Ideologies
Alexander Liss
Overcoming
Constrains of Logic
Separating
Logic and Illogical
An Ideology is a logical scaffolding used
by a group of people to achieve particular goals in a particular social
context. Many Ideologies claim universality and "authorization" by
something above humanity, but experience shows limitations of Ideologies and
adaptation of Ideologies to new reality.
Ideologies compete each with other and only
efficient Ideologies survive and guide large masses of population or groups of
decision-makers. Hence, it makes sense to limit our analysis to efficient Ideologies
- Ideologies, which are able to keep their followers for a long time.
In
time, an Ideology as a logical schema runs into a conflict with Reality.
Sometimes, it adjusts itself, but more often, it becomes more rigid and
involved to retain its grip on its followers.
The
Ideology, which became more rigid, contradicts reality even in a large degree.
Applying
definition of insanity to society, the state of the social group following an
Ideology, which contradicts reality, should be described as an insanity of this
social group. History has many examples of such insanity of social groups and
wars and other social disasters caused by such insanity.
Knowing
how Ideologies are constructed and operate on societies helps early detection
of a conflict between an Ideology and reality, helps
detect insanity of a society.
An Ideology is a social phenomenon. There
is a tendency to see followers and even promoters of an insane Ideology as
victims, caught by a force overwhelming their will and mental abilities.
Such
approach is essentially immoral.
The
real victims are ones, which do not accept such Ideology and are suppressed or
even eliminated by followers of the Ideology.
All
followers of an insane Ideology gain something from it. Often, the gain
consists of elimination of a need to make own evaluations and own decisions and
feel being a part of a crowd.
This
is a moral transgression - an abdication of the social obligation to question,
check, evaluate and protest, if needed, in area of one's responsibility. As it
is immoral to go beyond the area of one's responsibility and force decisions in
an area of responsibility of others, it is immoral to leave the area of one's
responsibility unattended.
The purveyors of an insane Ideology usually
internalize it, but this does not clear them from responsibility for what they
are doing. They are usually members of an elite group, which has special
benefits. The Ideology is internalized by this group, because it provides
justification for their inhumane behavior, the justification needed for their
feeling of internal comfort.
While one's use of an Ideology is a
necessity, at least to coordinate actions with others to achieve a common goal,
one should always watch for limits of applicability of a chosen Ideology.
When
an Ideology is internalized, it is difficult to recognize its insane nature.
This still does not elevate one's responsibility to do so. Understanding roots,
structure and beneficiaries of an Ideology helps in such recognition.
A good Ideology has built-in safeguards,
which do not allow it to reach a state destructive to humanity or to stay in
conflict with reality for too long or to be twisted to create some insane
derived Ideology.
We start with examples of "Ideological
modules" often embedded in some efficient Ideologies. After, we proceed
with dissection of a notorious Ideology of communism.
Socialism is an "Ideological
rider" on an Ideology driving expansion of some kind of a social group.
This rider deals exclusively with distribution of wealth, it does not deal with
creation of wealth.
The idea of socialism, or fair distribution
of wealth, especially in face of many deprived of necessities of life, is
ancient. In hard times, it frequently catches imagination of large masses of
population and leaders emerge, which articulate and propagate it.
The logical root of it is in a fact that
wealth is created by a society as a whole, and a wealth distribution mechanism
is relatively independent from a wealth creation mechanism. A system of
taxation shows that this is true for a broad range of social structures.
However,
there is a limit on how far an artificial wealth distribution mechanism could
be imposed on a society. It is always an impediment to a wealth creation
mechanism. An unmitigated socialism usually destroys a wealth creation
mechanism.
Socialism
became a stable Ideology only with emergence of Labor. Exchangeability of Laborers
enforced by particular organization of economy, which emerged with capitalism,
created a large group of "indistinguishable" individuals, which are
ready to accept socialism as an explanation of their existence. Success of
trade unions and socialistic policies in improving of Laborers' life reinforced
this Ideology.
