I had great fun walking in the shoes of a Nicolas Chauvin. What was he like under the outward show of his big idea? I read about the period of the French Revolution and Napoleon from the angle of Chauvin's vision. I saw those of my contemporaries who made professions similar to his. The children and loved ones of those who carry the burden of a father's or mother's ideology also will suffer, innocently, behind the scene.
I contrived a story of ideas that might demonstrate that burden of ideology. An opera buff, I wanted to put the story of an heroic anti-hero on the opera stage. (An unfortunate ambition ranging far outside my field of experience.) Musical theatre has more dimensions than theatre. After several years of coping with the complications of opera, and although the composer has set the story to some thrilling music, I converted the libretto to the non-musical stage so that I might more readily, in a form less complicated than opera, have the satisfaction of seeing some fruits of my work, a natural enticement, what?. The same is also true for OLYMPIAS.
The eponym, "chauvinism", signified the operation of an ideology, and it seemed to be a great part of people's lives wherever I looked. It's "patriotism", and super patriotism, and now an act of Congress.
Ideology is a non-verifiable (non-falsifiable) statement of truth based on the charismatic authority of the guru or a holy text.
How does that strike you? My connotation is negative. Is there a positive one? Do we accept an expert's statements without verifying? Do we accept a traditional idea without verification of its truth? Some people become upset when the questions put to the president become too probing. What kind of authority is he given to wield? (Long ago, just to imagine the death of the king was a capital offense.)
What is unthinkable? What is unspeakable? What is unimaginable?
The distance is astronomical between most Americans and those terrorists who cut off the head of the American for a videotaped message to America. Are two ideologies butting heads? No. They were cutting off the head of America; there's no longer the possibility of butting heads to answer, "What do you want?" It becomes our position to say what they want and sociological studies to determine who they are. They speak with the tongue of their atrocities, venom, hate, malevolence, cruel and inhuman evil. The terrorists did not find what they did unspeakable, unthinkable, nor unimaginable. On the other hand, we have American speakers on talk radio showing there are American terrorist counterparts to whom it would not be unspeakable, not unthinkable, nor unimaginable to carpet bomb all those A-rab nations.
Scientists surely should not become ideologues, for their statements should be verifiable (probable or improbable), but do scientists who "believe" in creationism suffer the cognitive dissonance of that ideology? They seem to feel no discomfort, as I think they ought. That's a big thing.
An ideology is a contrivance of words, a world that ignores so many other forces that constitute reality because the world is made to conform to the idea. The conclusion is given, and the evidence conforms. The motives are legion. A verbally ordered world leads to the dysfunction of ideology. That world is contrived, not derived — ideology, not fact — a condition in danger of being contrary to fact. Figures don't lie unless liars figure.
For example, we have the Atkins "low evidence" (Nutrition Action Health Letter) revolution, the Atkins diet run amok among "true believers", the passionate unknowing. The Atkins ideology will cause some great harms, I believe, before it is discredited to a great extent. My alternative is the good science of "Glycemic Load", or the glycemic index.
On another front, the dangers of the theatrical pyrotechnics in action movies and computer games can lead to attempts to actualize a vengeance fantasy, leading to such as the Columbine murders. The mayhem, action movies are playing with a new tool to construct an unreal reality. "Reality" programs contrive reality and call it reality.
I have contrived a figment of Chauvin's imagination that wants to take him over, an ideological Chauvin sucking the home and family-life out of him. Eventually, he succumbs.
The historical Olympias did everything I have her do. Was she as fully aware of her situation in life as I think she should have been? I do not think she could have been. She felt it, probably, but could not express it in terms that might have saved her if only she could have stated so out loud. She fell back on a passion which the weak cerebral response could not override, as it must for every human being. My definition of eloquence says that it is a proper admixture of cognitive and affective components, "passionate reasoning" as Mme de Staël says in CHAUVIN. Unfortunately, Olympias did what she felt like doing or wanted to do, not what she, given her position, should have done. That's ideology at work.
One of the most notorious ideologies today is the absurdity of Al Qaeda, a mocked-up inner world of evil intentions terrorizing innocents everywhere. A proper critical apparatus containing the elements of its nature has not been devised nor applied to the phenomenon. Many critics may be afraid of the insanely radical militants in Islam, as recently when a white person commented on an aspect of black culture, he was pilloried. (We are walking on eggshells.)
We had World War I. (What ideology lay behind that war? The war to end all wars. What better war to inspire that notion. But they hadn't seen anything yet!) We had WWII. (What ideology lay behind that war? There was on our side enough evidence in Pearl Harbor to save that one from the ideology trap with a more benign ideology of righteous patriotism, making the world safe for democracy. However, the ideology of the National Socialists in Germany and among the sons of the Rising Sun and the Kamakazi in the East showed so much reckless, ruthless, fanatical and arbitrary power that many millions suffered and died.) We had Korea. (The ideology? A police action, still with us.) We had Viet Nam. Inherited. (The domino theory?) The gulf war. (Treaty commitments?). Which brings us to the catastrophe of "9-11", followed by the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine. The Balkan area has settled a bit. The Middle East, with entities like the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, the Madrasas and the tribal order, appear to have much to do with the level of safety we have.
