Revolution and Witchcraft

Front matter

Revolution and Witchcraft

Gordon C. Chang

Revolution and

Foreword

Socio-cultural investigators who take their task as that of unmasking the historical peculiarity of putatively universal terms, including “the human,” will surely be provoked by the very opening of this book. For Gordon Chang thinks he has license to ponder “human beings” as such, or at least the building blocks of their inferences and meaning-making. The great accomplishment of his comparisons of discursive derangements in wildly different cultural contexts is to make good on that methodological conceit. He does not say that American political discourses leading to the invasion of Iraq are “like” those leading to his other showcases of collective madness, the Maoist Cultural Revolution, and the early modern witch hunts in Europe. He discloses merely how the dimming of public reasoning in the American polity of our day represents a more insidious merger of discursive maneuvers that had remained disjoined in other episodes of craziness. “Anatomize, then historicize!” might be his credo. That comprises Chang’s novel invitation for analysts of discourse to think big again.

Berkeley, CA, USA Richard Biernacki May 2022 vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Several journal editors in the field of discourse analysis have helped to publish early pieces in this book, including Charles Briggs of Pragmatics, Teun van Dijk of Discourse and Society, and Ruth Wodak of the Journal of Language and Politics. Ivan Leudar translated one of the articles into Czech for Biograf. I thank these individuals for their positive reception of my early work, as well as the respective journals for their kind permission to reprint modified versions of the articles in this book.

The core part of this book was written during a one-year sabbatical leave awarded by Western Illinois University between 2017 and 2018. I spent the year as a visiting scholar at the University of California, San Diego, my alma mater. UC San Diego, from the late 1990s and 2000s, is where I developed my interest and training in qualitatively oriented, theoretically driven sociology. I have had the good fortune to encounter and interact with scholars of various disciplines in sociology as well as in other departments. There are too many people to mention, but some notable examples are Carlos Waisman, Kwai Ng, Richard Madsen, Ivan Evans, Jeff Haydu, Martha Lampland, Harvey Goldman, Susan Yonezawa, Makeba Jones, and George Lipsitz. Among them, Charles Thorpe and Isaac Martin have provided understated but much appreciated critical support. Ultimately, I could not have been more fortunate than to have selected Hugh Mehan, Bennetta Jules-Rosette, Richard Biernacki, Gary Fields, and Masao Miyoshi as members of my doctoral dissertation committee in 2008. Rick had been my honest, supportive figure in every stage of my work; Gary is the right kind of humanistic scholar needed for every controversy. The late Masao Miyoshi is responsible for delaying this book for xX ACKNOWLEDGMENTS several years by—through his insistent, vivacious, inspiring critique—compelling me to connect social constructionism with critical theory.

For many years, I have been part of the Art, Culture, and Knowledge (ACK) research group coordinated by Bennetta Jules-Rosette. I have benefited deeply from exchanging ideas on topics related to the sociology of culture, art, and knowledge with several long-term members in this community for more than two decades. These members include Lea Ruiz-Ade, Wayne ‘J.R? Osborn, Lorna Lueker Zukas, Alex Zukas, Ricardo Guthrie, Erica Fontana, Pierce Flynn, and Eduardo Santana. J.R. Osborn, in particular, has been a terrific peer who adds wonder to every one of our conversations as he challenges my logic and assumptions.

I want to thank several anonymous reviewers who have shown a warm interest in the initial book proposal, and one key reviewer for this manuscript has especially shaped the fate of this book by his support and detailed review. Elizabeth Graber from Palgrave Macmillan, by judiciously mediating author’s and publisher’s needs, has been a wonderful editor to work with. Outside of Palgrave Macmillan, Ramon Battershall has magnificently copyedited multiple early drafts of this manuscript. Chris Buchanan, Noah Faingold, and Bennitta Rector have provided insightful, pragmatic feedback as this book’s beta readers. In ways more than I initially realized, the friendship and companionship of Erik Borowitz, Sean Dinces, and Alex Jong-Seok Lee, as well as my interactions with the ethnomethodology and interactionist communities, have helped me sustain the energy needed to complete this book.

There are, however, three individuals without whom my thoughts in this book would never have come to fruition.

