Despite their secular origins, ideologies have functional similarities to religion. While ideologies admit that they come from man's ideas, not divine command or other religious-type source, they are nevertheless bodies of ideas which people strongly believe in and act on.
Most modern ideologies descend from that loose collection of ideas in the French Revolution .
Only individual interests matter. Government should provide for the maximum possible individual liberty. Their interests must be considered. Rather, their nation seemed to have a considerable element of social contract in it, a political community which came together around certain ideas. More in the next unit.