What is your Ideology?

[peter]

Does everyone have an 'ideology' even if they don't realise it or know what it is? Are not realising it and not knowing what it is one and the same thing? Can you say what yours is [I can't by the way, which is why I ask the question[s]]. If we have one - or indeed if we all have one - is it limited to one, or are there many, each covering a different area of our beliefs [giving a situation where quite possibly there are areas where we might have an ideology, and areas where we might not {and tailored to each one of us as dependant upon the beliefs that our particular thinking holds}]. Can ideologies be like 'sets' in maths where some might overlap, some sit wholely inside others and yet others be totally remote from each other? Are we made less by not having one [if such a thing is possible] - or more?

Should this post be in the 'What do you Believe' thread above [and if so could it be moved there. Thanks Mods.]

[Zarathustra]

Existentialism (though not really an ideology), pragmatism, neutral monism, atheism, fallibilism, Libertarianism.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Not realizing it and not knowing what it is can be the same thing--a farmer might now know what an agronomist is be he is still an agronomist.

Yes, we can try to classify ideologies into general groups and some of them will be subsets of others but if you ask ten different people to classify them you will get ten different results and no one can say which classification is the "correct" one.

Rationalism and Libertarianism here. What this means is that even if there is a solution to a problem that makes the most sense then that solution should be implemented even if I don't like the solution for some reason. How many people are willing to do that, hm?

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

Some things I have said of which I am not altogether confident. But that we shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to enquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no knowing and no use in seeking to know what we do not know;-that is a theme upon which I am ready to fight, in word and deed, to the utmost of my power.

[Vraith]

I think we all have ideology-like systems. No one can be completely free of them [and it probably wouldn't be a good thing to be totally free of them].
And [probably] everyone is at least partially blind to some of their own underpinnings...and this is probably unavoidable. It's why "know thyself" is such good advice, a constant high-stakes struggle if you are doing it right, and has no end.

And yes, I think we all have more than one.
I think this is necessary, too.
Because I think every ideology...in fact, every POSSIBLE ideology...will be incomplete and inconsistent in itself.
Will be "not applicable" to some encounters with existence.
Most [perhaps all], if purely held and strictly followed will have at
least some monstrous outcomes, untenable contradictions.
Multiple systems are necessary because there are no such things as "self-regulating systems." [except perhaps dying...that process never, ever fails ]

[Morning]

By religious persuasion I am a Survivalist (whatever saves my ass), and politically a Brutalist (hang'em all and let God sort them out), but most importantly, I fly with both wings beating.

[Cagliostro]

Not so much a label, but more sort of a creed:

Question everything, especially those things that you believe are truths.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

The easiest person to deceive is yourself.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

I think we all have ideology-like systems. No one can be completely free of them [and it probably wouldn't be a good thing to be totally free of them].
And [probably] everyone is at least partially blind to some of their own underpinnings...and this is probably unavoidable. It's why "know thyself" is such good advice, a constant high-stakes struggle if you are doing it right, and has no end.

And yes, I think we all have more than one.
I think this is necessary, too.
Because I think every ideology...in fact, every POSSIBLE ideology...will be incomplete and inconsistent in itself.
Will be "not applicable" to some encounters with existence.
Most [perhaps all], if purely held and strictly followed will have at
least some monstrous outcomes, untenable contradictions.
Multiple systems are necessary because there are no such things as "self-regulating systems." [except perhaps dying...that process never, ever fails ]

Not bad, vraith, with the caveat that any relativism that is excessively absolute must also fail itself.

[Vraith]

Not bad, vraith, with the caveat that any relativism that is excessively absolute must also fail itself.

Don't disagree with that.
Even the purest relativist has to make decisions, has to act as if things are known/true even if can't be definitively shown.
I'm much closer, in most ways, to Nietzsche's perspectivism [with about equal amounts of Heidegger, and dashes, teaspoons, and tablespoons of other folk thrown in...though this description is true, quasi true and not true].
Just cuz things depend on point of view [and other things] doesn't mean that all views are equally valid, all equally weighted, that some aren't better than others.
There is very little that we can know absolutely.
But I abhor [emotionally/irrationally, perhaps] the conclusion some draw that that means we can, by definition, know nothing and make no judgments.
I also think that rationally, factually, that conclusion is as close to just not so as we can get. [and becomes more not so every time we discover or create something...ANYTHING...new, no matter how small]

Rules for dealing with reality:
Never use an easy ideology when a hard one will do.
The KISS principal is rarely [if ever] a way of understanding,
it is overwhelmingly [maybe always] a shield to deny it or weapon to kill it.
A straight razor and Occam's razor have much in common...like the chances of cutting your own throat if you don't know how to use it.

Like all people, I don't always follow my own rules.

Heh...I meant to just stay "I don't disagree" and stop there when I started.

[Orlion]

Nihilism with a dash of Gnosticism or Gnosticism with a dash of Nihilism. It pretty much comes out to the same thing in the end, I do not believe in any objective meaning/worth so I'm free to impose it myself.

