I apologise in advance for the length of this post.
Ideology.
From what I can see, the left is suffering from it’s lack of ideology at present, which is a main obstacle to success in implementing regime change or even perhaps policy change. By this I mean that up until, I suppose, the 80s (but really it had all but died long before that) a lot in the left could characterize themselves as being communists- and communism was the main threat to neo-liberalism (or capitalism, or just liberalism….whatever you want to call the ruling western ideology of our time) until then. Having this ideology gave the left power.
As we have learnt in class, totalitarian societies need ideology to legitimize themselves. I would go further to say that our entire society is based on a liberal, capitalist ideology (and I know the word capitalist is often mis-used, but here I use it to describe our economic system and private ownership of means of production- and I am not critiquing it here). It isn’t often verbalized, but I think it is still there in our cultural and political identity.
So the left perhaps needs an ‘ism’ before it will gain the power and strength to be an alternative.
However, it also appears that perhaps one of the greatest mistakes human appear to be making over and over again is ideology itself. All ideologies contain seeds of truth. Taken to be all-encompassing and omnipotent they lose the truth upon which they were based- so seems to be the case in almost every case of ideology in practice. Put extremely simply, those who subscribe to these ‘isms’ make the mistake in believing any means justifies their ends. To me, the more I know, the more it seems that stating you believe in a certain ideology is giving up any search for truth (accept perhaps feminism, but that is not an ideology, as many claim…lets not go there)
So what is the best way forward then? How can we improve society and regimes to better benefit the people and the environment without making another mistake of ideology, when going up against such a well established one?
And secondly, if you are proposing an alternative to an ideology, doesn’t that become a de facto ideology?
Morals
The second thing I have been thinking about is the place in morals within our studies. It seems to me that the more you deconstruct regimes, ideologies, revolutions etc, the less morals play a part in them. I even feel this happening in myself as I considered the essay question ‘are violent revolutions ever justified?’. The question asks for statistics and examples to prove your view on when it becomes acceptable. But where is that line between right and wrong and what statistics could ever prove it? It is my opinion that many, if not the majority of us become interested in politics because of our morals. And without them, its all just a very destructive game, is it not?
But then again, how can you distance morals from emotions? And should you? Morals and emotions come down to a gut feeling, something that does not need justification. As we have all seen, emotions can be just the ticket to legitimize the most oppressive and terrible regimes (which ties in to my critique of ideology).
So what place do our morals and our emotions have within politics? When do you rely on them, and when do you set them aside? Are they more of a force for evil than good?
Or do you think that morals are not emotive at all?
I am guessing though that the majority of you wouldn’t have made it this far in my ridiculously long blog…
In regards to your thoughts on morals and the question of whether violent revolutions are ever justified - does there need to be a line between what is morally right and wrong? I don't know about other people but I am interested in politics not because of my morals but because I'm interested in finding out/thinking about how society can be best governed on a practical level.
ReplyDeleteI think that morals and emotions (connected or not) serve to circumvent critical (and crucial) analysis and reflection upon what is best for us on an individual and societal level. Politics waged on an emotive or moral level (on issues such as immigration, the environment etc) - on gut feelings that don't need justification - is, imo, politics with blinders on - narrow-sighted, ignorant of context and ultimately harmful to society.
I'm pretty sure it's impossible to totally isolate reason and emotion... Look here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saDHFomGW3A specifically around 7:30.
ReplyDeleteAh, but that entire video is phenomenally interesting, so it should obviously be watched in its entirety.
ReplyDeleteMaybe one could argue to the question "how can we improve society and regimes to better benefit people and the environment without making another mistake of ideology" that it might not be possible to eliminate the idea of an ideology and to search for something better. So far in humankind we seemed to be always persuaded by some ideology. However we could learn that just like there doesn't seem to be existing an ultimate truth, there is neither an ultimate ideology (and therefore one should not be trying to look for one). And I think this makes sense since humans and societies always seem to be changing, they are not static, whereas an ultimate ideology implies something static. So somehow you need an openminded ideology as an improved version of an ideology or so which can adapt itself when needed, but at the same time can dissolve and accept its faults or irrelevance instead fighting its enemies and imposing its ideas on people and turning into a tyranny.
ReplyDeleteAs for morals and emotions, these are connected to ideologies. First you could distinguish morals from emotions by the fact that morals are not naturally occuring, they are taught in a group, society, culture, religion, throughout history. Whereas emotions can either appear naturally or as an effect of morals.
The place in politics would depend on the view you take. Morals can be used by leaders by accentuating them to gain support and understanding for a certain cause. These emphasized morals will give emotional reactions either against or for the cause. At the same time a leader could also play into the fears of a society, which would be the domain of emotions. This combination of using morals and emotions seems to be very powerfull tool.
For the ruled population, they should ask themselves are these emphasized morals and awakened emotions manipulating or would this cause indeed improve our lives and the lives of other populations.
To come back to the connection of ideologies and emotions and morals. I think one of the reasons an ideology fails eventually is because at some point leaders will use the ideology for a cause that is not right or not connecting with the morals or betraying the morals, which will ignite emotions, and new ideas will develop and resulting maybe in a new ideology.