Tehran Times interviews Ehsan Shariati.

Q: Thus, can we say that concurrent competition and dialogue between ideologies is natural, but exclusive ideologies are dangerous?

A: Exactly. Exclusivity is dangerous, like the implementation of inquisition in the Middle Ages. In my opinion, ideology is the sum total of all its positive and negative connotations in history, I look at it as a scientific and neutral term referring to a systems of ideas that can be positive or negative. Therefore, there is no paradox between philosophy and worldview except that they have different functions and subject matters.  In the modern era, in Heidegger’s words, the world has changed into the pictures of the worldviews. Namely, imagined pictures of the world make the basis of the new ideologies. In the modern era, Idealism has turned into an ideology; new ideologies are the new religions.