Still,
Socialism could exist only as an addition to an Ideology, which corresponds to
some form of social expansion. It could be found as a rider on capitalist
Ideology guiding economic expansion, or a rider on communist Ideology guiding
expanding restructuring of society, or a rider on nationalist Ideology guiding
another expending restructuring of society, etc. The moment underlying Ideology
stops guiding expansion, the entire combination of the underlying Ideology and
the rider of Socialism collapses. The collapse happens faster with the rider,
then without it, because this rider imposes limits on the system, which make it
less flexible.
Artificial
distribution of wealth requires a mechanism. The only known mechanism of such
distribution working for a large number of members of society is a bureaucratic
mechanism.
Such
mechanism involved in distribution of wealth inevitably becomes corrupt.
Being
a bureaucratic mechanism, it allocates increasingly large portion of wealth for
self-preservation and self-maintenance.
In a society with a weak moral structure
and social organization, there is a possibility to "carve out" some
share of power through perpetual intimidation of society.
This
is understood by some groups, which are actively engaged in creation of a
stable social structure using means of intimidation, where they could have a
comfortable place.
The
Ideology deployed to this end is old and quite a few times intimidators
succeeded. Barbarians terrorized
Various followers of this Ideology have
different views.
Suppressed
think that the society is unstable and there is price to pay in any case. If
they do not fight intimidation, they are carriers of this Ideology.
"Soldiers-intimidators"
think that they are a part of some honorable activity, which puts them above
ordinary members of society. One could see this among members of Mafia and
modern global terrorists.
Leaders
see themselves not as a group of sociopath, but as a special "family"
entitled to power. They maintain a special social structure,
carry a special Ideology, etc.
The
entire syndrome could be seen
·
in
societies with deficiencies in social organization, where Mafia finds its
place,
·
in
societies-in-transition, where new Mafia-like groups find their place,
·
in a global society in transition from a rigid
state of Cold War to a new more flexible state, where terrorists try to carve
their own share of power.
Terrorism
as an Ideology is a rider. It is too primitive to be an Ideology on its own. It
was deployed in conjunction with various ideas of: French revolution,
communism, radical Islam, etc.
At
a first glance, Thought Control looks as an impossible task. However, it was
successfully deployed numerous times.
On
a small scale, this is done by separating a small group from the rest of
society and brainwashing them.
On
a large scale, this is done through censoring new information (news, teaching)
and censoring everyday conversations.
Roman
emperors deployed this to control empire through a cult of an emperor. In a
former
In
modern Western societies, this is censoring of news, enforced via media
outlets, censoring of teaching, enforced by culture of universities, and
"politically correct" speech enforced by various
"publishers" of information.
This
activity is an Ideological rider: persons engaged in such information filtering
think that they do a right thing and persons deprived of information through
such filtering think that this is socially beneficial.
Communism
is an effective Ideology, which still has many followers.
While
some say that distinction should be made between the Ideology and various
deployments of it, it is prudent to see in variants of deployment of this
Ideology the manifestation of roots of Ideology, which otherwise stay hidden.
Communism
deploys all Ideological riders described above.
Socialism
guides wealth distribution system in Communism. In the
Any
private enterprise, where larger part of wealth generated by a group goes to
one, who organized such wealth generation, was forbidden. It was forbidden to
engage privately in buying goods in one place and selling in the other, where
they are needed.
In
the
The
system of law was designed in a way that practically any one broke the law at
some point in one's life.
That
created a state of fear and anxiety in an entire society.
In
the
Teaching
on all levels was carefully monitored and censored.
Large
amount of time was allocated for mandatory meetings dedicated to brainwashing.
Secret
police and enforced by law culture of reporting on subversive behavior of
neighbors created a habitual self-censorship of all conversations.
