Ideology - why?

[Archangel]

I had a rather dispiriting discussion earlier with one fellow GMFer, which was however brightened by the subsequent talk I had with good ol' Sink.

I don't think he's stupid, either, not by a long shot - but he is blinded by some ideology. And with me, it's not that I disagree with any political ideologies in particular; I disagree with ideology itself, as a concept, because it destroys common sense and simple pragmatism. I'm not left nor right for that very reason. At least here, we have a staunchly centrist party.

When smart people have to twist the world around to come up with something that vaguely fits their view, then things start going to hell. Why smart people subscribe to ideologies is one question I've never been able to answer...

Because those smart people, like most other people, want to belong to something bigger than themselves, instinctually or otherwise. So with that in mind, it is only natural for anybody who subscribes to an ideology to emphatically defend an attack against it because its not only an attack on the ideology, its an attack on them, what they believe, and what they fight to preserve and develop themselves.

And indeed:
I feel a Philo thread coming on, but alas, I must take my leave.

Because, see, I really have a problem with that. Maybe I give intelligence - as a charisma unto itself, if you will - too much credit, but the fact of the matter is that I would love to think that it's not that simple.

Let me preface this by saying that I blame ideology, as a phenomenon, for pretty much everything. Not an ideology, but the existence of ideologies, per se. By its very nature, ideology perverts the perception of objective realities to a point where, because something unaccounted for by your leaders WILL happen, lying becomes inevitable - the point where reality becomes subordinate to an idea of what reality should be, and reality is distorted in favour of maintaining the integrity of a wholly artificial construct.

I'm fairly certain that in many circles, such behaviour is called a mental illness; and yet, it is the underlying principle of every ideology, and billions of ostensibly sane people subscribe to one of its facets, all over the world.

I mean, I can understand why they hold so much allure for stupid people - if you can't feel better than others due to your own achievements, then anybody telling you that you will be better just by joining a group is more than welcome. Islamic fundamentalism is the only thing that stands between many an illiterate, unemployed peasant and the forced recognition of his own worthlessness; the same obviously goes for the Chinese peasant and communism, the American peasant and - whatever that is, and the European peasant and nationalism. The tribalistic nature of ideology also becomes apparent in the fact that every ideology blames the agents of another for its failure - a failure which is inevitable, because since they all deny some aspect of human nature, they are all practicable only in some utopia - while maintaining its delusions of rightness in the face of the most obvious inability to function.

To wit, there are still communists walking the earth. How they haven't all been thrown in the loony bin, I have no idea. But no, even though it failed spectacularly and catastrophically in every instance where it was tried, people still contend that the idea was sound, and that it was the fault of everything else. There are professors of history, smart people on the surface, who keep going, "but, if..." "if", my arse. Communism didn't work because it couldn't work, something that is glaringly obvious to anybody who uses common sense.

Common sense, huh. The first thing that goes out the window in any ideology. FBI agents, serious people with training and degrees, arresting grannies' baking circle members for terrorism. Quite impossible to happen in the realm of common sense: Rather likely to happen in an atmosphere of ideology and the resulting paranoia. In fact, have you noticed how every time an ideology is implemented on a national level, secret police forces shoot out of the ground like weeds? The Cheka, the Gestapo, the Inquisition, the Jacobines, Homeland Security, any number of Revolutionary this-and-that's... Ideologies are some jealous mother fuckers, and like all jealousy, theirs is rooted in deep insecurity. They know that they suck, so all original thought must be nipped in the bud.

What I want to know is whether the initiators actually believe that shit they spout, or it really is always just a cynical ploy for personal gain. The almost anagogically utopian nature of most ideologies puts even religion to shame: If everybody sees the communist/fascist/Republican/Democrat/islamic fundamentalist/etc light, THEN we'll all have heaven on earth - with the built in easy cop out that since some people are evil and or/stupid and work against your ends, that paradise is still a ways off. BUT, if only everybody were as enlightened as those who do your thinking for you, then... And then, after 80 years, you're still a Russian peasant eating dirt. Nice.

