But at this point, if it is truly no longer ideological, no longer external, no longer false consciousness, then we need not invoke the label, category, guru, or other 'authority' to justify our ideas and activity. In other words, we can claim our ideas as our own. Therefore, we cannot argue, explain or justify them ourselves. Thus, any challenge to an ideology can be dismissed as that of an 'outsider' in the eyes of the Party faithful who will all nod their heads in agreement at how clever the ideologist is. Earlier I referred to 'theory'.
Ideology is inside-out theory.
In ideological activity, the motivations come from without. With theory, motivations come from within, from our own subjective ideas, experiences, longings and needs. Thus theory can also be called 'self-theory'. Theory is never static, never rigid. Our theory, if we fail to constantly evolve and test it against our experience and new information, quickly fossilises into ideological thinking.