still plays a key role in semiotics oriented to social, political life.Authors such as Michael Freeden have also recently incorporated a semantic analysis to the study of ideologies. Sociology Sociologists define ideology as "cultural beliefs that justify particular social arrangements, including patterns of inequality." Dominant groups use these sets of cultural beliefs and practices to justify the systems of inequality that maintain their group's social power over non-dominant groups. Ideologies use a society's symbol system to organize social relations in a hierarchy, with some social identities being superior to other social identities, which are considered inferior. The dominant ideology in a society is passed along through the society's major social institutions, such as the media, the family, education, and religion. As societies changed throughout history, so did the ideologies that justified systems of inequality. Sociological examples of ideologies include: racism; sexism; heterosexism; ableism; and ethnocentrism. Quotations "We do not need…to believe in an ideology. All that is necessary is for each of us to develop our good human qualities. The need for a sense of universal responsibility affects every aspect of modern life." — Dalai Lama. "The function of ideology is to stabilize and perpetuate dominance through masking or illusion." — Sally Haslanger "[A]n ideology differs from a simple opinion in that it claims to possess either the key to history, or the solution for all the ‘riddles of the universe,’ or the intimate knowledge of the hidden universal laws, which are supposed to rule nature and man." — Hannah Arendt See also The Anatomy of Revolution List of communist ideologies Capitalism Feminism Hegemony -ism List of ideologies named after people Ideocracy Noble lie Politicisation Social criticism Socially constructed reality State collapse State ideology of the Soviet Union The True Believer World Values Survey World view References Bibliography Althusser, Louis. [1970] 1971. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Monthly Review Press . Belloni, Claudio. 2013. Per la critica dell’ideologia: Filosofia e storia in Marx. Milan: Mimesis. Debord, Guy. 1967 The Society of the Spectacle. BUREAU OF PUBLIC SECRETS 2014 (Annotated Edition) Duncker, Christian 2006. Kritische Reflexionen Des Ideologiebegriffes. . —, ed. 2008. "Ideologiekritik Aktuell." Ideologies Today 1. London. . Eagleton, Terry. 1991. Ideology: An Introduction. Verso. . Ellul, Jacques. [1965] 1973. Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes, translated by K. Kellen and J. Lerner. New York: Random House. Freeden, Michael. 1996. Ideologies and Political