social thoughts are a kind of ideological tendency, but they could not give a clear definition of the essential characteristics of social thoughts. After nearly 30 years of practice in the study of social thoughts and the examination and analysis of research results in this area, Chinese scholars have formed a basic view on this issue, namely: social thoughts are ideas or tendencies that are guided by certain ideological theories in the era of social change (based on the evolution of social psychology), reflect the demands of social and historical trends, and have a wide range of influence.
【Keywords】social trends, political nature, ideology
Thoughts are a reflection of social reality. In different periods since the reform and opening up, social thoughts have risen and fallen, and their performances are quite different, but thoughts with prominent political characteristics have received more attention and have been more prominent.
Looking back at the ups and downs of social thoughts since the reform and opening up, what impressed people most was social thoughts’ distinct political nature. Therefore, grasping the political characteristics of thoughts is the key to analyzing social thoughts, and it is also the entry point for grasping the dynamics of ideological theories, the roadmap of public opinion, and the pulse of society.
Maintaining tension with mainstream discourse, highlighting political “issues”, and strengthening group consciousness are the main manifestations of the political characteristics of social thoughts.
Maintain tension with mainstream discourse.
As a system of ideological theory, the political characteristics of social thought are prominently reflected in the “heterogeneous relationship” between it and the mainstream ideology, that is, there is a distinction between mainstream ideology and non-mainstream ideology.
Any social thought is reflected in a dynamic synthesis of a certain social psychology and ideological theory system. The reason why social thought is different from the expression of mainstream ideology is that the psychology of a part of the social group it reflects cannot accept the values advocated by the mainstream ideology, and it can be expressed under the theoretical support of the corresponding ideological system, that is, it is contrary to the mainstream ideology.
For example, the so-called “left” thought believes that the mainstream ideology is not “left” enough, and the so-called “right” thought believes that the mainstream ideology is not “right” enough.
From the perspective of ideological work, these thoughts are summarized as “non-Marxist” thoughts or even “anti-Marxist” thoughts, which fully illustrates the political characteristics of the thoughts and also exposes the tension between the mainstream ideology and the non-mainstream ideology.
The existence of this tension has its historical rationality. It is the complex changes of the times and the freedom and openness of society that have given rise to the birth of thoughts and shaped the relationship between thoughts and mainstream ideology.
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