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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2022 14:09:43 GMT
Personally, I don't have any opinions or views motivated by any political ideology, but I was wondering what posters thought about the future of politics in our world that is motivated by ideologies, and this includes some religions that have political views in the context of the belief system. Can any sort of peace and progress ever be possible if ideologies are the wrappers for political thought and action? Does this not just create partisan squabbling and the promotion of unnecessary antagonism and does this in turn not split people from one another and nations into hostile factions?
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baff
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Post by baff on Oct 7, 2022 15:17:06 GMT
I don't think ideology is all that important politically.
It's about people.
So partisans, factions and nations are key to it.
Their intellectual justifications.... not so much.
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Post by Bentley on Oct 7, 2022 20:21:39 GMT
“Can any sort of peace and progress ever be possible if ideologies are the wrappers for political thought and action?”
Beautifully put.
I think that’s the cross we have to bear for being what we are .
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Post by Deleted on Oct 8, 2022 5:14:59 GMT
“Can any sort of peace and progress ever be possible if ideologies are the wrappers for political thought and action?” Beautifully put. I think that’s the cross we have to bear for being what we are . Yes, I suspect that unless we try to get outside of that wrapper of being what we are, we shall never progress but instead continue to degress. Some religions and ideologies have attempted to circumvent our human nature by creating various moral laws and rules, but although these have been preached about with gusto for centuries, leaders have not seemed to take much notice of them and so role models for something better have not really materialised among the masses. The masses being hugely impressionable. Other ideologies have tried to preach a better than thou creed and this has caused global conflict of monumentally destructive proportions that has ironically damaged the very people it claimed to admire.
And ideology tends to give power seekers and psychopaths the chance they are looking for to gain control of the masses and try to silence dissenting voices, whether by crucifixion for sedition or simply by stabbing the Emperor in the back.
I thus have little faith in ideological or religious wrappers for dealing with people en mass. However, the fact that humans tend to have mass consciousness and therefore become enamoured of bigshots with power politics tends to give certain ideologies longevity in a succession of reincarnations, as the world is witnessing now in the ethnic clashes, once again, of a group that sees itself as superior to another. And of the victim's refusal to accept this and the resulting conflict, exacerbated by a taking of sides by the rest of the world because, economically, there might be something in it for supporting one or other side.  |
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Post by Orac on Oct 9, 2022 11:50:04 GMT
I think Ideologies are like comfort blankets - a shortcut out of the pain of thinking about and being persuaded by an argument. Instead of being a thinking being prone to make mistakes and prone to being persuaded (ie giving yourself), you can be an abstraction that gives nothing.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2022 13:07:56 GMT
Ideologies are too precise. Humans are masses of seething emotions. The two don't mix. But if one can be made to adopt a belief system and pit it against another, one has the scenario for endless conflict. Endless unnecessary conflict.
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Post by Bentley on Oct 9, 2022 14:37:27 GMT
Ideologies are too precise. Humans are masses of seething emotions. The two don't mix. But if one can be made to adopt a belief system and pit it against another, one has the scenario for endless conflict. Endless unnecessary conflict. Is it unnecessary? Maybe we are programmed to thrive on conflict . Human cooperation is at its highest during conflict and catastrophe. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2022 5:04:42 GMT
Good point. Humans have been in conflict with one another and the forces of Nature forever. They have also been in conflict with their own needs versus common sense for just as long. Humans differ from other animals in that they have the ability to assess themselves and their actions and the actions of others and then make decisions as to what to do about any situations resulting from this. Whether positive or negative. This would open a new topic, perhaps, but it fits well within the topic of the utility of politics as we have come to know it.
Ideologies stem from this human need to create wrappers for behaviour and beliefs about life and the world. But these wrappers often contain the machinations of those who want control. Perhaps this is where politics gets into trouble. It has become pliable and can be shaped to fit the form of whatever is deemed useful and profitable by much smaller groups than the masses who vote in "democratic" elections. Or the needs of groups inside those masses.
Politics tends to simply go for the best way to enrich elite groups of controllers who evolve into what Trump has referred to as "swamps" and these dynasties of privileged individuals (who are often wealthy by dint of their political affiliations) become impermeable to change. Like aristocracies they become impenetrable and start moving beyond the bounds of rules and laws that restrict ordinary citizens. They make themselves a race of gods and their power is consolidated by the bullshit that their flunkies in the media can churn out out to make them look good and wise. The control the military and the police. They decree without approval by the people and they tax the living daylights of every citizen, much of which is used to accomplish things the citizens are not consulted over but are forced to comply with.
People tend to believe that they are being served by these political entities and groups and so they continue to be abused by them.
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Post by Bentley on Oct 10, 2022 8:08:33 GMT
I read once that the basic human drives are fear and greed ( note ..not extreme fear or greed).
If that were true then it would allow human cooperation enough to maintain complex functional societies but would not allow permanent egalitarian ones.
There would always some kind of dissatisfaction somewhere within the collective.
