In his 1980 book "Knowledge and Decisions", Thomas Sowell defines an ideology as a "knowledge-economizing device". Basically this means that instead of taking the time to gather new information and make a new decision each time a new object or situation is encountered, a person can use what might be thought of as 'pre-made decision templates' to navigate objects or situations he or she might regularly encounter, thus saving the energy-intensive task of decision making for instances which genuinely require it. It is taken for granted that all apples will be taste sweet and crunchy; thus one must only be in the mood for something sweet and crunchy, rather than evaluating the flavor potential of each individual apple. It is taken for granted that all conservatives favor liberal gun laws; thus each conservative does not need to be asked about their stance on gun laws individually.
In some cases, of course, such generalization may prove unfounded. Not all black people are lazy, not all asians are experts at mathematics, and not all members of fraternal organizations such as the Freemasons participate in secret meetings to determine the future of humanity.
Thus, generalizations can be applied to great benefit, if and only if great care is taken to determine their truthfulness. This is the foundation of rational inquiry and it is the reason for the apparently frustratingly-slow progress of science, at least for the layperson.
Sociologists, e.g., view their work as primarily a form of activism, rather than rational inquiry. Therefore they do not exercise the same level of prudence in making their pronouncements. In this video, I hint at some reasons why that may be the case.
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