Does Ideology serve a positive function?
- MarcusMalone
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Does Ideology serve a positive function?
I have been contemplating this issue for some time now about whether an ideology can bring clarity to a political issue. My search has gone nowhere because every time I imagine a positive trait such as social cohesion I am returned with the negative parts. I'll give a rundown of my major issues with ideology and it is up to you if you think they can be reconciled. I will leave it to these kind forum posters to handle the tough labor.
1) Ideology as a poor form of thought
My first issue is that ideology leads the individual to think as a Lawyer defending their position and attacking their opposition. The mindset unfortunately leads into these binaries where in order to maintain your position must lead to the outright rejection of the other.
2) Ideology claims consistency where it doesn't exist
What I have found quite interesting is in political ideologies their is a tendency to abuse the No True Scotsman fallacy. For example, a Conservative will claim the true stance of Conservatism and yet be conflicted with other wings within their group. The issue is that if the ideology was a true means of dealing with political issues then you'd think the groups would be better organized.
3) Ideology breeds unjust contempt
This is one is obvious, but it bears mentioning. The issue that happens within many ideological conflicts is an unwillingness to empathize with the others stance, find common ground despite their stances and see the individual beyond their stances. What occurs is that the individual is seen as a character of what that ideology is suppose to represent and not the person themselves.
Good luck,
- Citizensearth
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Re: Does Ideology serve a positive function?
This doesn't motivate me much, but it's an interesting topic so I'll bite.
> My first issue is that ideology leads the individual to think as a Lawyer
I tend to think this is not limited to ideology, but that ideology is more noticeable because its a large collection of ideas that are more systematically defended. People defend every little isolated position they take with the same vigor, all other things being equal, regardless of the complexity of the thoughts. Some people are more willing to update their views, listen to others, and accept new evidence, and some not so much. I guess they ideologies can be viewed as more dangerous, in that the lawyering is done at a much larger scale and that bad effects may be correspondingly large scale. But I think a million little incoherent fallacies and one big massive fallacy are equally harmful in many circumstances. At least ideologies can be subject to scrutiny and improvement in the way less coherent attempts at thought cannot. Whether they exist or not the core problem is getting people to be reasonable and to treat others with respect, which so far is a project humanity has been pretty hit and miss at. Regardless of whether they're ideological or intuitive, people seem to intermittently find excuses to be horrible to each-other, and we don't really know how to solve that just yet.
> Ideology claims consistency where it doesn't exist
I wonder if ideology attempts consistency where other thinking may not.
> Ideology breeds unjust contempt
I think ideology is poor at *stopping* contempt, but I have this suspicion extremists would find reasons to attack and hurt other people no matter what and such complex systems of thought aren't even the most convenient excuse. It sometimes seems most of people's public justifications for evil are trivially stupid/fallacious/emotive, which in turn makes me wonder if ideology just gets deployed against intellectuals who don't have that much real influence over political events. I don't feel sure of that though, its really hard to make a broad generalization.
With all that said, I wonder if ideology's big problem is that in complex ideas flaws are harder to spot/understand. Thus people have an unjustified faith in an appealing ideology's truthfulness. It's basically really hard to spend time critiquing stuff you can just barely have the intellectual resources to understand. If you treat ideology as an attempt to master extremely complex problems of human society, an attempt that's likely flawed, then I don't think there's a huge problem, in fact its quite positive to think about issues with consistency and complexity, particularly in avoiding convenience based thought. The problem comes from treating it as infallible, not looking at alternative arguments etc. When you've got blind faith in something, then it's far easier to adopt arguments and actions that are highly dangerous.
- LuckyR
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Re: Does Ideology serve a positive function?
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Re: Does Ideology serve a positive function?
@MarcusMalone, In order to respond to your post we need to see your definition of "ideology".MarcusMalone wrote:Whether an ideology can bring clarity to a political issue?
1) Ideology as a poor form of thought;
2) Ideology claims consistency where it doesn't exist;
3) Ideology breeds unjust contempt.
I am not quite sure if the definition below is acceptable to you?
ideology - a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.
- MarcusMalone
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Re: Does Ideology serve a positive function?
I like your definition that you have used for Ideology, however what I was tilting towards was something more like this.pekin wrote:MarcusMalone, In order to respond to your post we need to see your definition of "ideology".MarcusMalone wrote:Whether an ideology can bring clarity to a political issue?
1) Ideology as a poor form of thought;
2) Ideology claims consistency where it doesn't exist;
3) Ideology breeds unjust contempt.
I am not quite sure if the definition below is acceptable to you?
ideology - a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.
Ideology - the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program
The issue to referring to Ideology as only a system of ideas and ideals is that the scope by which something could be called an Ideology becomes vast. Take for example the institution of the family. The family structure has firstly ideas and ideals that are without dispute central to the family. A family structure wouldn't operate if all of the sudden one member opposed any form of hierarchy. The reason being is that that concept is contrary to the family structure. So by this token, a family has ideas and ideals that are without question the same for each member, so would that constitute an ideology? No. The issue is that the family members have ideas and ideals that conflict with one another as others are mutual. Once you get into this muddled circumstance where some ideas are all accepted and others conflict with each other you get into this issue of being unable to define what ideas and ideals can define the family. The last part is that a system of ideas and ideals as a general definition can make up the institution of the family, despite the issue prior that the family cannot be defined.
So, in conclusion Mr. Pekin from here on out we'll use my definition.
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Re: Does Ideology serve a positive function?