In
all implementations of communist Ideology, Individuality is forcefully
suppressed. Some say that this is a result of mistakes in implementation of
Ideology, but this result is always present, hence it is in nature of the
Ideology.
The
communist Ideology asserts primarily of collective over individual and
conditions of life over individual's models of reality. This doctrine is a
source of practice of suppression of individuality by communists.
It
introduces only subtle bias into a system of concepts, which we use to describe
humanity (Individual, Society, Mind, etc.) This subtle bias combined with other
tools of the Ideology is sufficient to produce consistently various phenomena,
for example to cause suppression of individuality or even to cause mass
exterminations of members of society.
The strength of the Ideology of communism
is in guiding a particular kind of social expansion - expanding modification of
society according to a particular mold.
First,
its goal was modification of entire humanity, later only some part of it, but
always it was an expansion. This expansion was conveniently linked with
expanding industrialization of the
This
expansion allowed the use of the described above Ideological riders and
provided stability to the Ideology as a whole.
It
is interesting, that the properties of the mold are irrelevant, as long the
end-result is removed somewhere in the future.
Actually,
the mold itself is quite deficient. A society built according to this mold is
not stable on its own. Relatively minor events could completely destabilize it.
Hence, such society should be extremely suppressive to maintain its structure,
but as it was pointed above, this is irrelevant for the efficiency of the
Ideology.
The Core Element of the Ideology of
communism is dedication of a particular activity as a final arbiter of truth,
without any attempt to critique it. This activity is an activity of a society
as a whole. "The place, where society arrives, is where it should be".
It looks as a self-serving logical loop,
but it is not. It is a leap out of limits of logic. This makes the Ideology
strong.
Usually, a leap beyond limits of logic is a
domain of Religion. The Ideology of communism incorporated it with all
potential pitfalls, and it fell in one of such pitfalls.
Communism asserts: "There are some
intermediate stops in society's motion, but where it goes (to communism) is
obvious, and one could see immediately limits of an intermediate stop
(deviation from communism)."
This
is a source of many of its problems.
From one hand, communists subject their
thinking to reality of developing society. From the other hand they know, in
which direction it should go.
If the society does not go in such
"predicted" direction, then a sacrifice should be made, to correct
the problem.
This is exactly the way primitive religions
operate. When things do not go right, a society binds a deity with a contract
via a sacrifice.
To
a degree a deity could be bound at all, it is not a deity, it is a mechanism,
which could be described and controlled. However, this thought does not bother
those, who want to expend their control be they practitioners of a primitive
religion or practitioners of the communist Ideology.
In the case of the Ideology of communism, a
small bias introduced by other doctrines of communism makes individuality a
first candidate for the sacrifice. Such sacrifice is always made by communism
and communists found it useful.
The trick is: such sacrifice has all
trappings of self-fulfilling prophecy. A society with suppressed individuality
is highly controllable and could be guided toward ideals of communism.
A combination of a leap beyond limitation
of logic in form of acceptance of actual development of society as a measure of
truth and a logical statement that a society is inevitably moving toward
communism carries internal logical contradiction. It is covered with all other
tools of the Ideology of communism.
As soon this combination is accepted, anything
could be proven. It is a fact of logic: from a statement carrying logical
contradiction, any statement could be logically derived.
The Ideology of communism had chosen
science to "prove" large quantity of statements, based on such hidden
assumption. These "proven" statements do not contradict each other.
The entire body of "knowledge" is carefully logically constructed. It
contradicts reality, but the roots of such contradiction are hidden and any
attempts to analyze these roots are forcefully prevented.
Any Ideology has to deal with Infinity.
Complexity
of handling this subject in a logical way was demonstrated by troubles in the
process of development of mathematics, when mathematicians tried to cope with
introduction of derivatives of functions. New concept was powerful, but
different mathematicians computed different derivatives.
One
should assume that mathematics handled it in the best possible way in
boundaries of logic, because mathematics encapsulates achievements of humanity
in area of logical constructs.