In Iraq, I believe that it is clear that the pretext for our entering that conflict was nothing but an expression of the instigator's ideology. Pretext and post-text were not the same. Continental drift. Admitted that things change and come to light during a war, but there just had to be some substantive basis to begin with. We now know from Bob Woodward that the instigators did not know the definition of "fact", but held to rigid, no-intelligence beliefs in a calling from on high, and they have never had doubts!
The boy stood on the burning deck,
eating peanuts by the peck.
The flames rose clear up to his chin,
but he kept cramming peanuts in.
Their's was a dangerous ideology, having cost the loss of many young people's lives. They should have written the last act first to have goal valence. But the instigators remain popular among the unknowing. I walk among ostriches and I cannot see their heads.
With acceleration in history, exponential growth and increasing technological complication, many more situations a society faces are emergent. That is, many facets of events can be unprecedented. The situation then becomes emergent, requiring rapid adaptation through efficient processes, because the past is not prologue anymore. (In one study I read, Eisenhower's WWII planning techniques, the group discussion and debate process of all things considered, the hallmark of democracy, proved to be superior to Hitler's ideological tactics, in the way they managed conferences among war planners.) The lack of planning for the end-game by the President may be evidence that he was inexperienced in war and we all now suffer the trial-and-error ways of his on-the-job learning. Foresight may have helped to deal with the emergent nature of warfare and saved some lives.
The analyses of Tom Friedman have yielded good empirical evidence, testifying to his credibility as a "reliable" "observer", and constituting the intelligence needed to save us from ideological sink-holes. Mme de Staël in CHAUVIN performs a comparable role. But who is listening? How many heard Charlie Rose on PBS interview Bob Woodward? How many heard Sen. Joe Biden spell out in detail a rather complete and constructive analysis of our international situation on CSPAN? Yeah, I thought so.
With each war, the dimensions of it change, until now, when the ideologues of terror have been driven underground. They are a cancer on the body politic that has metastasized and become so invasive that a cure is almost impossible without doing damage to healthy tissue.
It seems to some on the one hand that the healthy tissue must mobilize in something like a "million-man March." More troops! Take charge by overwhelming the Iraqi nation with them. There would be more safety in numbers for the troops. Lock down Iraq. Close the borders. Shakedown, disarm the Iraqis. Out of the peace of the jail, build the infrastructures and gradually convert the secular, political culture to civilized, peaceful problem-solving. More troops! Get them from every nation on earth. Go global! Admit the properties of global interdependence. Cost in resources is the one huge problem caused by previous tax policy, other than the problem of now "owning Iraq because we broke it." There is enormous compassion for the troops working feverishly in the minds of most Americans; it could drive the vote in November.
Or on the other hand, some say, get out, leave. As Friedman advises, give the Iraqi leadership a paper and pen and ask them to write down what they want, give it to the United Nations and we leave them in charge. Return the revolution to them. If there were a plan for extrication by the U.S. administration that was compelling, most of us would have little to talk about except to voice exuberant approval.
(Digression. Stop the ideology against government! "Get the government off our backs", they say. Nüsse! Government is big, of necessity. Government is the power we "pray" to for the resolution of most of our problems. Without government in nearly every facet of our lives, there would be the anarchy of "rugged individualism". No more frontiers for "elbow room".)
(Digression. Should the United Nations become the world's immune system? What is the Gæa Hypothesis? Is it Mother Earth's body wisdom? Has Mother Earth been saying, "There are too many people around for me to remain healthy, so I will contrive to rid myself of a good portion until I feel better"? Global warming is the disequilibrium of Gæa fighting back.)
The world's most populous religion should mobilize to conquer that evil element among its proponents. But they cannot! Their "national" identity has developed as a tribal authoritarian theocracy. That is a community marked by deindividuation, shared codes of communication and intolerance of outsiders, not a society marked by division of labor, differentiation among codes of communication, and tolerance of outgroups. In elevating the communal to the societal, both would be altered by having to reach, the one to the other. Otherwise, a nation would be formed around a community. And that is what the terrorists want, a theocracy on the order of the Taliban, and we have seen what that was. Can we afford to ignore communal nations? We didn't ignore the phenomenon in Afghanistan.
The velvet glove of democratic process worn on the iron fist of military might should now assist, not preempt a national development. Our role should be mature forbearance, patient restraint with infant democracies. We were fortunate to be able to develop our national character protected by two huge barriers, a luxury most others do not have. This current disturbance of our international equilibrium is necessary for the coming DECADES to secure our greater safety. No quick fixes here, though office-seekers may promise otherwise. But Americans appear to me to be addicted to the drug-poppin' quick-fix.