Anyway, I can see why dumb people get duped by that shit. But I have no fucking idea why smart people do - or are they actually smart? After all, if you say that the sky is green, you are stupid; so why do people give you a free pass for suggesting that greed or compassion are not a part of human nature, or for proclaiming that eating camel shit is better than air conditioning?

[freegood]

Its natural for the mind to simplify things whether through models, generalizations, or superstition. It makes the world easier and more comprehensible. It makes things seem less random and chaotic.

The underlying aspects is tied to the free will thread which you summed up pretty nicely and then some. In the world of options and choices, ideologies are prime candidates over ambiguities and echoes of what-ifs. The better ones have been forged through time and has established enough credibility to grow and change under.

As for the aspects of control, every participant is using ideology to control. Whether to control others or to control the environment (or one's own life) through the ideology's appearance of predictability. You can say tribalism is at work because by empowering the demagogue you are rewarding yourself in the demagogue's success...even if he oppresses and goes against everything he stands for. Consequently, you're hurt at the expense of the demogogue's failures.

The book the Black Swan by Nassim Taleb has a wealth of insight in our urge to make sense of randomness and to confine it within nice and tidy notions. It's much harder for us not to make a guess from an event than it is to make one.

Once an ideology takes root in a person, it begins to grow and change the person into a mindset...Like how a religion can confer a way of life to its followers.

Take the American Dream. If one raised himself up by his bootstraps, then he's an instant candidate to convert/evangelisize the motto of working hard and never giving up. It'd be easier for him to subscribe to the American conservative ideology of government non-interference.

That person might not be simple enough to become a hardcore conservative, but the influence of ones peers and the competition of other ideologies threatening his way of life makes it much easier to push him further extreme.

This could explain why Conservatives have been predicting doom by triggering code words such as socialism or government interference. Liberals have their own code such as fascism or corporations enslaving us. It's because we've been wed to a particular mindset that the alternative becomes too foreign and alien to the point where its detestable or even chaotic.

Once change becomes fear oriented, the emotional aspects of our minds kick in. Rationality becomes a symbol both sides use against each other. Debate becomes a sport in futility.

Yet, despite all this ridiculousness, everyone's genuine on how their mindset works in life. They've seen it proven in action. Because again, without a definite course to pursue, we're left stranded in an ocean of opportunity and choice. Free will is that damn scary. Knowing you have the ability to forge your own opinions and decisions but at the consequence of being ostracized and outcast is frightening instead of empowering. But the rewards speak for itself.

[Insomniac]

It may be part of it, but I don't think ideology is primarily about group solidarity. The desire to belong may shape the ideology you have, but ultimately I think it's intellectual laziness, like a sort of all-consuming catechism. "What is the chief end of man?" isn't a question to be considered on its own merits and re-examined throughout an individual's life. That's sort of painful, and in some ways even a waste.

Ideology gives you answers and security instead of our natural state of contradiction and doubt. It helps you deal with political evidence that could support one position or another. Ideology is the holes children's toys fit into. Triangles get in real easy, but it keeps the squares and circles out, and at the end, the world looks all like triangles, which is simple and comforting.

We like to make snap judgments and not pain over every decision, and sometimes we don't have time. The leopard stalking our ancestors in Africa was bad. When you saw it, you killed it or ran. But when this useful mental shortcut got applied to abstract things like religion, politics, nationhood, or art, well, all sorts of problems sprang up.

[Archangel]

That's just it - at some point, every ideology hits a wall. As long as the square pegs are small enough for the big triangular holes, you can just keep telling yourself that they're triangular. The bigger ones, hell, you can cut and shave pieces off them until they fit, and say that they had been triangular in the first place. Which, in Mao's case, meant that 60 million people had to die because Marx talked about industrialised societies and China didn't fit the bill.

