Karl Mannheim on Ideology

Leong Yew, Research Fellow, University Scholars Programme, National University of Singapore

For Mannheim ideology is situated together with its cognate, utopia. Mannheim takes a form of normativity by suggesting that ideology stifles political activity by its insistence on the status quo, while utopias, by providing the vision of an alternative order, encourage political change. See Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, trans. Louis Wirth and Edward Shils (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1936).

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Last Modified: 22 April, 2002