Political ideologies: The mediating forms and parasitical contents (social democracy, conservatism, nationalism, populism)

Abstract

The article presents a critical overview of underlying ideas, social context, and original teachings of two "mediating ideologies" (social democracy and conservatism) and two mass "political phenomena" (nationalism and populism). Each of them constitutes a form of more or less effective political compromise, which ought to neutralize constant tensions and clashes between the leading modern ideologies of freedom and equality, i.e. liberalism and communism. However, the clash of ideologies which were prominent in the 19th and 20th centuries has lost much of its intensity today, although the social causes that gave rise to them have remained unchanged: social inequalities, abuse of freedom, and uneven distribution of social power. At the same time, the main social forces and political organizations that had been the symbols and striking forces of freedom and equality in the preceding decades - the political parties of the "left " and "right", including the never clearly defined "political center" - also lost their identity and power. Th e then political mortal enemies look and behave today almost exactly as they did then: in the ideological sense, "everyone wants everything" (allegedly representing/ defending the interests of "all citizens"); in the organizational sense, there is almost no difference between them; whereas the difference in the manner they behave when in power is almost negligible.