The late John McNeil, former professor of education at UCLA, has been a spiritual anchor throughout my academic career. I was lucky enough to have had the invaluable opportunity to meet and converse with him regarding the theory of humanistic education since 2001, and he has watched this book project develop step by step into its current form. John has read and commented on all the chapters of this book when they were in their fledgling versions and provided incredibly frank and pertinent feedback during many critical junctures of my writing process. It should be added that he was still actively commenting on my drafts at the centennial age of 100 in 2020! I am forever grateful and indebted to him for his support, trust, and generosity of spirit.

Bennetta Jules-Rosette has been an important mentor, companion, and friend. Besides involving me in her ACK group and the African and

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi

African-American Studies Research Center (AAASRC), she has deeply influenced my interest in the worlds of qualitative sociology and sociology of knowledge. During 2017-2018, she helped to coordinate a visiting scholar arrangement with the AAASRC and the Department of Sociology at UC San Diego, during which I completed the core part of my research and writing. Our habit of holding extensive multi-hour conversations dates back many years; some of the key ideas in this book originate from those extended conversations, especially as they pertain to semiotics and ethnomethodology.

Hugh ‘Bud’ Mehan, who I first met in 1998, initially introduced me to the fascinating world of sociology. He showed me the sheer intellectual power and promise of qualitative sociology, and subsequently took the practical actions required to help me develop an academic career so that I could work in this immersive field. This book project, as well as my whole orientation toward sociology, is owed to the insights he had developed over the course of many years. I hope that readers can see my appreciation of the depth and genius of his academic approach through the parts in which his framework is referenced. For the many years of support he has extended to me, I owe him more than I could possibly articulate. This book is dedicated to him.

Lastly, politics is a fickle thing; great differences can emerge between moral and intelligent people; I hope this work captures something constant. Although many individuals have been mentioned in this acknowledgment, this book has not been written with their direct approval. Therefore, the defects and shortcomings are entirely my own.

Contents

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 xiv CONTENTS Part I The European Witch Hunts

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

Index

Xix

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gordon C. Chang (A/A) is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Western Illinois University. His main areas of interest are theory and the sociology of knowledge.

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LIST OF FIGURES

Non-compact and compact symbolic structures

An orbit with three potential explanations operating within parameters of acceptable contradictions

Three linear distortion dynamics

An orbit with four potential explanations operating within parameters of acceptable contradictions (regarding shortfalls in the revolution)

Steps of connection between events and meaning over the coffin dilemma in The Little Red Guards (1992)

Exclusive categories; nonexclusive categories; approximated categories

Image display of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) spraying simulated anthrax

Incremental idea extension through multiple ambiguous signs Hybrid codification of Iraq’s threat

An orbit with four potential explanations operating within parameters of acceptable contradictions (regarding the Abu Ghraib incident)

Presentation of dual-use equipment in The Duelfer Report (Volume 3, “Biological Warfare,” p. 31)

Divided, stepwise construction of Iraq’s threat after ISG codification

Orbit of potential explanations consisting Iraq’s threat

363 365

Table 2.1 Table 2.2 Table 2.3 Table 3.1

Table 3.2 Table 4.1

Table 5.1 Table 8.1

Table 8.2 Table 8.3 Table 8.4 Table 8.5 Table 11.1 Table 11.2 Table 11.3

Table 14.1 Table 15.1

LIST OF TABLES

The relative flexibility of evidence pertaining to witchcraft cases A simple theorization model based on sequential correlations Types of definitive and uncertain signs

Eight levels of coherence-construction activities in witchcraft cases

Ordering of questions in Mallelus Maleficarum

Polyphonic coherence between parallel voices, adapted from Willumsen’s Witches of the North

Stepwise dynamics in prosecutions of extraordinary crimes

A timeline of selected campaigns and events during the Mao Era, in five phases

Ideational codes in an overarching narrative of the Revolution A basic model of an ideational mode of codification Recalibration of fitted images after President Liu Shaoqi was redefined as an enemy during the cultural revolution campaign (1966-1969) Aggregate categorical filter and pre-filtered and post-filtered realities A collection of intermediary ideas, as elastic codes, in the Little Red Book

Sequential equivalences with elastic categories and resulting contradictions A model of aggressive equivalences in the background theory debate The War on Terrorism script and its fitting images Arrangements of uncertain signs—and circumstantial evidence—in Secretary Powell’s 2003 U.N. presentation

46 51

Introduction

RR BE IK One Thought [Could Lead One To] Heaven; One Thought [Could Lead One To] Hell.

KZ BUT Miss a Centimeter; Wrong by a Thousand Miles

Ideas, by their nature, are prone to abuse.

