Ideologies and Labels

Kotliar (viomar@ATHENS.NET)
Fri, 1 Mar 1996 13:35:31 -0400

"capitalist" and "socialist" became pejorative labels in the ideological
tug of war. During the recent debates between conservative candidates in
the United States, several of the candidates used the label "socialist" to
the populist and protectionist views of another candidate. That candidate
was reknowned for his cold warrior stance and hostility to "communism".
This got be wondering on both the use of ideology in imperial struggles and
the use of ideological labels. I used the Ameican example only because it
was familiar to me, and not to start a debate on American politics. Rather
I would like to start a thread on the uses of ideology between
warring/contesting empires and hegemonies and the use of ideological labels
to stigmatize opponents in the internal struggles of those states. Since
such contesting empires and hegemonies can be found in every continent
(save Antartica-and in terms of outposts-even to some extent there)-at
various points in history I thought this could be a very inclusive
discussion with potential commentary from anthropologists working in all
parts of the world.