I recognize this is mostly reactionary on my part: I fight my upbringing by instinctively taking up the opposite position. I do not want to fall back into that ideology or replace with a "new boss, same as the old one".

I believe that art (particularly poetry) has transcendental properties. For example, I believe that Dante raised Beatrice from what from all appearances was a mundane existence to a Divine sphere. I feel that art has taught me more about human nature and human condition than all the religious, philosophical, political, and scientific learning that I have received.

[Avatar]

Rational Anarcho-Fascist.

--A

[Fist and Faith]

I love chocolate.

[Morning]

Rational Anarcho-Fascist.

--A

Man, I could have said this.

[peter]

This is [in the main] relating to the stuff that we are aware of, have controll of, and can [perhaps only with effort - but never the less] change if we choose to. Does our ideology however, go deeper; does it delve it's roots into places that are beyond our capacity to reach, to re-wire. Is it fixed at it's most basic level while we are still in the cradle, hard wired with the very belief systems that our parents, our communities, our culture imbues into us. Can I, born a Christian [still - I don't know?] decide to become a Bhuddist and be the same as a Bhuddist cradle born?

[Zarathustra]

Not so much a label, but more sort of a creed:

Question everything, especially those things that you believe are truths.

Ah, but there is a label for that. Doesn't Robert Anton Wilson call it "model agnosticism?" Fallibilism may also fit.

I'd probably add rational realism (as opposed to naïve realism) to my list.

[Orlion]

This is [in the main] relating to the stuff that we are aware of, have controll of, and can [perhaps only with effort - but never the less] change if we choose to. Does our ideology however, go deeper; does it delve it's roots into places that are beyond our capacity to reach, to re-wire. Is it fixed at it's most basic level while we are still in the cradle, hard wired with the very belief systems that our parents, our communities, our culture imbues into us. Can I, born a Christian [still - I don't know?] decide to become a Bhuddist and be the same as a Bhuddist cradle born?

Yes. It requires a lot of sacrifice, and you will be far behind (i.e. instead of being a 30 year old Buddhist, you'd be a 15 year old Buddhist) but it is very much possible.

[peter]

This is a thing I have always had a problem with. Having been born in to a monotheistic society my earliest [religious] memories will be of my parents talking to me about 'God' and making me 'say my prayers' before bed each night. The God I might therefore consider intellectually, will be this one and none other, and deeply imbued in my makeup will be a 'monotheistic' core that I might choose to deny at some later point - but it will always be this one that I deny. How could I hope to extricate this 'root and branch' and then replace it to that same deep level with a pantheistic world view? [This is less applicable to Bhuddism I know than say Hinduism.] I have a serious problem understanding how this could be done [not however with the idea that the 'teachings' in terms of life-practice may highly sucessfully be adopted at almost any stage of a persons life.]

[Orlion]

This is a thing I have always had a problem with. Having been born in to a monotheistic society my earliest [religious] memories will be of my parents talking to me about 'God' and making me 'say my prayers' before bed each night. The God I might therefore consider intellectually, will be this one and none other, and deeply imbued in my makeup will be a 'monotheistic' core that I might choose to deny at some later point - but it will always be this one that I deny. How could I hope to extricate this 'root and branch' and then replace it to that same deep level with a pantheistic world view? [This is less applicable to Bhuddism I know than say Hinduism.] I have a serious problem understanding how this could be done [not however with the idea that the 'teachings' in terms of life-practice may highly sucessfully be adopted at almost any stage of a persons life.]

That's because you have not done it

It is by no means easy, but when it happens it's as if the world has ended, been remade. It's as if history has been erased and another placed in its stead. It's liberating and devastating. It's as if what you were has died, and your past with its experiences seem to belong to a dear, well-known friend who is no longer on the mortal plane.

People you have known all your life become strangers, what once was imperative is a futile waste of time.

It's no small wonder such changes tend to occur earlier in life than later, such instability would be easier to handle when the future and present are the most malleable.

[aliantha]

I feel that art has taught me more about human nature and human condition than all the religious, philosophical, political, and scientific learning that I have received.

Agreed!

The topic of whether you can really change your ideological spots is an interesting one. My father was brought up Catholic but proclaimed himself an atheist in his adulthood. Yet somebody arranged for a Catholic priest to officiate at his funeral. I've never heard who was in charge of that decision -- whether Dad recanted on his deathbed, or whether somebody (probably my brother, who'd converted to Catholicism when he got married) told the funeral home Dad was Catholic and they rustled up the priest, or what.

When my mother (who was nondenominational but Protestant) died, my brother and sister-in-law took care of the arrangements. Thankfully, they didn't try to bring in a priest, but the "service" was really lame. My sister-in-law's cousin, who ran the funeral home they hired, sort of officiated. Basically we just recited the Lord's Prayer. Of course, he used the Catholic version, which lost every mourner except for my brother and his family. And they didn't provide any opportunity for anyone to get up and say anything about Mom, which would have been a nice touch.

And that's off-topic. Oh well.