5 ms·

I always thought any ideology was dangerous, something to be shunned. Same here. It's a great way of not having to think for yourself, though. The success of i

I always thought any ideology was dangerous, something to be shunned. Same here. It's a great way of not having to think for yourself, though. The success of ideologies throughout history makes me think it exploits a mental vulnerability that exists in most of the human population[0]. How do we make that work in our favor, though? At one point is history, we built a great western civilization. There must have been great incentive to do that, despite the ideologies at play over the past several hundred years. How do we recreate those conditions? [0]: "Normal" human brains react to cognitive dissonance by releasing small hallucinogens to counteract cortisol and ignore conflicting information. http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/8/4/404.full.pdf http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/8/4/404.full.pdf

marcoperaza 11y ago
We built a great western civilization largely on the basis of ideology. Chief among them, natural rights. The most beautiful and famous declaration of this ideology is in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. [...] But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." This itself is an evolution and addition to much older Christian ideas about human dignity, care for the poor, love of fellow man, and duty to do good.
hackuser 11y ago
> At one point is history, we built a great western civilization. There must have been great incentive to do that, despite the ideologies at play over the past several hundred years. How do we recreate those conditions? The conditions were no different; likely they were worse (much worse depending on how far back you go). Read a detailed history of some past era and you'll see much that is similar to what you see today. It's a very conservative notion that we are somehow worse today, and that our ancestors were somehow greater. That pessimism, which includes pessimism about our ability to act as a community (i.e., about government), keeps us from moving forward: Many people buy it and won't even try. We can't build mass transit because people are sure we can't do anything. Our ancestors were very human (again, read that history), corrupt, confused, political, just like we are, but in many ways worse off because they didn't have the institutions they and their descendents built over the centuries, from democracy to civil rights to education. They did it; so can we. They had plenty of naysayers too. We've been given all that; handed it on a silver platter. What are we building for our descendents?

marcoperaza 11y ago

We built a great western civilization largely on the basis of ideology. Chief among them, natural rights. The most beautiful and famous declaration of this ideology is in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. [...] But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." This itself is an evolution and addition to much older Christian ideas about human dignity, care for the poor, love of fellow man, and duty to do good.

hackuser 11y ago

> At one point is history, we built a great western civilization. There must have been great incentive to do that, despite the ideologies at play over the past several hundred years. How do we recreate those conditions? The conditions were no different; likely they were worse (much worse depending on how far back you go). Read a detailed history of some past era and you'll see much that is similar to what you see today. It's a very conservative notion that we are somehow worse today, and that our ancestors were somehow greater. That pessimism, which includes pessimism about our ability to act as a community (i.e., about government), keeps us from moving forward: Many people buy it and won't even try. We can't build mass transit because people are sure we can't do anything. Our ancestors were very human (again, read that history), corrupt, confused, political, just like we are, but in many ways worse off because they didn't have the institutions they and their descendents built over the centuries, from democracy to civil rights to education. They did it; so can we. They had plenty of naysayers too. We've been given all that; handed it on a silver platter. What are we building for our descendents?