But what if something comes along that your neat, cut and dried easy solutions simply cannot explain away? Something that is manifestly and unflinchingly square? The Black Death fucked scholasticism in the arse, just as Lisbon put paid to Leibniz, and Jesse Owens did to Aryan superiority. And it invariably happens. You can keep up the lie as much as you want, but at some point, people in East Europe will realise that they have to wait twelve years for a Lada while across the border, you can get a Mercedes right out of the showroom. It really becomes hard to maintain communism's notions of superiority when your #1 industry is, well, industrial espionage.

I'm not even proposing original thought as an alternative: If GMF has shown me one thing, it's that original thought is a rare occurrence indeed.

But what about simple, dumb pragmatism? Look at the world, see how it is, and adjust things accordingly. When you see that bombing Arabs doesn't make terrorism against you less likely, stop. Try something else. The gay part obviously being that anyone in a position to make these decisions is liable to stick to any brain fart he has had, because he must necessiter be the smartest to have gotten that far, right? The stubborn pride of idiots in positions of power may be the #1 cause of death in human history. Dogmatic religion fails for this very reason, as well; by calling exclusive dibs on any and all exegetic activity, it forces people to accept one interpretation - and looks bad when it finds itself unable to explain something.

[Phil Theehor]

Like prayer or masturbation, Arch, bombing Arabs confers its own benefit...

But getting to the point of the thread, I think we're missing a good half of the people who ascribe to an ideology. The assumption we're working with is that an ideology is adopted as a whole-- that some lost soul finds an ism and melds all of his views to fit the belief structure.

However, you can come into an ideology organically and, providing you retain your own thought, can find it helpful. After all, an ideology is nothing more than a collection of beliefs tied together by core values. Your true bleeding-heart liberal probably grew into that not through indoctrination, but because in his heart of hearts believes that society's duty to help those who can't (or won't) help themselves trumps the freedoms so valued by the other side. If his views on a wide array of issues are similar those who hold the same core value, I can't call him a mindless sheep-- because they likely stem from that core value.

I came to identify with my dominant ideology organically. I found myself getting a chubby reading The Wealth of Nations in High School, but also realized that I didn't hate speech, brown people, homos, pot or science. Over time, I learned that there was a name for that philosophy.

So, today, if I am wrestling with something, I do find it helpful to know what other Libertarians think about an issue. I'll always try to understand all sides of an argument before arriving at a position, mind you, but it's always helpful for me to what people who share my ideology think, because I know that I likely share some core values with them.

The important thing here is that you don't base your views (or actions, really, I could give a shit about views) solely on an ideology, that you still think for yourself. However, if you can keep an open mind, identifying with a particular school of thought needn't be harmful.

[Hanover Fist]

I think this is actually a pretty interesting topic. I have wondered myself why I have the views that I do. I came from a family with a father that is a fairly moderate conservative and a mother that is fairly liberal in her politics.
I was raised as the 2nd youngest of 5 kids my oldest brother is very liberal, oldest sister is very conservative (Way more than me btw), middle sister leans conservative although seems quite apolotical so I could be wrong, either way she isn't far left or right in any case. I am very conservative and my youngest sister is the most liberal of the bunch.

I find it very odd that even though we were all raised under the same roof we all have extremely differing political positions, to the degree where it almost affects our relationships (although blood usually trumps politics when push comes to shove).
There must be something more to ideology rather than blind sheep, because my family is a perfect example of moderate/split ideology.

[Archangel]

Like prayer or masturbation, Arch, bombing Arabs confers its own benefit...

But getting to the point of the thread, I think we're missing a good half of the people who ascribe to an ideology. The assumption we're working with is that an ideology is adopted as a whole-- that some lost soul finds an ism and melds all of his views to fit the belief structure.

However, you can come into an ideology organically and, providing you retain your own thought, can find it helpful. After all, an ideology is nothing more than a collection of beliefs tied together by core values. Your true bleeding-heart liberal probably grew into that not through indoctrination, but because in his heart of hearts believes that society's duty to help those who can't (or won't) help themselves trumps the freedoms so valued by the other side. If his views on a wide array of issues are similar those who hold the same core value, I can't call him a mindless sheep-- because they likely stem from that core value.