In
mathematics, there are two ways of handling of Infinity.
One
is relatively narrow - it flatly refuses to deal with it and large areas of
mathematics are inaccessible in this way.
The
other embraces only one type of Infinity, one which essence could be described
with an infinite number of steps, one step after another. It does not reject
other forms of Infinity; it operates with only this type of Infinity.
What
is good for mathematics should be good for an Ideology.
In
many cases, we say that we do not know something today, but we will know this
later, or we can't do something today, but we will do this later.
These
two deferrals to Future are used in Ideologies. One says that there is an area
of dark unknown, but in a finite number of steps of study, we will illuminate
any given part of it. Another says that as individual or as a society one can't
achieve a given goal now, but in finite number of steps, one will achieve this
goal (with reasonable interpretation of it).
The
number of steps or time frame is not defined by the Ideology. One could say
that if it takes too long, then an achievement does not matter. However, this
criticism misses the point. An Ideology does not bring practical solutions; it
brings a logical construct, based on which appropriate for a
situation practical methods are designed.
The
language of steps brings into the Ideology the concept of Infinity of Steps.
An
Ideology, which incorporates a religion, often explicitly defines as a valuable
activity steps of one's getting closer to Divine.
These could be steps of learning, steps of acting according to religious rules,
etc.
The
reward for such activity is irrelevant for the Ideology - this is the way to bring
the Infinity of Steps into the Ideology.
Having
lived through a turmoil caused by Infinity, mathematicians are very cautious
with the Infinity of Steps. There are strictly defined rules of what is allowed
to do with it. The manipulations involving the Infinity are perpetually
reexamined. The entire branches of mathematics are dedicated to areas, where
the Infinity is not used, because there is a possibility, that the way it is
used now is somehow inappropriate.
Our
intuition in situations, where the Infinity is involved, often suggests
conclusions, which are disproved with simple example.
The
misuse of Infinity causes many problems in carefully guarded area of
mathematics. Even more problems it causes in an Ideology.
The
Infinity brought into an Ideology either implicitly or explicitly opens the
door to wrong conclusions. These wrong conclusions are made regularly. If they
resonate with some our deficiencies, then they become a part of a particular
Ideology. It takes perpetual efforts to keep these conclusions out.
Following
are examples of such faults.
It
is tempting to think that what is defined in Infinity of Steps is all it is to
know about Infinity, that the rest is not discovered but derived from this
definition.
This
is a form of belief, which goes far beyond Gnosticism; it declares Infinity
being captured by logic. Being not supported, it should be a form of faith and
a beginning of a primitive form of religion.
Some
scientists stick to this religion and deprive themselves of benefits of
developed forms of religion.
The
false (implicit) conclusion that the Infinity is "large" or
"more important" than an individual or a society, leads to buildup of
a strange but widely spread value system.
Communism demands abandoning of personal
interests and interests of "a society at a given moment" for benefits
of mysterious bright Future.
Intellectual
extremists demand abandoning of today interests to make a next step into Future
knowledge.
Religious
intellectual extremists demand abandoning of "mundane" interests to
make a next step into knowledge of Divine.
Religious
extremists demand abandoning of "mundane" interests to bring oneself
and society one step closer to Divine.
One
can't reject the idea of "something larger than oneself" in general;
it is very useful on some steps of one's development; for example, it is
successfully deployed by religious leaders and psychotherapists to kick one
from a trap of illusions. It is also useful in hard times as a form of
temporary escape from harsh reality.
This
idea only becomes a problem, when it becomes a permanent feature embedded into
an Ideology.
Currently,
society is changing fast, because of rapid growth of population and rapid
technological development. New circumstances require new guiding theories - new
Ideologies. It is important to understand how efficient Ideologies are
constructed to be able to deliver an appropriate Ideology, when one is needed.
