IN HIS Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli says that the rulers of a republic must uphold the foundations of the official religion, for it enables them to keep the populace devout and united. He advises encouraging anything that reinforces that religion, even if false, since such fabrications inspire confidence. In ancient Rome, every form of superstition served as an instrument of manipulation and deceit in the hands of those in power. In other words, Machiavelli concluded that ideology – what the French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser called the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence – is a strategic device to preserve order and impose obedience upon any human agglomeration. These days, ‘far right’ is one of the most conspicuous terms of abuse among a vast array of fallacies specifically designed to lure the uneducated.
