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What is wrong with faith in ideology? The trouble is this. An ideology is not a picture of actuality; it is a model derived from actuality, a model designed nto isolate certain salient features of actuality which the model builder, the ideologist, regards as of crucial importance. An ideology, in other words, is an abstraction from reality. There is nothing wrong with abstractions or models per se. In fact, we could not conduct discourse without them. There is nothing wrong with them—so long, that is, as people remember they are only models. The ideological fallacy is to forget that ideology is an abstraction from reality and to regard it as reality itself.
对意识形态体系的忠诚错在哪呢？问题是这样的，意识形态体系不是现实的描述，它是来自现实的模式，这一模式的创造者（意识形态主义者）把现实中至关重要的某些明显特征区分出来。也就是说意识形态体系是来自现实的抽象概念。抽象观念或模式本身并没有错。事实上，没有它们，我们就不可能进行讨论。
The besetting sin of the ideologist, in short, is to confuse his own tidy models with the vast, turbulent, unpredictable and untidy reality which is the stuff of human experience. And this confusion has at least two bad results-it commits those who believe in ideology to a fatalistic view of history, and it misleads them about concrete choices of public policy.
意识形态体系的谬误是忘记了意识形态体系是对现实的抽象概念，而把这种抽象概念本身当成了现实。简而言之，意识形态主义者不断发生的错误是他们混淆了自己整齐的模式与广阔的、汹涌的不可预见的和不整齐的人类经验的现实。这种混淆至少有两方面的恶果：让意识形态体系的信仰者犯、宿命论历史观的错误；误导他们对公共政策的具体选择。
Consider for a moment the ideologist's view of history. The ideologist contends that the mysteries of history can be understood in terms of a clear-cut, absolute, social creed which explains the past and forecasts the future. Ideology thus presupposes a closed universe whose history is determined, whose principles are fixed, whose values and objectives are deducible from a central body of social dogma and often whose central dogma is confided to the custody of an infallible priesthood. In the old philosophic debates between the one and the many, the ideologist stands with the one. It is his belief that the world as a whole can be understood from a single viewpoint that everything in the abundant and streaming life of man is reducible to a single abstract system of interpretation.
让我们思考一下意识形态主义者的历史观。他们认为历史上的奥秘可以用清晰的、绝对的、能解释过去和预测未来的社会信条来理解。意识形态体系因此预先假定了一个封闭的世界，它的历史是确定的，它的原则是一成不变的，它的价值和目标是可以从社会信条体系中推理出来的，而这个理论体系的本质掌握在永无谬误的圣人手中。在关于“一”和“多”的古老的哲学争论中，意识形态主义者支持“一”。他们坚信世界作为一个整体是可以被认知的，一个单一的观点是：丰富的、永不停顿的人类生活可以简化为一个单一、抽象的解释系统。
