The forgotten 1953 paddy lands act in Ceylon: Ideology, capacity and response

Abstract

A venerable Western intellectual tradition with roots in the cynicism of Machiavelli and the sociology of Marx, Mannheim, et al, views political ideology as an epiphenomenon, essentially a reflection of the concrete interests of individuals and classes, its function being to rationalize and justify those interests in terms of higher ideals, such as the general welfare. 1 The problem with this view is that it narrows our vision to exclude some of the important findings of contemporary psychology, espec ially the recognition of a strain towards consistency in the cognitive and evaluative mechanisms. 2 Most simply, there tends to be consistency bet ween the individual's evaluation of the world and his perception and under standing of the world; the retention of certain values is possible only through concurrent retention of an empirical model of the way the world works. Such values tend to dominate perceptions of empirical evidence; there is a selective screening and weighting process decisively influencing what counts as evidence, what weight should be given various perceptions. We may call this organi sation of values, a picture of the way things should be, a normative model.