Human beings, by their nature, are prone to abuse ideas.

Although this work can be read as a cross-disciplinary theory book, this entire project originated from an interest in answering some key questions about the human condition: Why do people end up doing what they do, and why do things happen in society the way they do? An answer is sought through an exploration of ideas.

Ideas shape the thought processes of entire societies. Powerful sets of ideas provide the tools and methods that enable humans—groups of people, not simply individuals—to travel much further and faster in thinking than otherwise possible. In situations when ideologies and idealogues run rampant or amok, extreme mass-scale social mishaps occasionally follow, and in such unfortunate circumstances many efforts to contain these situations are rendered futile. This book utilizes three cases to demonstrate

© The Author(s) 2023 1 G. C. Chang, Revolution and Witchcraft, https: //doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17682-1_1 how ideologies, as idea systems, operate within the contexts of human societies and shape human behavior.

The first case (Chaps. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7) covers a variety of witch-hunt movements in early modern Europe (1450 to 1750). It demonstrates a model of an idea system that is highly evidentially driven (or factually or empirically driven).

The second case (Chaps. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13) is the futuristic, Communist Revolution led by Mao Zedong and his devoted followers in China from 1949 to 1976. It demonstrates a model of an idea system that is highly zdeationally driven.

The third case (Chaps. 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18) is the U.S. War on Terror from 2001 to 2004, a far-reaching but somewhat nebulous project enacted by the George W. Bush administration. This case demonstrates a model of an idea system that is an eclectic, but extremely wellintegrated, hybrid.

Using these three examples as a guide, this book demonstrates how slight differences in ideas, slowly but steadily accumulating, can misdirect not only our lives’ trajectories but also whole societies’. Such differences are not marked in the degree of logical rigor, in the quality of available evidence, or in the techniques of its acquisition. They cannot be described with simple dictums or maxims. These differences can be found in the principles unveiled in this book pertaining to how whole zdea systems work. They can be found in the intricate codification decisions that people made in real-life contentious contexts.!

THE SPONTANEOUS FORMATION OF IDEOLOGICAL IDEAS

Ideas proliferate wildly in today’s fast-paced public political discourse. A condition of extreme openness seems to mark the circulation of ideas—an openness that now includes ubiquitous manipulation. Pervasive and efficient manipulations, paradoxically, could mean closing minds to any objective truth while opening them to other possibilities. A guarding mechanism against intellectual anarchy has been a liberal ethic of uncensored public discourse and private deliberation. Conceptually, discursive participants are encouraged to battle openly to expose and detail the manipulative techniques used by others; audiences, for their part, are

'Here, I am referring to the profound differences that lie between a centimeter and a thousand miles, and between “heaven” and “hell” as referred to in the epigraph.

encouraged to take an active role in processing the ideas circulated, exercising “critical” and “independent” thinking.

Mechanistically, this ethic of a self-policing public discourse falls short, given the professional, systematic manipulation operating on a massive scale and the broad social range constituting the public. With the appearance of almost every new controversy, people’s ideas have converged, rapidly falling into mutually segregated camps. Actors on every side can quickly draw upon a reservoir of information, worldviews, and expressions that are loosely but systematically organized. Furthermore, there are often exemplary figures who comprehend the whole scale, the most compelling aspects, and the most dexterous uses of all resources within that reservoir. Certain figures—such as those who have exclusive informational and institutional access—could even exert disproportionate control over what flows into the reservoir. Even though most participants feel they are equal participants or active players in the discourses—including in the domain of idea manipulation and defense against manipulation—their roles and their ideas seem somewhat limited, or even predestined. It is easiest to build their ideas within established systems—and those systems are already partly designed and coordinated. Any attempt to depart from the system will be harder, thus positioning the individual to be much less equipped— and much too slow—to best other idea circulators in fast-paced conflicts.’