I came to identify with my dominant ideology organically. I found myself getting a chubby reading The Wealth of Nations in High School, but also realized that I didn't hate speech, brown people, homos, pot or science. Over time, I learned that there was a name for that philosophy.

So, today, if I am wrestling with something, I do find it helpful to know what other Libertarians think about an issue. I'll always try to understand all sides of an argument before arriving at a position, mind you, but it's always helpful for me to what people who share my ideology think, because I know that I likely share some core values with them.

The important thing here is that you don't base your views (or actions, really, I could give a shit about views) solely on an ideology, that you still think for yourself. However, if you can keep an open mind, identifying with a particular school of thought needn't be harmful.


But then, libertarianism is pretty close to pure pragmatism as it is.

Still, it's the mechanisms which intrigue me, especially in the bipolar setting of the US: that whole thing about how if you are in for one cause of that particular side, you have to support all the others, as well, because I fail to see any organic connection there (which might be due to that whole two-party thing). I mean, is there anything more ridiculous than pro gay rights people at an anti-Israel rally? Um, guys, Muslims kill people like you for being, well, like you. Or "feminists for Iran" - sure, girls. Dream on. You probably have to FAIL several psych tests to get into Berkeley. One could argue that one always supports the less fortunate side, but that's a pretty big stretch, innit.

It's how certain issues get grouped together under one banner, and force people to be in for a pound every time, which I find so fascinating. The irony in the people calling themselves "pro-life" advocating everything from the death penalty to machine gun ownership to the bombing of civilians is well known; but who the fuck decided that if you were for gay marriage, you also had to be pro-choice, or pro-Arab? What the fuck does global warming have to do with affirmative action? How the hell can I be for a larger presence of Christianity in everyday life, but think that Iraq was a good idea? Hello? "Thou shalt not kill" and "thou shalt not covet", anyone? Let alone that dumbarse using the Lord's name to justify that shit? Where is the indignation? But no (and I'm generalising here); if you're a Christian in America, your first priority is being against abortion, so you throw your hat in with anyone who supports that, no matter how much they rape all Christian principles in the arse. Again, I fail to see what is organic about supporting one group because of their stance on family, but then having to support their utterly contradictory stances on, say, foreign policy.

What most confounds me about this is the contortion of reality which has to be perpetrated to make room for all the contradictions. At least in other systems, ideologies are more stream-lined; but in the US, it looks like if for the entirety of its history, every time a new issue came along, it was divided into pro and contra, and the result tacked onto one side of the political spectrum, sometimes almost arbitrarily. All A's go to the right, all B's go to the left. It boggles the mind.


Honestly, as much as I despise them, I love the fact that we have a viable Green Party. At least that way, all the coo-coos and hippies end up there, and you can have a proper discussion with the moderate left.

[redsox39]

Here's the thing...like you said the "2 party system" is what's wrong here.

Libertarians get grouped in with the KKK, the Baptists, Hawks and Abortion Bombers.

Moderate Liberals get lumped in with the Anti-Israel crowds, ELF, PETA, and the Black Panther types.

But in oder to support the actual issues you feel are the most important, you are stuck with a base that includes the freaks who also want to be represented.

What do you think the solution is? Over here, the 3rd party is still a waste of time, so how do we do away with the (R) and (D) labels?

[Archangel]

Every party does the Gaul thing, and splits into two or three parts. I mean, most moderate conservatives have more in common with any given moderate liberal than either have in common with the foaming at the mouth lunatic fringe of their own camps.

[Phil Theehor]

But then, libertarianism is pretty close to pure pragmatism as it is.

