How Ideologues Are Made

by Patrick Appel

Ron Replogle uses the abortion debate to explain political group formation:

Your ideological community is the class of people whose moral andpolitical sensibility, their inventory of political principles andbattery of moral reflexes, carry weight in your political deliberation.An ideologue is prepared to reject a favorite principle when enough ofher ideological comrades have sufficiently powerful moral qualms aboutits applications. And she'll swallow her own moral qualms about...