When humans think  and make moral decisions about issues, they rely on values, attitudes and beliefs gleaned from the environment around them.  This is not to say that the human mind is entirely passive; rather it is to say that environment has a weighty bearing on a person's world view.  For this reason, it can be useful to examine these influences and their impact on human psychology.

Blessed Eugene de Mazenod, the founder of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, became renown for a simple aphorism which he saw as central to the Christian vision:  "Learn what you are in the eyes of God." Implicit within this maxim is the notion of false consciousness; that is, truth and a mature moral vision can only be realized by viewing the world through the person and values of Jesus Christ -- anything else is illusion.

The question of mind control has been a cardinal question governing much of sociological inquiry during the twentieth century.  Two world wars, mind-boggling genocide, economic oppression in the Third World, the threat of nuclear war and environmental degradation, among many other concerns, have driven people to ask the simple question -- why?   The answer inevitably comes back to the question of ideology:  Why do humans do what they do?

Regardless of which society is placed under the spotlight, there is a dominant ruling culture that inspires the collective imagination.  Religion, secular values, customs, economic theories, collective identities such as nation, state, and race  leave their imprint on the human mind.  It is possible to speak of an Islamic world view, a Capitalist world view, a Marxist world view, a Christian world view, an Australian world view, and so on.  Clearly, their is a great deal of variation within these categories, yet in broad terms, they are still valid and useful generalizations.

A ruling culture can make its force felt in many ways.  Control of school curricula, national holidays, the media, entertainment and social institutions are all ways of influencing the social imagination and programming people to think in concert with publicly vaunted philosophies. The Australia of the late twentieth century is a multi-cultural liberal-democratic secular state.

 At Federation in 1901, the dominant religion in Australia was multi-denominational Christianity blended with a belief in the superiority of British culture and institutions.  Over the next hundred years, this ascendancy has been somewhat weakened with secularism and new religious traditions on the rise.  Consequently, contemporary Australian culture reflects a burgeoning multi-cultural secularism.

The prevailing pro-British ideology of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was inseparable from a vaguely Christian moral world view in which British culture was seen as the great liberating force in world affairs.  Militating against this was a vocal enmity between English, Scots, Irish, Welsh and a plethora of religious denominations, including the rising tide of secular opinion expressed through such organizations as the Fabian Society and its confreres.

Political activity during this period reflected the vicissitudes in the power struggles between these centaurs.  Underlying their drive for power was a desire for peace and unity, only attainable through an agreed ideological framework.   With time, the Christo-Britannic yeast of national consciousness has been replaced by a growing secular cosmopolitanism, in which democratic process and liberalism assume the ideological high ground.  Parliamentary debate and public policy reflect this shift.  

This is not to say that Christianity has remained entirely on the back foot, or that new insights have not been gained through exposure to new vistas of national life.  However, it does mean that Australians today are enculturated to think in different ways from their forebears.  Values, attitudes and beliefs, and therefore moral perspectives, have changed.

During the later part of the twentieth century the media has become an increasingly powerful tool of social manipulation. The media projects its own value systems -- through focused advertising, the points of view taken in news stories, the topics for dramas and comedies: in short, all that purveys the printed page, the visual screen and the audible air waves impacts on the individual's moral consciousness.  

How much of common culture is manipulated by vested business interests?  Consider the corporate music industry and the contrived 'Top 40' -- who really chooses the music?  What about the Hollywood movie industry driven by distinct and well known ideological enclaves?  Is the nightly news objective? -- who decides on the stories, the points of view from which they are presented, the values conveyed?  Who do the chosen readers appeal to?  How are they trained to speak?  Why?

This ultimately leads to some important questions.  Who does control Australian society?  Are the people who appear to be in charge the real power brokers, or are they figureheads?  What values really underscore this power?  

Marxists and Neo-Marxists argue that society, its values and institutions reflect the interests of the ruling economic class. Law and order, private and group ethical standards, clubs, societies and all forms of social interaction are programmed towards this end.  The fact that those involved in these pursuits think differently is explained in terms of the doctrine of false consciousness.  That is, people continue to support the system which exploits them because their gaze is diverted by superficial and false ideologies, concocted by those in power to manipulate them.  It is even possible for the ruling class to believe these ideas itself and be unaware of their true ideological identity.

Adherents of Liberal-Capitalism, of course, reject this perspective.  For them, Capitalism is a liberating force, whose principles only need to be discovered and mastered to embrace a cornucopia of wealth and well being.  The "natural laws" of competition and survival of the fittest need to be preserved and encouraged over the false consciousness of social responsibility, seen in its most reprehensible form in the welfare state.

Both perspectives here represent economic theories of the human person as an element within the production process.  Liberalism breaks with this epistemology in presenting an anthropology from an existential perspective -- tolerance of individual differences is the highest good; live and let live.  Christianity develops an anthropology centred on the imitation of "the Word made flesh" -Jesus Christ.  It sees the universe and society primarily in spiritual-cosmological terms.  Secular Humanism holds on to the earthy humanism of Christianity but weds it to a Weberian animal anthropology modelled on the biological sciences.

At a more mundane level are those in society who live the Epicurean creed:  get what you can out of life (expressed in its most vivid and jovial form in the jocular intonation," Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you die." ).  The Hedonist anthropological vision sees life in a limited biological setting in which the aim is to maximize sensual gratification.  An interesting contrast to this is the Stoic school, which exalts the supremacy of the human spirit over sensual gratification.  It is seen in the sporting hero who overcomes himself or herself to win a football game, to swim two seconds faster, or to throw the javelin a few more metres.  It is seen in the workplace, on the battlefield and in fighting for causes and standing up for principle.  Ultimately, it emphasizes fidelity to a reified cause as the epitome of human excellence.

Regardless of what people do and what they think, they cannot divorce themselves from the logical undercurrents of their ideas.  These may be formally acknowledged, passively assented to or even subliminalised or rejected; however, from these can be distilled the ruling ideologies of social morphology.  Those that control these ideas are the ruling class.  The apparatus utilized to establish and maintain these ideas, whether formal or informal, is the ruling culture.  At any point in time, a group may be subject to a range of competing and or complimentary cultures, that reflect past, present and future trends, making it difficult to identify and isolate governing ideologies at times.  However, knowledge of these principles is essential to understanding the profound tapestry that enshrouds everyday life.