Still, it's the mechanisms which intrigue me, especially in the bipolar setting of the US: that whole thing about how if you are in for one cause of that particular side, you have to support all the others, as well, because I fail to see any organic connection there (which might be due to that whole two-party thing). I mean, is there anything more ridiculous than pro gay rights people at an anti-Israel rally? Um, guys, Muslims kill people like you for being, well, like you. Or "feminists for Iran" - sure, girls. Dream on. You probably have to FAIL several psych tests to get into Berkeley. One could argue that one always supports the less fortunate side, but that's a pretty big stretch, innit.

It's how certain issues get grouped together under one banner, and force people to be in for a pound every time, which I find so fascinating. The irony in the people calling themselves "pro-life" advocating everything from the death penalty to machine gun ownership to the bombing of civilians is well known; but who the fuck decided that if you were for gay marriage, you also had to be pro-choice, or pro-Arab? What the fuck does global warming have to do with affirmative action? How the hell can I be for a larger presence of Christianity in everyday life, but think that Iraq was a good idea? Hello? "Thou shalt not kill" and "thou shalt not covet", anyone? Let alone that dumbarse using the Lord's name to justify that shit? Where is the indignation? But no (and I'm generalising here); if you're a Christian in America, your first priority is being against abortion, so you throw your hat in with anyone who supports that, no matter how much they rape all Christian principles in the arse. Again, I fail to see what is organic about supporting one group because of their stance on family, but then having to support their utterly contradictory stances on, say, foreign policy.

What most confounds me about this is the contortion of reality which has to be perpetrated to make room for all the contradictions. At least in other systems, ideologies are more stream-lined; but in the US, it looks like if for the entirety of its history, every time a new issue came along, it was divided into pro and contra, and the result tacked onto one side of the political spectrum, sometimes almost arbitrarily. All A's go to the right, all B's go to the left. It boggles the mind.


Honestly, as much as I despise them, I love the fact that we have a viable Green Party. At least that way, all the coo-coos and hippies end up there, and you can have a proper discussion with the moderate left.

That's a nice job crystallizing the problem of the two party system. The problem that we have (to which gator alluded) is that no third party can ever get off of the ground here because votes for them are seen as wasted votes.

Funny, though, that you would think that Libertarians are more pragmatic. While the philosophy calls for the free competition of ideas and they're usually not a close-minded lot, the philosophy does bring about real conflicts between ideals and pragmatism.

I'll give you a current (and frankly, silly) example. A douchebag Senator wants to open hearings to look into the lack of a college football playoff system and this brings about a real conundrum. What he says is correct-- the current system is terrible and unfair. His involvement, however, will cause most Libertarians to shit themselves in a fit of astonished outrage.

This sort of thing happens with the philosophy all of the time. Government will do things that are actually beneficial, but the Libertarian won't like it at all because he feels that government has no business doing them.

[Pharon]

But then, libertarianism is pretty close to pure pragmatism as it is.
I would agree with this, for the most part, but even libertarianism has its weaknesses as an ideology -- they rely far too much on neighbors being good to each other, when the reality is that many of us will try to get away with as much as we can if it's gonna save us a buck.

For example, let's say I have a factory next to your house. And let's say I put out a shitload of pollution that blows your way to the point where you have trouble breathing. Libertarians would say, "Nah, you don't need government regulation (i.e. EPA, etc.) because you could always just sue the factory in court for polluting your land. But the reality is that you make $50K/year and the factory could swamp you with so many lawyers that you'll never be able to win. In an ideal world, justice is blind. But we all know that if you have enough money (*cough* OJ *cough*) you can get away with pretty much anything.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that even the best ideologies still have flaws when put into practice -- maybe not as many as the others, but still.

The real enemy, I think, isn't so much "ideology" per se, but the hypocrisy that leads a person to blindly defend an ideology's weak points instead of having the intellectual honesty to say, "hey, you've really got a point there."

But just like anything, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Posturing, bigotry, conceit -- you're more likely to get agreement when you try to avoid that kind of tone up front.

[redsox39]

Posturing, bigotry, conceit -- you're more likely to get agreement when you try to avoid that kind of tone up front.

Crap...time to re-write the playbook...