The most recent episode of NetVUE’s podcast Callings features an interview with political philosopher Jason Blakely, an associate professor of political science at Pepperdine University in California. His most recent book, Lost in Ideology: Interpreting Modern Political Life, considers the important role that ideology plays in shaping our political realities, exploring its roles in both orienting and disorienting us. His previous books include We Built Reality: How Social Science Infiltrated Culture, Politics, and Power and Interpretive Social Science: An Anti-Naturalist Approach (with Mark Bevir). In addition to his scholarly publications, he has also written for Harper’s Magazine and The Atlantic.
One of Jason’s hopes in writing his most recent book “is that the reader will fall slightly less in love with their own ideology, and have a more nuanced, if still critical understanding of one that is not their own.” In this episode, Callings hosts John Barton and Erin VanLaningham invite Jason to elaborate on this purpose and connect it to his own vocational journey. He believes that all humans face a problem with making meaning in our lives; in response, he argues that “ideology is an answer to the meaning-making problem.” In his analysis, ideologies are not optional, and they powerfully inform how everyone comes to understand their lives within particular political contexts. They can also lead us astray and prevent us from understanding one another, especially if we hold different and competing ideological perspectives.
As the episode unfolds, he uses these observations to help us think more deeply about these questions and the tumultuous time we face in modern political life. Through it all, he reminds us that vocations are always based in stories and that political “science” has more in common with literature and the liberal arts than some often assume. As he suggests when asked what advice he might offer our undergraduate students, “Be true to your questions and desires, and don’t be afraid of them, because I think our real problem as humans is that we don’t take our seeking seriously enough.”
Click hereto listen to the episode featuring Jason Blakely titled “Stories and Ideologies.”
Geoffrey W. Bateman is the editor of Vocation Matters.