The perils of ideology
Have you ever learned something that was so basic you were embarrassed to admit that you just learned it?
I just had one of those experiences in my study of ideologies and I have to admit I feel sort of dumb admitting it.
You see, I always thought that the word ideology came from 'idea' and that ideologies were just a belief system to make sense of a basic idea, a lens through which we can see and interpret the otherwise extremely complicated world. I thought that the name of the game was finding an ideology that best fit you and then working towards making it reality.
That is until I made a rather obvious observation that the route word for ideology is not 'idea' it's 'ideal'. This makes a big difference. Ideologies are systems to promote and achieve a certain ideal. It's saying, I know what heaven is and I am going to try and make everyone else go there. Still, might not sound that bad. But there are some inherent dangers of being dogmatically attached to an ideology. What if someone else's heaven is your hell? What if they are in power or gaining power?
Ideals sound great but they aren't reality. Every ideology will marginalize somebody. Humanity is too large and diverse to have a one size fits all system of norms and beliefs. Libertarianism works on paper. The free market would take care of any injustices or evils. If a company was evil we would just stop buying their product and we would force them to fall in line with our norms. I believe that markets do have this power at times but the problem is that without any government regulation, these companies will do anything that makes a profit. Profit becomes the ultimate morality. It also supposes a perfectly informed public who can make critical purchasing decisions based on reliable information which we know is certainly not the case in today's world. We know that corporations can easily hide and manipulate the truth so that they can get away with polluting or taking advantage of slave labour for example. If we are kept in the dark then we can't make those informed decisions with our dollars therefore inhibiting the 'free market' to correct the anti-social behaviours of corporations.
Communism as well is very appealing. The collective working together to ensure universal well-being. There is no doubt that there is stark wage inequality and there is no doubt that this is a bad thing. We would be wise to consider the wisdom of communist thinkers in our attempt to reduce this gap. But once again, in practice communist states have lead to mass inefficiencies, totalitarian despotism, and wide-spread starvation. The larger a group of humans are the more difficult and less realistic communism becomes.
Ideologies sound great but what are you going to do with someone who doesn't catch the vision? What will be the penalty for not following the ideological stream?
The current prevailing ideology of capitalist neo-liberalism is far from perfect. It creates pockets of extremely powerful entities whose power is only multiplied by their control of political parties, election finances, media, and the economy. The status quo is probably stronger and more powerful now than that of the monarchies of the middle ages. It's dangerous.
I used to think that the trick was to study ideologies and find the one you like the most and work towards making it reality. And I still think this is a solid approach to our social/political lives. I think that if you subscribe to an ideology you should definitely advocate for its advancement and implementation. All the power to you. But personally, I have come to the conclusion that one person's ideology is another's tyranny. I don't want ONE system running things. I want policy and norms that provide the best, realistic outcomes rather than following the framework of a rigid, dogma.
Ideas>ideologies
I just had one of those experiences in my study of ideologies and I have to admit I feel sort of dumb admitting it.
You see, I always thought that the word ideology came from 'idea' and that ideologies were just a belief system to make sense of a basic idea, a lens through which we can see and interpret the otherwise extremely complicated world. I thought that the name of the game was finding an ideology that best fit you and then working towards making it reality.
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| Image from The Blog of the APA |
That is until I made a rather obvious observation that the route word for ideology is not 'idea' it's 'ideal'. This makes a big difference. Ideologies are systems to promote and achieve a certain ideal. It's saying, I know what heaven is and I am going to try and make everyone else go there. Still, might not sound that bad. But there are some inherent dangers of being dogmatically attached to an ideology. What if someone else's heaven is your hell? What if they are in power or gaining power?
Ideals sound great but they aren't reality. Every ideology will marginalize somebody. Humanity is too large and diverse to have a one size fits all system of norms and beliefs. Libertarianism works on paper. The free market would take care of any injustices or evils. If a company was evil we would just stop buying their product and we would force them to fall in line with our norms. I believe that markets do have this power at times but the problem is that without any government regulation, these companies will do anything that makes a profit. Profit becomes the ultimate morality. It also supposes a perfectly informed public who can make critical purchasing decisions based on reliable information which we know is certainly not the case in today's world. We know that corporations can easily hide and manipulate the truth so that they can get away with polluting or taking advantage of slave labour for example. If we are kept in the dark then we can't make those informed decisions with our dollars therefore inhibiting the 'free market' to correct the anti-social behaviours of corporations.
Communism as well is very appealing. The collective working together to ensure universal well-being. There is no doubt that there is stark wage inequality and there is no doubt that this is a bad thing. We would be wise to consider the wisdom of communist thinkers in our attempt to reduce this gap. But once again, in practice communist states have lead to mass inefficiencies, totalitarian despotism, and wide-spread starvation. The larger a group of humans are the more difficult and less realistic communism becomes.
Ideologies sound great but what are you going to do with someone who doesn't catch the vision? What will be the penalty for not following the ideological stream?
The current prevailing ideology of capitalist neo-liberalism is far from perfect. It creates pockets of extremely powerful entities whose power is only multiplied by their control of political parties, election finances, media, and the economy. The status quo is probably stronger and more powerful now than that of the monarchies of the middle ages. It's dangerous.
I used to think that the trick was to study ideologies and find the one you like the most and work towards making it reality. And I still think this is a solid approach to our social/political lives. I think that if you subscribe to an ideology you should definitely advocate for its advancement and implementation. All the power to you. But personally, I have come to the conclusion that one person's ideology is another's tyranny. I don't want ONE system running things. I want policy and norms that provide the best, realistic outcomes rather than following the framework of a rigid, dogma.
Ideas>ideologies
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