How an ideology can disguise itself even from its host

It is possible for an ideology to mask itself and hide its real account even from those who hold the ideology, as an advanced defense mechanism against self directed critical thought. These people will be ignorant as to the real meaning of the ideology they are host to and yet will entirely consistently act in accordance with it's principles. How can this happen?

It's especially common in the new innovative moral philosophies of modernity. Francis Fukuyama once, in an interview, defined liberalism (of the post-protestant, capitalist, anglo flavour) as being tolerance, that it essentially is tolerance. Ask him, does liberalism tolerate arranged marriages and caste systems? Does it tolerate the sincerely upheld spiritual disciplines of female circumcision? Does it consider these things to be valid alternate cultural traits that derive from a different set of subjective moral principles that we have no reason to believe are superior or inferior to our own?The answer of course is "Well no, of course I didn't mean that kind of tolerance, after all, you cant tolerate intolerance". Liberalism considers these things to be unquestionable tyrannies, some malicious, backwards oppression that is absolutely invalid and would have no allowance made for in their enlightened morally superior society. Liberalism, really, is a particular set of moral principles that derive from a particular set of circumstantial biases and any deviation from these principles of equality, faux-universality, spiritual democracy, humanism, anti-disdain, etc is considered to be necessarily invalid. If a liberal cannot tolerate intolerance, and if liberalism is tolerance then anything that is not liberalism will not be tolerated. Liberalism then reveals itself to be a form of absolutism that absolutely denies any other set of moral principles besides its own. What is "intolerance" is in fact opinion x rather than opinion y, or trait derived from cultural principle x rather than cultural principle y. Francis Fukuyama was not lying when he said what he did, he fully believed that what he was saying was the truth, there was no malicious dishonesty in him in that moment. He was only deceived. How could someone who is otherwise so rational entertain such an error?

Ask an anarchist to define their ideology and they will tell you that it is, in part, the "deconstruction of all unjust hierarchies", they will look around to their anarchist friends and they will all ponder for a moment and then nod their heads in agreement, "that seems to be an accurate account" they will say, "that fits the definition and summises all its content well". Naturally there is no ideology that would suggest the perpetuating of unjust hierarchies to their definition of unjust. That part of anarchism rather is a particular way of defining unjust hierarchies, in accordance with a particular set of moral axioms. Namely, the provision of pleasure and deprivation of pain, disregard for the perrenially held aristocratic values, preference for the socially enforced authority rather than the legal, preference for the inanimate restriction rather than the animate, etc. They wouldnt see a reactionary attempting to dismantle what he consders to be an unjust hierarchy and call him brother. In these principles is the real content of the moral philosophy, the real definition that accounts for its full description and all its parts.

Ask a progressive to define their moral worldview, they will give their scripted line "it is the absence of irrational hatred and bigotry". naturally no moral philosophy would ever suggest the presence of irrational hatred or bigotry to their definition, moreseo progressivism is a particular definition of hatred and a particular definition of bigotry. That is, any self-assertion, any deviation from the permitted orthodox opinions, any veneration of any determined (non-wilfull) traits, any notion that something obvious could be truthful, etc. In these things, self-assertion and so on, is the real content of it as a moral philosophy. A progressive or anarchist (or any other) might hear these things openly for the first time and think "That certainly does seem to be the full account of all its content, why didnt i give that definition initially?", many of them wouldn't even be able to give these principles without prompting. This ignorance of theirs as to the real character of their ideology does not inhibit them from being able to be functional and successful agents of that ideology, they will dutifully become outraged and applaudative at the correct stimuli and accurately inhabit the proper impressions of the things they are required to. The ideology is still very much in them, but hiding itself, covering itself behind a veil.

Why does it do this? Because the natural predator of an ideology is the sincere introspection of its host, just as rust is destructive to copper, the lion destructive to the lamb, and rot to timber, only through honest self criticism can an ideology be vanquished, without this it is immortal. Then the ones that emerge safely through the maelstrom of intellectual intercourse are the ones that have successfully found a defense mechanism to guard against this threat, if even it's host cannot look clearly at it, then it is camouflaged against its greatest threat.