Also it would allow some kinds of selective altruism but explain donor fatigue .
It might be a factor in religion and a primary factor in how religious establishments become tyrannies.
It could explain quite a lot imo.
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Post by Cartertonian on Oct 10, 2022 18:25:18 GMT
Good thread Vanna On ideology: There's nothing inherently wrong with an ideology...or any '-ology', until its adherents insist theirs is the only true ideology and all others are wrong by default. Politics and ideology both suffer from dogmatism - a hard core of adherents who are so blinded that they cannot accept anything that sits outside of their stove-piped worldview. On the Future of Politics: I think, regretfully, that we are slowly forgetting the lessons of the 20th Century and are destined for darker times, where charismatic personalities exert more influence than reasoned debate. In the 20th Century we largely defeated the charismatic ideologues and their zealots, but the changes in society we have seen as a result have wrought a situation wherein people are seeking charismatic and forceful leadership again.  Are these things cyclical, I wonder? Is the human race destined to go through periods of liberal tolerance and then periods of authoritarian domination? All the information from all five of our senses goes first to our primitive 'animal' brain and its job is to protect us, so drives like survival take priority and our animal brain will regard something as dangerous until proven otherwise. Only once the animal brain has received the information and started to react does our higher human brain get a look at the info and come up with a more reasoned response. Depending on the intensity of the emotional response from the animal brain, the human brain can often have a job on its hands. So, in the context of politics, if someone challenges something in which you have an emotional (animal brain) investment and does so in a manner that is mocking, derisive or disrespectful, your human brain isn't going to get a look-in. In short, you react emotionally rather than responding logically. Going back to the top of the page, that's how charismatic ideologues motivate their support. They appeal to emotion (animal brain), knowing that sufficient appeals will override the logical, human brain. There's nothing we can do to change our neurobiology, but we can change our psychology and learn to suppress our animal brain, at least long enough to have a chance to actually think about it with our human brain. I guess everyone has probably had someone, at some time in their life, tell them to 'take a deep breath and count to ten'. The reason for that is to give the human brain a chance to consider a reasoned response, in the face of the animal brain, emotional reaction.  |
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baff
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Post by baff on Oct 10, 2022 18:27:32 GMT
Yay. He's in.
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Post by Bentley on Oct 10, 2022 18:29:25 GMT
Good thread Vanna On ideology: There's nothing inherently wrong with an ideology...or any '-ology', until its adherents insist theirs is the only true ideology and all others are wrong by default. Politics and ideology both suffer from dogmatism - a hard core of adherents who are so blinded that they cannot accept anything that sits outside of their stove-piped worldview. On the Future of Politics: I think, regretfully, that we are slowly forgetting the lessons of the 20th Century and are destined for darker times, where charismatic personalities exert more influence than reasoned debate. In the 20th Century we largely defeated the charismatic ideologues and their zealots, but the changes in society we have seen as a result have wrought a situation wherein people are seeking charismatic and forceful leadership again. Are these things cyclical, I wonder? Is the human race destined to go through periods of liberal tolerance and then periods of authoritarian domination? All the information from all five of our senses goes first to our primitive 'animal' brain and its job is to protect us, so drives like survival take priority and our animal brain will regard something as dangerous until proven otherwise. Only once the animal brain has received the information and started to react does our higher human brain get a look at the info and come up with a more reasoned response. Depending on the intensity of the emotional response from the animal brain, the human brain can often have a job on its hands. So, in the context of politics, if someone challenges something in which you have an emotional (animal brain) investment and does so in a manner that is mocking, derisive or disrespectful, your human brain isn't going to get a look-in. In short, you react emotionally rather than responding logically. Going back to the top of the page, that's how charismatic ideologues motivate their support. They appeal to emotion (animal brain), knowing that sufficient appeals will override the logical, human brain. There's nothing we can do to change our neurobiology, but we can change our psychology and learn to suppress our animal brain, at least long enough to have a chance to actually think about it with our human brain. I guess everyone has probably had someone, at some time in their life, tell them to 'take a deep breath and count to ten'. The reason for that is to give the human brain a chance to consider a reasoned response, in the face of the animal brain, emotional reaction. The idea of the animal ( triune) brain was discredited years ago afaik. There is no need to make a simple concept any more complicated than it needs to be anyway . maybe it’s a human trait . |
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baff
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Post by baff on Oct 10, 2022 18:29:29 GMT
I think Ideologies are like comfort blankets - a shortcut out of the pain of thinking about and being persuaded by an argument. Instead of being a thinking being prone to make mistakes and prone to being persuaded (ie giving yourself), you can be an abstraction that gives nothing. Yes, but they are also a defence against being manipulated. Principles. A morality to be guided by. |
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Post by Orac on Oct 10, 2022 18:41:33 GMT
That's good, Baff
A double edged sword
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Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2022 4:47:23 GMT
Groups, like tribes or nations, will find common beliefs about the world and others and evolve these into rules and laws that affect the group concerned. Children will obtain this information at an early age and through their experiences they will either learn what is valid or of value and keep this and what is irrational or unacceptable and junk that, or they will simply believe whatever is convenient and unlikely to get them rejected by the group. Not all individuals will be prepared to swallow narratives without question, but the majority will, and do. And they do to this day when they have far more opportunity to test group beliefs out on the real world. There are still people who will say that Africans can't swim because their bones are too heavy for them to float, or that theft and lies are okay so long as you're not doing this to your own people, etc. After a while, people stop questioning things and just go with the flow, staying in the good books of their various authorities and not making waves that will single them out for punishment by the group and its elders, and these punishments can be very harsh and have often included execution and torture in a number of grisly methods.