Every "society" should fight its own revolution to achieve a government arising from its people. Think of the two and a quarter centuries in which the people of the United States have been building their ship of state, progress in progress. Think of the Iraqi millions having its government wiped off the face of the land, and being told, "Now you have until June 30th to acquire self-government." Their present is unprecedented. The Germans had centuries of the ideology of "Das Volk". Their first attempt at democratic society, the Weimar Republic, failed with Hitler's success. Japan had much in common with German society, and they were natural allies (the "Axis"). Germany went through the stages of denial, etc., while Japan demoted the emperor after the war.
Alexander the Great, in the Iraqi part of the world, on the same terrain, defeated the warlords, brigands who swooped down from their mountain refuges to prey on the merchant trains along the roadways. He imposed the ideals of the Greek polis, leaving behind older veterans to police their development. But the tribes eventually reverted to their communal (tribal) order, as some became respected warriors in Alexander's army. Alexander ultimately failed with the warlords and tribes. So it may be happening today.
As a sidelight, it is the marshes and wetlands of Iraq (Babylonia, Mesopotamia), filled each Spring by the Tigris and Euphrates, that bred the mosquito that finally took the life of Alexander the Great at 32 years, 10 months old. A vindictive Saddam Hussein dried up those wetlands that since have been restored. Our soldiers of the same age are being decimated by things that bite in the night, the sand flies and the stealth bullet's flight.
The essential world conflict today is tribalism (community, country) against pluralistic civilization (society, nation). Different communities and sub-cultures within our society are managed by the laws of society and majority rule. The tribes (warlords) in Iraq are sovereign. Their present has ancient precedent, for a society is again trying to come alive and rise to power over the tribes.
On the other hand, Iran is having its struggle, an incipient revolution against the theocratic tribe. How should we assist that battle without preemptive action? What was really preempted in Iraq was the revolution Iraqis themselves should eventually have fought.
Today, we are divided in our two-party system (which favors majority rule, except when those like Ralph Nader decide to confound the system) by two ideologies, liberal and conservative. (Digression. I distinguish between liberals and conservatives mainly on their respective attitudes toward change. Just as a person with greater wealth might not want to change things, having more to conserve, and a person with a shortage of wealth might want to change things to improve his lot, a conservative may be more reactive than a proactive [progesssive] liberal.) Personally, I will lose on the community level here where the vestiges of the conservative tribe dominate. My representatives, senators, and governor have not represented me. But I have a greater probability of winning on the societal level through the popular vote for the president, though sometimes that may be tripped up by the electoral college, a vestige of communal (tribal) elitism, or the "stacked" Supreme Court, another potential "tribe". CHECK THAT! Boy, was I wrong! I just realized that Colorado is a winner-take-all state. So even on the presidential level, the state politicos have conspired against the minority to rob them of their vote and funnel it to the majority. Even my (tribe of) electors will be lost in the national vote. Curses, foiled again!
The march of ideologies in our era can lead to a future of alternative destinations. The destination of the journey is — the journey. An endless loop, that. The journey must be made more peaceful and enjoyable and immune from exploitation by the few. By what means? Democracy and science. A secular, one-size-fits-all nation-state, hopefully among globally interdependent states, until we find that the world has achieved the same e pluribus unum.
CONSENSUS. General agreement. Concord is the main aim of any discussion, given an understanding of the formal nature of it. The party-affiliation tribalism infecting our political process at the presidential level is not effective, except in producing a majority winner in the population vote. (Taking into account non-voters, the electoral college, the Supreme Court and third party candidates, there may rarely be a majority win.)
The presidential candidate of my making would campaign for a consensus on every issue. The candidate would choose to represent all the people. S-he would have no constituency based on personality or party. S-he would have a constituency of the office of the president emanating from his or her analysis of the consensus on each major issue. That makes the candidate of my making the discussion leader, utilizing all the very substantial, specialized group resources at the command of the president. The president's policies would be the formulations from consensus. I would hope that the minority contributions would become part of the conclusions reached, that the acrimony of debate would be submerged by skillful leadership toward compromise to the satisfaction of all. The predominance of special interests taking over the office of president may thus be avoided.
That is how the presidential candidate becomes "presidential". Think of the vast number of viewpoints the candidate must represent. How can s-he do that without appearing to be in the pocket of special interests? And when Congress is assembled to hear the State of the Union report, there will be no division of the house by right or left. They will sit alphabetically by last name, not by house or state. Why enshrine the tribalism as they do now?
Grand utopian visions of outcomes is not the end. You get there, as the woman said, and there's no there there. The only practical and immediate end is what makes our journey through time better for everyone. The didactic finger of this old teacher says that theatre is a good instructor. I wanted somehow to be a part of it, as a behind-the-scenes stage manager.
My field of study was speech communication. I devised courses in intercultural communication, freedom of speech, interpersonal communication, public speaking, group communication, and so forth. I believe my "professional" association should ask the questions about how they as an organization, working as one in concert, can contribute to effecting what they perceive to be the greatest need of society in that field of study and practice. The courses I devised and taught were my meagre answers. But I am sure that there can be an overarching statement of mission overlayed on each of their individual scholarly pursuits. And so with all disciplines.
(Last updated on January 30, 2006)