The ways people are manipulated into generating particular ideas with a great deal of spontaneity and free will—rigorously and passionately— relate to the contemporary and historical puzzle of “ideology.” Ideologies have never merely been small, private opinions; they are highly meaningful ideas—associated with methods of thinking and speaking, as well as emotional conduct and ways of living*—that potentially bind, divide, and motivate various institutions and collectives—especially affecting social changes during critical times. In crucial ways, ideologies condition the

?For a discussion of how the current mode of public political discourse is mediated by “mediatization,” or what David Altheide calls “media syndrome,” in which the public is profoundly constricted and manipulated, see David Altheide, The Media Syndrome (London and New York: Routledge, 2016); Caja Thimm, Mario Anastasiadis, and Jessica Einspanner- Pflock, eds. Media Logic(s) Revisited: Modelling the Interplay between Media Institutions, Media Technology and Societal Change (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

3“Tdeologies are Symbolic, Affective, Behavioral, and Relational.” Gary Alan Fine and Kent Sandstrom, “Ideology in Action: A Pragmatic Approach to a Contested Concept,” Sociological Theory 11, no. 1 (March 1993), 21.

realities and relations in which people live.* Cultural theorist Fredric Jameson recently declared: “I will need to say why Ideology... subsumes everything else in culture and the superstructures, assuming the position that religion once held for the first historians and cultural theoreticians of the West.”°

The techniques to create ideological control and conformity are advancing with increased experience and the technological means utilized by those who practice them. Traditional academic frameworks and approaches, conversely, seem to have run into a point of limitation. They are still useful, but they are not quite sufficient and a little too incohesive to deal with the increasingly complex ideologies generated by manipulative social actors at accelerated speed and given the current amount of informational backing. In fact, they might even be insufficient to deal with the ideologies of the past. The major point of limitation, I contend, is methodological and theoretical and intimately related to operationalization.

SCHOLARLY ENGAGEMENTS WITH “IDEOLOGY”

Discourse theorist Teun van Dijk has formulated the most encompassing, cross-disciplinary scholarly definition I have yet encountered:

ideology is something like a shared framework of social beliefs that organize and coordinate the social interpretations and practices of groups and their members, and in particular also power and other relations between groups.

Under this umbrella definition, there have been at least three very different, ideal-typical scholarly engagements of ideology in the academic literature.®

*Cf. Slavoj Zizek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (London: Verso, 1989); Masao Miyoshi, Trespasses: Selected Writings (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), 127-150, 243-252.

5 Fredric Jameson, Allegory and Ideology (London and New York: Verso, 2020), ix. As early as in the 1980s, Jameson has been concerned with the “operationalization” problem with regard to ideology and proposed semiotic approaches in solving the problem. Fredric Jameson, foreword to On Meaning: Selected Writings in Semiotic Theory, by Algirdas Julien Greimas, trans. Paul J. Perron and Frank H. Collins (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1987).

°For a brief survey of the field, see Terry Eagleton, Ideology: An Introduction (London and New York: Verso, 1991); John B. Thompson, Studies in the Theory of Ideology (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1984); John B. Thompson, Ideology and Modern Culture (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press 1991), 28-73.

The first type of engagement, exemplified by Karl Marx’s usage of the concept, embeds a clear mission of social critique. “Ideology” is a valueladen, pejorative term; it is something to be negated. In the view of Marx, the dominant classes meticulously construct and sustain ideas that ensure their own class interests. These ideas span the realms of economy, law, morality, politics, and culture. Intellectuals are often co-constructors of these ideas, but the masses typically give their consent and some even do so enthusiastically. The Marxian tradition has set the trend to define ideology as ideas and representations that are organized to mask truths, perpetuate falsehoods, enable power subjugation, conquer others, or combinations of the above. 7 Scholars in the traditions of cultural studies, post-Marxism, neo-Marxism, and critical theories paradigmatically seek to unveil economic, colonial, religious, political, and cultural ideologies that hinder societal liberation and potential.’ Reflecting or critiquing “ideologies” is their endeavor to improve social conditions by helping society resolve contradictions via philosophical reflection and praxis.”

A second type of engagement deliberately deals with ideology in a nonpejorative and non-evaluative way. This “neutral conception” of ideology is synonymous with “‘systems of thought’, ‘systems of belief? or ‘symbolic systems’ which pertain to social action or political practice.” 1° Supposedly this is the original meaning of ideology, as coined by French thinker Antoine Destutt de Tracy in 1796 to refer to his vision of a new science that would “[regulate] society in such a way that [humans find] there the most help and the least possible annoyance from [their] own kind.”!!