An
efficient Ideology has to be defined in Practical Terms describing not only
goals but ways to reach these goals; otherwise it becomes a Utopian Ideology,
which brings hopes, stimulates various actions, among which the majority of
actions are inadequate, and consequent frustration and rejection of ideas
advocated by the Ideology.
Situations
vary and change in time; hence, the Ideology has to be perpetually adjusted.
Efficient Ideologies are adaptable.
In
the same time, an Ideology has to be stable. It serves as a guiding light, it
provides comfort of knowing of what we doing and a basis for coordination of
actions. This stability comes with an Idealistic layer of the Ideology.
The
Idealistic layer is rooted in basic human values. It can be presented only in
simple terms and goals formulated at this layer are inevitably idealistic and
unreachable.
Gnostics assert that the world is knowable.
While one could have some lack of understanding of a given subjec
that could be cleared. How long this acquiring of knowledge takes is not
defined, but definitely this is could be accomplished in a finite period.
Many scientists are Gnostics, also some
religious movements adopted Gnostic point of view.
Agnostics assert that there is a boundary
to what we could know and, for sure, there is something beyond this boundary,
but we can't know what it is.
Many religions adapt Agnostic approach -
they assert that there is a "controlling entity", which can't be
known.
Some scientists follow Agnostic approach,
especially when they deal with quantum mechanics.
Realism as philosophical movement asserts
that concepts are not figments of our imagination, which we could change, but
real entities - manipulation of concepts changes the world. Psychotherapists
and Ideologues find frequent support to this perception. Mystics are usually
consistent realists.
Nominalism
declares concepts being names or tags of something real. Scientists find
frequent support to this perception. Materialists are usually consistent nominalists.
Choosing
Gnostic or Agnostic approach and choosing Realism or Nominalism
is largely independent from our other choices.
Emergence of such distinctive philosophical
school of thought shows that there is no one logical system, which could
encompass all these approaches. Building a consistent logical construction, one
has to choose among these variants.
Experience shows that a combination of
Gnosticism and Realism creates an Ideology, which often leads its adepts to
detachment from reality, inability to recognize that their actions are
self-destructive. Possible cause of it - it creates an illusion that mental
manipulation is all it is needed in life.
A
combination of Agnosticism and Nominalism creates an
Ideology, which often makes its adepts extremely indecisive. Possible cause of
it - it has three layers to begin with: Unknown, world of names, and world of
objects.
Combinations Gnosticism - Nominalism and Agnosticism - Realism could be efficient.
The escape from the limitations of a
logical schema comes with acceptance of limits of logic and recognition of the
fact that it is impossible to describe reality in one logical system.
For example, some forms of religion discuss
Deity, which can't be known, but refuse to discuss the subject of Deity’s
existence in boundaries of logic.
Any logical construction sits on a set of
assertions taken without a proof. There is always a tendency to explore these
assertions and this is a healthy tendency. It allows discovery of limits
acceptance of these assertions. When these assertions are a basis of an
Ideology, it allows finding limits of applicability of this Ideology.
Any time there is an attempt to justify
these assertions from the area beyond limits of logic (Infinity, Deity,
Reality, etc.) there is clear danger of bringing an internally logically
contradicting assertion into the area of logical construction.
This immediately destroys the logical
construction - any statement could be logically derived from a logical
contradiction.
Internal logical contradiction is not
dangerous on its own. We deal with it in our everyday life; we enjoy it in
Poetry; we learn from it in religious books. It is a danger in a logical part
of an Ideology, because an Ideology is under pressure to predict, to guide, to derive logically needed recommendations. Hence, any
logical contradiction in the logical part of it will inevitably lead to
"proven" fantasies.
Because
illogical has to be presented in any efficient Ideology, it is important to
keep a barrier between logical and illogical. As experience of mathematicians
with Infinity shows, this is not a simple task. The only known solution is
through establishment of a system of perpetual reexamining of logical
conclusions. This is how mathematics deals with it.