That is fine, but I still need couple of examples that you may call them ideology [e.g. Left-wing Anarchism, Right-wing Anarchism (also called Libertarianism), Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism, Fascism, Capitalism, Socialism, Marxism etc.]MarcusMalone wrote:Whether an ideology can bring clarity to a political issue?
1) Ideology as a poor form of thought;
2) Ideology claims consistency where it doesn't exist;
3) Ideology breeds unjust contempt.
Ideology - the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program.
from here on out we'll use my definition.
Take the political ideology of Libertarianism for instance; But let us agree on the definition first:
"Various schools of libertarian thought offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and private power. American writers [like Ayn Rand] have adopted the term libertarian to describe advocacy of capitalist free market economics and a night-watchmen state."
If we rephrase your claims:
1) Libertarianism as a poor form of thought;
You may be right but we need to see your argument - Why it is a poor form of thought? Similarly, what you have been claiming in the propositions below you need to demonstrate it with your arguments :
2) Libertarianism claims consistency where it doesn't exist; [True/False?]
3) Libertarianism breeds unjust contempt. [True/False?]
If you answer all these questions [by providing sound arguments] we may be able to proceed to your main question:
Whether an ideology can bring clarity to a political issue?
My feeling is that sometimes it can and other times it can't - it depends on how precisely ideology defined and whether the disputed parties agreed on the definition. An ideology can be thought of an arbitrator in a dispute.
- Sy Borg
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Re: Does Ideology serve a positive function?
Ideologies, by definition, are limited in their worldview so I consciously subscribe to none. At this stage in my life it seems more useful to try to understand than to judge and reject (a work in progress).
Our ideas as to "what is best" necessarily rest on our own limited experience and learning. As Lucky said, ideologies are efficacious shortcuts, like stereotyping. It's practical, and thus serves a positive function, and it can act as a conduit by which one can better understand existence. Thanks to the fractal nature of reality, a great deal of depth can be achieved via all manner of conduits, be it science, ideology, religion, relationships, secular meditation, the arts, sport, business - any kind of absorbing hobby or interest.
Still, it's helpful to remember that ideology's practicality only suggests aspects of reality and is necessarily limited and sketchy.
- MarcusMalone
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Re: Does Ideology serve a positive function?
pekin wrote:That is fine, but I still need couple of examples that you may call them ideology [e.g. Left-wing Anarchism, Right-wing Anarchism (also called Libertarianism), Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism, Fascism, Capitalism, Socialism, Marxism etc.]
I am going to use your example of Libertarianism to explain my original statement. I understand why you would require a more precise explanation as to why Ideology is harmful because my prior statements frankly were intuitive, but did not demonstrate an argument. So let's begin.pekin wrote:If we rephrase your claims:
1) Libertarianism as a poor form of thought;
You may be right but we need to see your argument - Why it is a poor form of thought? Similarly, what you have been claiming in the propositions below you need to demonstrate it with your arguments :
2) Libertarianism claims consistency where it doesn't exist; [True/False?]
3) Libertarianism breeds unjust contempt. [True/False?]
If you answer all these questions [by providing sound arguments] we may be able to proceed to your main question:
Libertarianism is a poor form of thought
My original statement was about how Ideologies make the individual play the role of the Lawyer. A person that identifies as a Libertarian is trapped because they cannot be things that go contrary to it. For example, a Libertarian believes to maximize autonomy. As his identity mentioned prior suggests, the Libertarian must praise the virtues of personal autonomy and reject the ideas that go contrary to that. The problem is that people change their minds. The Libertarian may find examples where personal autonomy is justified in being limited and yet he is conflicted because to do so would go against the definition of what is means to be Libertarian. Now let's take the role of Lawyer to explain how Ideology is a poor form of thought. The person that identifies as Libertarian finds examples where personal autonomy is justified in being limited, however he chooses to enforce his position of maximal autonomy despite the examples he found. The man is defending his identity of a Libertarian, while at the same time being dishonest about what he has seen.
If you are interested I will bring a more expansive explanation to other two points. I think it is important to note that I am not diving into the subject matter of a particular Ideology, but instead I am focusing on the structure of ideology itself.
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Re: Does Ideology serve a positive function?
O.K., suppose you have proved all your claims, and we will have a law forbidding to call anything an "ideology". Will ideologies disappear overnight? It is very unlikely, because we have only banned the use of the word "ideology", not the ideas, theories, beliefs or behaviors of people that can be specified under the name of one ideology or another.MarcusMalone wrote: Whether an ideology can bring clarity to a political issue?
1) Ideology as a poor form of thought;
2) Ideology claims consistency where it doesn't exist;
3) Ideology breeds unjust contempt.
I am going to use your example of Libertarianism to explain my original statement. So let's begin.
Libertarianism is a poor form of thought
The person that identifies as Libertarian finds examples where personal autonomy is justified in being limited, however he chooses to enforce his position of maximal autonomy despite the examples he found. The man is defending his identity of a Libertarian, while at the same time being dishonest about what he has seen.
it is important to note that I am not diving into the subject matter of a particular Ideology, but instead I am focusing on the structure of ideology itself.
An ideology is not a membership organization, it exists only in vocabulary, whereas political parties inspired by certain ideologies are membership organisations.
Some people like to describe themselves having no ideology - that is fine, but it doesn't prove anything.
Returning to your original question [sorry, I am going to repeat myself]:
Whether an ideology can bring clarity to a political issue?
My feeling is that sometimes it can and other times it can't - it depends on how precisely ideology defined and whether the disputed parties agreed on the definition. An ideology can be thought of an arbitrator in a dispute.
Sorry, I am not going to make further comment.
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