7For example, see Karl Marx, A Critique of the German Ideology, trans. and ed. Salomea W. Ryazanskaya (Moscow, RU: Progress Publishers, [1845-1846]1968), republished by Marxists Internet Archive in 2000: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/ download/Marx_The_German_Ideology.pdf; Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, trans. Saul K. Padover and Daniel de Leon (Chicago, IL: Charles H. Kerr & Company, [1851-1852]1907), republished by Project Gutenberg (Salt Lake City, UT) on Feb19,2006(EBook#1346):https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1346/1346-h/1346-h.htm

8 For example, see Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. Edmund Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press. [1947] 2002; Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society, 2nd Ed. London: Routledge, [1964]1991); Nannerl Keohane, Michelle Z. Rosaldo, and Barbara C. Gelpi, eds., Feminist Theory: A Critique of Ideology (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1983); Zizek, The Sublime Object of Ideology.

°John B. Thompson, Studies in the Theory of Ideology (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1984) 1, 141-142.

John B. Thompson, Ideology and Modern Culture (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1980), 5.

1 Cited in Thompson, Ideology and Modern Culture, 30.

Every set of philosophical ideas, as well as cohesive moral or spiritual beliefs used toward organizing social-cultural relations more generally, would fit under this neutral conception.” Scholars could be studying the “ideology” of a group without meaning to criticize the ideas of any particular actor or institution as problematic. One can see ideology as potentially offering both positive and negative functions.'*

The third type of engagement—and probably the largest and most underacknowledged—does not use the term ideology at all (or does so only sparingly) but actually engages with ideology in theorization, critiques, or empirical inquiries. The works by Michel Foucault, Edward Said, Pierre Bourdieu, Jean Baudrillard, Dorothy Smith, Patricia Hill Collins, and Stuart Hall are prominent examples in the field of social theory.'* So too are the many scholarly and practical studies that substantively address how certain sets of developed ideas are linked to the development of societal power, which in turn shapes social formations and institutions.!°

2A few exemplary works that employ this notion of ideology include Clifford Geertz, “Ideology as a Cultural System,” in Interpretation of Cultures, 193-233; Umberto Eco, A Theory of Semiotics (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press), 292-297; Michael Freeden, ed., The Meaning of Ideology: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives (London and New York: Routledge, 2007); Susan Gal and Judith T. Irvine, Signs of Difference: Language and Ideology in Social Life (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).

13 Michael Freeden, Ideology: A Very Short Introduction (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

14 Stuart Hall, Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse (Birmingham, UK: Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, 1973); Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978); Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, ed. Colin Gordon, trans. Colin Gordon, Leo Marshall, John Mepham, and Kate Soper (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980); Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation (Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e), 1983); Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment (New York and London: Routledge, 1990); Dorothy. E. Smith, The Conceptual Practices of Power: A Feminist Sociology of Knowledge (Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 1990); Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic. Power. Pierre Bourdieu, ed. John B. Thompson, trans. Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1991); Miyoshi, Trespasses.

15 For example, Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (New York: The New Press, 2008); Arlie R. Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right (New York: The New Press, 2016); David H. Price, Cold War Anthropology (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2016); Barbara J. Risman, Where the Millennials Will Take Us: A New Generation Wrestles with the Gender Structure (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018); Bennetta Jules-Rosette and J.R. Osborn, African Art Reframed: Reflections and Dialogues on Museum Culture (Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2020); Ruth Wodak, The Politics of Fear: The Shameless Normalization of Far- Right Discourse, 2nd Edition (London, UK: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2020).

Diverse definitions and engagement approaches are not problems in themselves.

One practical problem 7s, however, present for all scholars: ideology is a concept that is hard to operationalize in an analysis. When “ideology” is grasped through its individual elements, empirically or theoretically, we often cease to look at it as a whole but instead as truncated parts. While ideology can be easily referred to as a holistic entity, it is of limited use in scholarship if we can only interact with and think of it as a conflated whole. This is a “gestalt problem” related to cognition and to sociology at large.'° While the production and distribution of ideologies in the field of practice are hardly curtailed by this scholarly hurdle, this problem causes dulls and stalls many scholarly efforts.

UTILITIES OF A SYSTEM PERSPECTIVE

The use of a system metaphor (or a system perspective) is a way to operationalize ideology in social research and analysis. To be sure, a system metaphor is not always the most suitable tool for such analysis. Some occasions call for scholars to identify hidden ideologies or critique existing ones in broad terms rather than analyze their mechanics. A system metaphor is most useful after the initial stage of recognition. It excels in helping us make sense of the organizational aspects of ideologies and to delineate the time, place, and manner of ideological activation. This is preferable for scholars who wish to view ideologies from the perspective of a designer or practitioner. A vehicle driver or seller needs only to deal with an automobile as a whole, whereas a mechanic or anyone who is seeking to fix a car would find it more beneficial to know how the entire vehicle is constructed through its component parts. Previous scholarly works have enabled us to develop a method to empirically examine the specific, organizational aspects of ideology.”

