4 ms·

Not everyone has an ideology. Having an ideology is a bad thing. It generally means you reduce the complexity of the world into a simple narrative, and this res

Not everyone has an ideology. Having an ideology is a bad thing. It generally means you reduce the complexity of the world into a simple narrative, and this results in you having incorrect beliefs, making bad decisions, and supporting bad causes. The goal should be to abandon all ideology, not change to a different, better one, although better is always an improvement over worse.

beaconstudios 4y ago
an ideology is a model of the world. You can have a more nuanced ideology (which is a good thing), but you can't have no ideology at all. Otherwise, you can't engage with questions like "why are there poor people and rich people" or "is it ethical to steal bread to feed your family". There are no non-ideological answers to these questions, so your best hope for non-ideology is to cling to and never question the status quo.
- PathOfEclipse 4y ago
  I disagree, and so do other thinkers more well-known than I. With regards to "why are there poor and rich people", the answer is so complex as to occupy entire libraries. I've personally read Thomas Sowell's "Wealth, Poverty, and Politics", where he delves into a number of important factors for economic disparity that in vogue ideologues tend to ignore. And, that's the point. Their ideology blinds them to the complexity of the world. There is similarly a non-ideological answer to "should I steal bread to feed my family?" It involves tradeoffs like: * what will happen if I steal this bread? Could I get caught and therefore no longer be able to provide for my family? What effect will it have on myself and on society? * what will happen if I don't steal the bread? Is there any other way to provide food for my family? Can I accept their death as a consequence for obeying a moral law? You weigh the tradeoffs, risks, and expected outcomes, then make a decision for yourself, which may or may not be the right answer for your specific situation and may or may not generalize to other situations or other people. As Jordan Peterson says: " Ideologues are the intellectual equivalent of fundamentalists, unyielding and rigid." And also: "Beware, in more technical terms, of blanket univariate (single variable) causes for diverse, complex problems." Your definition of ideology may differ from that, but in practice, I find that when we call someone an ideologue today, or refer to an ideology, it is always a false narrative-based over-simplification of the world.
  - beaconstudios 4y ago
    I'm sorry but you can't argue that you are free of ideology by quoting Thomas Sowell and Jordan Peterson. That's very funny. Thomas Sowell is a fiscal conservative whose ideology boils down to "individual decisions are primarily responsible for divergent outcomes". Jordan Peterson is a Christian conservative, all his advice might as well be Bible citations. He also knows nothing except ideological positions when it comes to criticising the left wing; he loves the term "postmodern neomarxist" despite those terms being completely contradictory.
    - PathOfEclipse 4y ago
      Nice straw man, buddy. 1) I didn't claim to be free of ideology. How's your reading comprehension? 2) There's nothing funny about quoting two people that are probably both smarter and wiser than you in order to make a good and valid point.
      - beaconstudios 4y ago
        1: yes you did: > There is similarly a non-ideological answer to "should I steal bread to feed my family?" > proceeds to describe their own thought process you didn't even engage with the ideological elements of the question. Is it right to redistribute property if the need is greater elsewhere? Does the right to survive override the right to property? What if violence is necessary to take the bread? You just treated it like a personal cost-benefit analysis of a single instance. 2: yes there is. The fact that you consider them to be authorities on non-ideological positions is the funny part.
        PathOfEclipse 4y ago
        1. No I didn't. I engaged with the question and responded, essentially, "there may not be a universally right answer to your question." I just didn't respond the way wished I would. And, in general, I would say it's not ok to forcefully take property because you made the judgement that the property would be better used in your hands, but I won't say there are no exceptions to that. Again, life is complex. Abandon ideology. 2. I think you are overdue for some humble self-reflection.

beaconstudios 4y ago

an ideology is a model of the world. You can have a more nuanced ideology (which is a good thing), but you can't have no ideology at all. Otherwise, you can't engage with questions like "why are there poor people and rich people" or "is it ethical to steal bread to feed your family". There are no non-ideological answers to these questions, so your best hope for non-ideology is to cling to and never question the status quo.

PathOfEclipse 4y ago
I disagree, and so do other thinkers more well-known than I. With regards to "why are there poor and rich people", the answer is so complex as to occupy entire libraries. I've personally read Thomas Sowell's "Wealth, Poverty, and Politics", where he delves into a number of important factors for economic disparity that in vogue ideologues tend to ignore. And, that's the point. Their ideology blinds them to the complexity of the world. There is similarly a non-ideological answer to "should I steal bread to feed my family?" It involves tradeoffs like: * what will happen if I steal this bread? Could I get caught and therefore no longer be able to provide for my family? What effect will it have on myself and on society? * what will happen if I don't steal the bread? Is there any other way to provide food for my family? Can I accept their death as a consequence for obeying a moral law? You weigh the tradeoffs, risks, and expected outcomes, then make a decision for yourself, which may or may not be the right answer for your specific situation and may or may not generalize to other situations or other people. As Jordan Peterson says: " Ideologues are the intellectual equivalent of fundamentalists, unyielding and rigid." And also: "Beware, in more technical terms, of blanket univariate (single variable) causes for diverse, complex problems." Your definition of ideology may differ from that, but in practice, I find that when we call someone an ideologue today, or refer to an ideology, it is always a false narrative-based over-simplification of the world.
- beaconstudios 4y ago
  I'm sorry but you can't argue that you are free of ideology by quoting Thomas Sowell and Jordan Peterson. That's very funny. Thomas Sowell is a fiscal conservative whose ideology boils down to "individual decisions are primarily responsible for divergent outcomes". Jordan Peterson is a Christian conservative, all his advice might as well be Bible citations. He also knows nothing except ideological positions when it comes to criticising the left wing; he loves the term "postmodern neomarxist" despite those terms being completely contradictory.
  - PathOfEclipse 4y ago
    Nice straw man, buddy. 1) I didn't claim to be free of ideology. How's your reading comprehension? 2) There's nothing funny about quoting two people that are probably both smarter and wiser than you in order to make a good and valid point.
    - beaconstudios 4y ago
      1: yes you did: > There is similarly a non-ideological answer to "should I steal bread to feed my family?" > proceeds to describe their own thought process you didn't even engage with the ideological elements of the question. Is it right to redistribute property if the need is greater elsewhere? Does the right to survive override the right to property? What if violence is necessary to take the bread? You just treated it like a personal cost-benefit analysis of a single instance. 2: yes there is. The fact that you consider them to be authorities on non-ideological positions is the funny part.
      - PathOfEclipse 4y ago
        1. No I didn't. I engaged with the question and responded, essentially, "there may not be a universally right answer to your question." I just didn't respond the way wished I would. And, in general, I would say it's not ok to forcefully take property because you made the judgement that the property would be better used in your hands, but I won't say there are no exceptions to that. Again, life is complex. Abandon ideology. 2. I think you are overdue for some humble self-reflection.