Another interesting slant on these theories of 'endism', and by far the oldest, is the 'end of politics' theory developed by Lenin, which explained that politics, like ideology, is but a product of class conflict, and when this conflict is eradicated within a communist society, then politics will end, and with it ideology. This is related to the 'withering away' of the state that is discussed above.

Heywood dismisses these views in his conclusion of Political Ideologies (1992), "Indeed, the very assertion of an 'end of history', an 'end of ideology', or an 'end of politics' is itself ideological." (Heywood, 1992). From this statement arises a very poignant question that I shall consider more fully in my conclusion: how is it possible to consider ideology without being at all ideological?

It does appear that the modern concept of ideology is entirely dependent on ones political beliefs, and therefore essentially subjective. Drucker spoke of this in his conclusion, "To Marxists, 'ideology' is any theory which guides or acts effectively in the interests of the bourgeoisie. To liberals, any theory is ideological if it teaches intolerance of other theories. To conservatives, the hallmark of an ideology is an attempt to impose a rational and systematic plan on society." (Drucker, 1974), and this view was summarised by Thompson, "Ideology is the thought of the other." (Thompson, 1984).

Putting aside this difficulty for the time being, let us consider an attempt to look at ideology objectively.

Martin Seliger defines ideology as, "a set of ideas by which men posit, explain and justify the ends and means of organised social action" (Seliger, 1976). He then outlines a template of six characteristics that he claims can be imposed upon all ideologies or political theories. These six are: a description of the world; an analysis of that description; an overall goal; policies designed to achieve that goal; a rejection of alternative views; and a moral prescription, or general overview. There have been several attempts to expand upon or condense this template accordingly. This somewhat inclusive view can be compared to the German word 'Weltanschuaung', "This translation would render ideology as 'world-view', the overall perception one has of what the world, especially the social world, consists of and how it works." (Robertson, 1985).

This view of ideology is perhaps the most objective , albeit perhaps all-encompassing, but it does present problems, "Ideologies are seldom monolithic, they address a broad range of themes and commonly contain a number of divergent, even rival, traditions." (Heywood, 1992). Also Seliger's view does appear to be an attempt to catalogue systems of thought, whilst 'ideologies' such as fascism or anarchism can be far from coherent, and are merely gathered together under a convenient heading.

As I have explained above, some Marxist thinkers (Lenin, Gramsci) have adopted a more positive view of ideology, although this is purely from their subjective point of view in seeing it as means to an end. What Seliger attempts to do is perhaps return to de Tracy's 'science of ideas', but with a more retrospective and contemporary view of ideology, as in 1797 there was no capitalism or socialism.

Indeed, students and scholars of politics do claim to aspire to an objective view of ideology, however as I have shown above, difficulties do arise as the very word itself is susceptible to corruption, "however much these disciplines [sociology, anthropology, politics] would like to domesticate the concept of ideology the term cannot be easily stripped of its negative sense." (Thompson, 1984).

One hopes this essay has illustrated the difficulties of considering ideology as an objective concept, but returning to the question that arose earlier in the discussion: is it possible to consider ideology without being ideological (and therefore subjective)?

After all, anyone approaching this question carries with them the burden of their own opinions, beliefs and experiences, and therefore is faced with the difficult, if not impossible, task of shedding all of these in order to achieve an 'objective' standpoint. Therefore I would like to suggest that the difficulties in achieving an objective concept of ideology lie not just with the ambiguity of the of the concept of 'ideology', but also with the ambiguity of the concept of 'objectivity'.