16] am simply using this term exploratively, in the way that scholars in other disciplines have done. For example, see Anton Amann, “The Gestalt Problem in Quantum Theory: Generation of Molecular Shape by the Environment,” Synthese, 97, no. 1 (October 1993), 125-156.

17 Discourse studies, as a field, excel at these efforts. For an example, see Gunther Kress and Robert Hodge, Language as Ideology (London, UK and Boston, MA: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979); Teun A. van Dijk, Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach (London, Thousand Oaks, and New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 1998); Paul Chilton: Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice (Routledge, 2004); Teun A. van Dijk, Discourse and Knowledge. A Sociocognitive Approach (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

The initial problem concern which motivated my adoption of a system perspective arose from a ubiquity of ideological content. During early moments of my research, my inquiries were repeatedly curtailed by an inability to clearly delineate causal relationships between ideology and social relations, for almost every historical account of the Great European Witch Hunts offers a wealth of materials related to “ideology” religious, gender, class-based, national, local, legal, folk ideas, and so forth. In light of such ubiquity, it becomes difficult to discern what elements do not obtain an ideological character. Consequently, it is challenging to conceptualize which factors were stimulating or mitigating the extreme dynamics during the witch hunts; counteracting movements were also powered by some form of ideology.'® This problem could be analogized to a fish that cannot see the specific properties of the water (the oxygen level, microbes, pollutants, etc.) that is assisting or stunting its development. It is one thing to reveal a hidden ideology that people are unaware of—which previous scholars tend to emphasize—and another one entirely that people can see it everywhere but yet cannot delineate any problematic elements “hidden” in it. The system metaphor then emerged, which can serve several functions to help resolve the research problems.

Considering the Dynamic Part-Whole Relations

In an ideology, multiple subcomponents have a fluctuating presence and relevance. Their effects and significance are not constant, and their appearances are always intermixed with the shifting presence of other subcomponents.!? We should therefore strive to specify (or argue) which particular parts (mechanisms) were the most salient—or could potentially be salient— in causing an effect at a given time (when those parts exist in combinative forms with many other ones). The same electric capacitor may serve the same function for a vehicle; yet the same cannot be said of words or a chess

18 For discussion, see George Steinmetz, “Odious Comparisons: Incommensurability, the Case Study, and ‘Small N’s’ in Sociology.” Sociological Theory 22, no. 3 (September 2004), 371-400; James Mahoney, “Comparative-Historical Methodology,” Annual Review of Sociology 30 (2004), 81-101; James Mahoney and Gary Goertz, “A Tale of Two Cultures: Contrasting Quantitative and Qualitative Research,” Political Analysis 14, no. 3 (June 2006), 227-249. Jon Elster, Explaining Social Behavior: More Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 1-54.

1 Any signs (phrases, information, physical expressions) can shift in their meanings depending on the much more holistic representational contexts as well as the specific interactional situations in which the signs are placed. Harold Garfinkel, “Ethnomethodological Misreading of Aron Gurwitsch on the Phenomenal Field: Sociology 271, UCLA 4/26/93,” eds. Clemens Eisenmann and Michael Lynch, Human Studies 44, no. 1 (April 2021), 19-42.

move. The part-whole relations, in other words, are far more slippery and fluctuating.

Nonetheless, these dynamic, fluid part-whole relations can be discovered and illustrated to some extent. A pragmatic-linguist can analyze word usage in context; a chess-game analyst can explain the relevance of each player’s moves in the context of a game. Scholars also can sketch out the shape of a running system of ideas that has many divisive parts while also, at the same time, studying the dynamic processes in which particular acts of activation are engaged. One effort this book has made is to present the analysis in a structural form (through visual diagrams and displays), alongside on-the-ground, situated structuring processes, to make the system and its operational logic clear, visible, and intelligible.”°

Delineating Causal Relationships

Once we can see how an ideology is organized, we can determine which parts of the components or organizing processes have led to an outcome. Consequently, we can conduct more careful considerations about causation.” To use the analogy of a fish again, we can move away from judging whether “water” in general—or a specific pool of water—is good or bad for the fish, to the question of analyzing why this is the case.” Suppose the