POLİTİKA BİLİMİ

In the study of political science and political philosophy, ideologies tend to push argument in an ad hominem direction. Ad hominem is a comment on or against an opponent, to undermine him personally, rather than his arguments.

The correct answer is A.

Liberalism, socialism and conservatism address every subject, every self, every citizen, as if universal. They address all of us, and not because of some end outside ourselves, not because of this or that value, but because of a claim about the fundamental criterion by which all of us should act in the world. This criterion is that a debt is owed to the self. The self is difficult to characterize (Taylor, 1989.) But it is this difficulty which makes the three major ideologies significant: for each of them attempts to characterize it. This is why the standard studies of ideologies are right to suggest that liberalism, conservatism, and socialism form a triad of major ideologies, in relation to which all other ideologies are minor. Thus, liberalism, socialism and conservatism are the major ideologies.

The correct answer is A.

A century and a half ago J.H. Newman declared that the fundamental theoretical principle of liberalism is that ‘no one should believe what he does not understand’.

Liberalism is the fundamental form of modern ideology because of the apparently simplicity of its criterion. The direct appeal to the self, especially the reason of that self (whether understood as rationality or reasonableness), is what made enlightenment possible. It also explains why the liberal is usually far clearer in argument than the socialist or the conservative.

The pure thought of liberalism is that only the self has infinite credit: everything else is an instrument of that credit, and is in debt in relation to this credit.

According to the liberal, whatever we want to achieve in the world can only be judged in terms of the fact that the fundamental debt is the one owed to the self.

Thus, liberalism relies on the debt owned to the self. Freedom, highlighted in statements 4 and 5, does not constitute the basis of liberalism.

The correct answer is C.

Marxism originated in the attempt to see the failure of liberalism (and capitalism) in a historically conscious way. A Marxist is someone who attempts to understand why the shift from an unenlightened order to an enlightened order was not as successful as many had anticipated, and then attempts to understand how socialism can be the historical completion of this shift.

The correct answer is D.

Historical Materialism is the fundamental tenet of Marxism in all its ‘classical’ varieties. History is the product not of conscious decisions and ideas, but of ‘material’ processes and conditions which can be identified and described without reference to the mental states of those who participate in them. It is the changes in these material conditions which make necessary and bring about those changes in social, political and institutional superstructures which in aggregate form the substance of history.

The correct answer is B.

In its simplest, or most abstract form, the conservative is inclined to hold on to what he has rather than seek what he does not have. Michael Oakeshott said that conservatism, understood as a ‘disposition’, is ‘to prefer the familiar to the unknown, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the convenient to the perfect’.

The conservative says that the criterion of a self constituted by both social and historical existence means that there is no historical task, only the necessity of not sundering ourselves from history, as liberals and even socialists seem to require us to do. We have a debt to those who are dead as well as to those who are alive.

Conservatives argue that there is no obligation to change the world: because human imperfection on the one hand and unforeseen consequences on the other make it impossible to know that any change will be for the better. Conservatives look backwards, not forwards, and so look to the very traditions which liberalism and socialists put into question.

The correct answer is D.

Liberalism separates ‘church’ and ‘state’, by locating all matters of religion in privacy, so leaving the secular state dominant in public. Socialism alleges that the separation is an error, which leaves the self in thrall to religion: so it refuses the separation, and instead suggests that church and state together have to be transformed. This throws up two formal possibilities. It could involve the secularization of religion, so that religion is emptied of its mythical, metaphysical or transcendental content and restored to humanity, not merely as a ‘religion of humanity’ but as a praxis. Or it could involve a secular interpretation of certain precepts of religion. And conservatism alleges that both are errors, since religion is what it is, in its publicity and its authority: so it should neither be displaced nor replaced. It should go through no form of secularization, but remain authoritative.

The correct answer is A.

Liberalism is wholly for equality, but only an equality of the self in relation to all other selves in terms of a shared structure of law.

Socialism seeks an equality which does not offer the same to every self but offers the same to every self as constituted socially.

In conservatism, equality is used in the sense that we are all equal before God.

The correct answer is B.

The classic books on
ideologies are often divided into chapters entitled
‘Liberalism’, ‘Socialism’, ‘Conservatism’ and so on,
but there is no explanation why. So, liberalism, socialism,
and conservatism are considered the three
major ideologies.

Ideologies are ‘complex’ (Heywood, 1998: 17-19; Vincent, 1992: 18; Freeden, 1996: 13). They
are not ‘hermetically sealed systems of thought’ (Heywood, 1998: 13). They are ‘modular structures,
frequently exhibiting a highly fluid morphology (Freeden, 1996: 88). They are ‘internally complex,
intermixed and overlapping’. So the correct answer is B. Because Ideologies are not ‘hermetically sealed systems of thought’.

Michael Freeden explains this using a metaphor.
Ideologies may be likened to rooms that contain
various units of furniture… If we [enter a room
and] find liberty, rationality, and individualism at
its center, while equality—though in evidence—
decorates the wall, we are looking at an exemplar of
liberalism. If order, authority, and tradition catch
our eye upon opening the door, which equality is
shoved under the bed or, at best, one of its weaker
specimens is displayed only when the guests arrive,
we are looking at a version of conservatism. Core,
adjacent and peripheral units pattern the room and
permit its categorization (Freeden, 1996: 86-7.)

Environmentalism suggests that we owe a debt to
the earth.

The suggestion of "Liberalism doesn't separate ‘church’
and ‘state’" is not correct. Because Liberalism separates ‘church’
and ‘state’, by locating all matters of religion in
privacy, so leaving the secular state dominant in
public. And the other suggestions are correct. Answer is E.

John Rawls’s ‘basic structure’ is a restatement
of Kant’s view without Kant’s metaphysics (Rawls,
2001: 48). In liberalism the relation between one
self and another is contingent, not constitutive; and
it is law which enables the freedom of separate selves
to co-exist. Answer is A.

Socialism adjusts the criterion of liberalism in
such a way that it is radically altered. Correct answer is A.

Historical Materialism is the fundamental
tenet of Marxism in all its ‘classical’ varieties. The correct answer is D.

Emancipation, the act of freeing a human being or class of human beings from the control of another, usually when this control is enshrined in some legal privilege or right (Scruton, 2007: 206).

Liberalism is an emancipation from the unenlightened liberties
justified by tradition to an individual liberty,
which is legal or political, justified by the secular
criterion of the self. So E is not correct. The other suggestions are correct.