out to be instances of more general principles, and can quickly be settled by applying
the principles.
The new issue may also modify our ideology, because an ideology is not graven
in stone. For instance, devout Catholics who believe that the government should regulate
people as little as possible may find themselves torn over the issue of legalized
abortion and may modify some of their more general ideas about politics in light of
the new issue. An ideology, then, while it is an organized set of ideas about politics
that helps us to make sense of the myriad of political questions that face us, is not
static. An ideology organizes ideas, but as it absorbs new ideas it evolves, too, and is
slowly modified.