Ideologies: A Recipe for Violence and Stupidity (middle east, school, politicians)

[Fiddlehead]

Following the news the last few weeks, I have just realized that a vast majority of our global issues are driven by ideologues. As you can hear /read every day, rigid ideologically-bound people commit a huge share of the violence around the world (who else would blow up school children?).

In the Middle East, we have, of course, the Islamist crazies who will kill anyone who is different.

We also will probably have the Zionists settlers to thank for WWIII.

Many people's lives were ruined by the Marxist nutjobs of the Soviet Union, China, and the like, who applied Marx' ideas just as fundamentally as the religion they forbid.

The Crusades, Salem With Trials, the extirpation of Native Peoples, and a bunch of other carnage by rabid Christians.

It seems to me that grabbing on to religious and political ideologies and blindly filtering all your information through them denies the tremendous advances set forth by the Renaissance (Enlightenment), where people actually started to look at facts by themselves, rather than filtered by the Priest, Imam, Witch Doctor, Guru,etc. We learned, for example that the world was round, not the center of the universe, and was billions of years old.

Now, we have rabid partisans who listen to partisan media every day and infest the GOP and Democratic parties, imbibing and spewing hatred and vitriol daily. Most of it which wouldn't hold water in a 7th grade debate class. It seems like the extreme partisans have decided a Medieval mentality is better than Modernity. The ideologies (and addiction to talking heads spewing them) give uninformed people very strong and often fact-free convictions. The less they know the stronger their certainty they are right. That is the definition of ignorance and stupidity, and usually associated with this:

Dunning

Seems to me that ideological thinking has so often been a recipe for violence and stupidity, yet it seems to be growing explosively these days, in the ME, the USA, etc.

Why do you think in this modern age so many people are so addicted to canned ideological answers, when the real world is much more interesting?

[Gtownoe]

I think we're going through an Enlightenment Period right now. I truly feel it. Whether it will continue or not is another question.


What would set this 'Re-evolution' apart from ones in the past is the internet. If we go through that process again it could have a much bigger impact and be sustained much longer due to the free flow of information.






To answer your question, in a simple form (at work) I think its the media. I actually think the media has as much or more influence than the politicians. They have to go through the media to get their message out.

[Fiddlehead]

Originally Posted by Gtownoe

I think we're going through an Enlightenment Period right now. I truly feel it. Whether it will continue or not is another question.


What would set this 'Re-evolution' apart from ones in the past is the internet. If we go through that process again it could have a much bigger impact and be sustained much longer due to the free flow of information.






To answer your question, in a simple form (at work) I think its the media. I actually think the media has as much or more influence than the politicians. They have to go through the media to get their message out.

I agree to a degree. Certainly, anyone with a smart phone has access to unparalleled information in seconds.

Where I disagree is that the age of the internet has also been associated with a massive explosion of partisan propaganda websites, where you can easily find a spin on anything that matches your existing views, no matter how uninformed they may be. I did not foresee that so many people would really rather "feel" right than be right. Confirmation bias rules the blogosphere. Which just fuels the ideologues' fire.

[GWhopper]

I sometimes think it is more of a herd mentality. People with similar beliefs flock together and exchange similar ideas backs and forth, and as the ideas go back and forth, they begin to become more extreme because any facts that may cause people to question their beliefs are never introduced into the dialogue. When these people encounter others with conflicting ideas, they tend to double down on their beliefs because they feel threatened. Thus their beliefs become more extreme and polarizing.

[GWhopper]

This is interesting, this was a study of ideologies within the mass public in 1964. At the time the study concluded that most people were not ideologues, only a small percentage were. I wonder what the results would be if this study was done today.

[Fiddlehead]

Originally Posted by GWhopper

This is interesting, this was a study of ideologies within the mass public in 1964. At the time the study concluded that most people were not ideologues, only a small percentage were. I wonder what the results would be if this study was done today.

I bet it would be higher. Which I find surprising, since we should be more educated on average than 50 years ago, and most of the extreme ideological position, policies have been show to end badly.

For instance:

1) Fundamentalist Christianity => the Dark Ages

2) Fundamentalist Marxism => Soviet Union, Tiananmen Square, or Cuba

3) Laissez Faire Capitalism => the Gilded Age, Roaring 20s & Crash, Roaring 2000s and Crash.

The outcomes are plain to see, but it is as if the same old ideas get trotted out, regardless of their proven failure.