Patriotic Duty (WebCT Post)

Everywhere in the world, the collective ideology of a specific region is different than the next region. However, the ideology in a specific region is not the ideology that is chosen or learned, it is the ideology that is almost mandatory with a specific culture. As I read the essays by Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Walter Benjamin and their analysis of the differences in production and what goes into a particular system, I could not help but to think about how the ideology of a certain “apparatus” could take control of whole state.
As an example, we can go back to the production modes during World War II. As everybody knows, the men went off to war to fight for their beloved country and the women stepped up and filled their shoes in the factories; producing materials essential to the war. The government made it known to women that it was their patriotic duty to work in the factories, as opposed to the idea that the government was desperate for their labor; which they most definitely were. However, the preferred ideology was instituted and thus it became the ideology of women during this time. When the men returned and began to seek the jobs that the women were holding, the government’s ideological approached changed to fit the current state; imploring women to go back to their homes, become homemakers, and let the men do the work. The women of course resisted but eventually, the government’s preferred ideology won over the society and within a few years, it was accepted once again.