When these sort of punishments become a part of any ideologically driven system or world view, the group becomes complicit in the machinations of the few. This is a fact of human life. The process can continue for centuries and is ongoing in the so-called modern age by groups who have absolute control over their members by means of fear.
This has an impact on education. It has an impact on liberty and it creates a mindset that begins to close instead of open to anything that is outside of the ideological wrapper. Whether the wrapper is religion, racism, or philosophically oriented world views, the developing humans begin to get squished by its restrictions and can end up becoming fanatical in order to defend them against the impinging facts of the real world outside that wrapper. And to please the authorities so as to avoid punishment and shunning. Some leave, but they can never return, as is the case with those who are placed on lists of perceived traitors to the group, some of whom are murdered by envoys from the mother ship. Humans are a dangerous species because they can use their intelligence to do stupid things and they can bury their compassion and empathy to do savage things not only to other humans but also to the world itself. The rewards of flouting one's better judgement are legion among leaders who have taken the gold and shown their dissenters the iron fist. This characterises human history so doing something about it seems a lost cause.
One also has to bear in mind that the opposite phenomenon of becoming compliant and acquiescent to different ideologies can be just as destructive. Humans are presently into people pleasing, political correctness and generally genuflecting to new gods and beliefs in the west. This is clashing not only with monotheistic and monolithic belief systems elsewhere but it is also eroding and will finally erase much of what was keeping the west from disintegration. (As Baff mentioned above.)
So politics tends to turn up as the perfect way to fix things. But whose politics? Politics always seems to belong to some belief system or ideology. It seldom exists as a governing principle for efficient administration. It tends to act as another wrapper for crushing adversity and shoving dissent over the cliff.
I once long ago made a thread, no longer visible or perhaps extant, on PoFouk called "Quo Vadis Politics" in this regard. So I'm asking again, where is politics going to lead people if all it seems capable of achieving is war and grand theft of everything from resources to taxes? What is going to happen when politics shows its teeth and "democracy" becomes a farce? Some would say democracy is already a farce and others might add that it has always been a farce. Yet others might suggest that politics is a dream of those who follow an idealistic view that humans can be more than mere animals and warlords.
My question is, can humanity take the leap over the hurdle that groupthink has created in the form of politics? Is politics any kind of a solution to human problems if it is going to continue to stare aggressively at rival groups over a spiked fence of its own making?
The problem is that in order for anything to work wonders among the masses, it needs to be free of the ambitions of those who lead the people to their doom or their dream. If one assesses it from a historical perspective, politics fails to do what politics is expected to do in almost every occasion of its interference in governance. Even monarchies have crumbled and fallen to greed and petty rivalries. They have slaughtered one another and caused the slaughter of millions through history.
Question is, for me, how to stop this. Can it be stopped? And if someone finds a solution to the human condition will this create Shangi-la or Hell? And, as The Time Machine revealed, sometimes Shangri-la is Hell. It all seems dependent on how people think about what is happening to them at the hands of others.
Every day I see people do unwise things because they believe something fundamentally about others and the world that is basically a chimera of their own wish that everything be good and true. They shun those who have been assigned the label of "not good" and they fall into the honey traps of those who pretend to support them and like them. It's tragic to observe but there is not much anyone can do about the fact that quite a lot of people are extremely gullible and will believe anything that sounds genuine. They will burn the witches in various ways because they see heresy in everything that doesn't chime with their own idea of Shangri-la.
This is leading the west to dissolution, not greatness. This is causing the west to appear mentally deficient and weak. This is opening up potential for invasion and control from other groups.
You can't mention this as you will be set upon by angry saints who are on the lookout for dissenters. You can say the emperor is naked but you will ultimately probably regret saying it. And you will regret saying it because you drew attention to yourself and became the target of the halo polishers of the Company of Saints. This is just a new religion that has no gods. It is just as full of injunction and criticism as its predecessor. It is as nasty and bullying as all the absolute creeds that have painted themselves into corners.
So, I would suggest that the fault lies not in politics, dear Brutus, but in ourselves, to misquote Shakespeare and that there doesn't seem to be much anyone can do about it. Unless a determined effort not to be the placid victim of dogma can be effected without replacing the one dogma with another dogma and starting all over again.
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