Posts Tagged ‘ideology’
Ideology: Not such a bad Concept before Ruling, (April 2, 2009)
I believe that personal reflection is the best alternative for discovering a set of values (most compatible with our passions) to guide our behavior. However, there are many obstacles for any individual to access his own “ideology” or perception of life and the universe.
First, the school system, family upbringing, community customs and traditions are as many diverse implicit ideologies that an individual has to comprehend and sort out.
Second, it presupposes that an individual has reached enough maturity to believe that his reflections can affect the course of events.
Third, it presupposes that the governing institutional systems care about individual opinions and demands, and are ready to examine them seriously.
Fourth, it presupposes that the individual has enough will, energy, education, and perseverance to discover his own set of values and ideological system.
An ideology basically transmits perceived habits and models for interpreting social and political conditions. To a lesser extent, an ideology communicates explanations and teaches to making choices for situations and events. It is my contention that every ideology or political party implicitly exhibits a philosophical line.
Since a philosophical construct is fundamentally a process of prioritizing our individual set of passions, that cannot be changed but re-ordered, and focused as a collectivity of like-minded association, then it is beneficial for any ideology to debate the philosophy that is most compatible to its priority of passions.
It is up to graduate philosophers to analyze the party line and extract the corresponding philosophy out of hundreds that the human mind has constructed. An ideology that misses opportunities to seriously debate its underlying philosophy is bound to fail as a gathering of focused passions.
I am aware of a case where a fresh graduate in philosophy and a fresh member in a political party attempted to stick his personal philosophy to the ideology instead of objectively analyzing the underlying philosophy and allowing free discussion on the topic; it was an opportunity that was missed to debating a rough philosophy that had potentials to be fine tuned and accepted by the collectivity of members.
Most political ideologies loudly claim that the members are the subject matter, that the members are the driving force and the main concern of the ideology. That line of thinking should be the purpose of syndicates because that is the reason for instituting syndicates and professional associations. Political parties should avoid the technical hypocrisy of proclaiming that their goals are the members’ benefit.
Members in political ideologies are simple cogs of focused passions. Fresh members in political parties are willing to slave for free and accept all the nonsense, constraints, and abject humiliation on opinion restraints because “they need apprenticeship period” to comprehend and thoroughly learn the mystery behind an ideology, as if it was a cult.
Those individual cogs who regurgitate the political lines and memorize them by rot and spew them integrally are the one who accede to the higher echelons, and then reap the benefits and advantages: There are no rooms for divergence of opinions on ideological lines, otherwise, a new ideology is in the making. It is worth noting that those who accede to the higher echelons are invariably astute power grabbers, but very limited spiritually because they fail to invest energy and time on personal reflections.
Those limited minded “leaders” are imposed on society for needed reforms that invariably fail and leave tracks of long miseries and sufferings.
Any ideology is inherently a cult with many super imposed constructs of myths and verbal testimonies of elders, which are added as the rank swells. These abstract constructs are meant to increase the obscure notions and make the ideology more fascinating and enduring to the youth, simply because the ideology failed to adhere to an explicit philosophy of rational cohesion.
Fundamentally, schisms are implicitly divergences on priorities of passions to focus on which are interpreted as political differences.
Religions follow the same process as ideologies, and end up splitting and forming schisms and cults. The core of religions and political ideologies are of abstract constructs with the same consequences on societies. The main difference between religions and ideologies is that religions invariably end up adhering to a philosophy as guiding rod and are thus enduring in all levels of life for many centuries.
Ideologies, as religions, are necessary passages for individuals’ spiritual development: they are the building blocs for getting aware and hopefully caring for human miseries and problems. Ideologies are extensions to our spirit because we need the association of people to develop our soul.
Find me an individual who never joined a political ideology or at least cared in his youth to learn the ideologies of his time and I can forecast that this individual will specialize in his professional discipline and be a complete illiterate outside his field of specialty; he will end up a very narrow-minded person with no heart or soul to count on for change and social reforms.
I would be uncomfortable dealing with an individual who joined an ideology in youth and never felt the need to re-examine his ideology: I simple cannot believe that a young person can be bright enough and wise enough to knowing his strongest passions before dealing with the real world and people.
In many moments in life we asked “what is the meaning and purpose in life?” How about we start from the obvious? We are a bunch of jumbled passions that drive our life and we ache to re-order our passions and discover the strongest passions that mean most to us. We want to be discriminated as an individual, not on physical traits but as thinking reflecting persons who have distinct set of passions that we managed to prioritize; we finally think that we know who we are and what drove our life.
We want to be at peace with our soul and spirit.
A Nation, a State, or a Redundant community? (November 17, 2008)
There are over 190 States recognized by the UN. How many of these States can we establish to constitute Nations? Since the 19th century till today the world experienced “Nationalist” ideologies and most of the resistance movements to foreign invaders claim to be national resistance. I will attempt to define the elements that characterize claim to a Nation by first enumerating what I consider to be Nations and then fine tune the progressive synthesis to capture the main characteristics.
Since antiquity and going strong till now I have in mind the following nations as category 1: China, India, Iran, and Egypt. From the Medieval Age till now we have category 2: Russia, France, England, Sweden, Mexico, Morocco, and Turkey. From the Renaissance till now we have category 3: USA, Japan, Germany, Italy, and Spain. In the last century we accumulated the following nations in category 4: Brazil, Australia, Pakistan, Indonesia, South Africa, Nigeria, Norway, and maybe Canada.
The recent list of nations suggests that size of the population and then the size of the land are big factors. I listed Canada for two reasons: the size of the land and the fact that the USA is guaranteeing its independence and economical prosperity. The nations in category 4 are large enough in human and natural resources that they may survive blockades or natural calamities for an extended period if no external assistance is offered. The large islands such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Australia are self contained and managed to form a rather homogeneous population in culture and tradition.
The nations in category 3 have earned their status as nations through arm struggle and reconstitution based on language and common culture. The nations in category 2 have proven their endurance as entities through arm struggle and countless battles and revolutions to unify the population under one banner and one language. Nations in category 1 are prime nations that constituted the foundations for all cultures and civilizations. Ancient Iraq of the Babylonian, Assyrian, and Acadian civilizations could not hold their empires (which included the “Fertile Crescent” City-States in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine) long enough without serious interruptions to be included as a nation. Present Iraq had the potentials in human and natural resources for being inducted a full nation if it had avoided the invasions of the USA through democratic processes.
Thus, what are the elements that enhance the constitution of nations?
First, the geographic location with natural borders (such as deserts, high mountain ranges, large rivers) that limited foreign incursions, until our modern times. (Islands such as England and Japan are prime examples)
Second, the construction of transport infrastructure to encourage trade and communication among communities.
Third, a formal and central language even if not all the population speaks it.
Fourth, a formal and central religion within a diversity of religions and sect.
Fifth, frequent arm struggles that unite the population under one banner and one central government.
Sixth, size of the resources in population and land that permit renewal of the energy after calamities and warfare.
If I missed a criterion, please remind me. For now I have listed 23 nations and I can foresee nations in the making such as Ukraine, Argentina, Poland, Viet Nam, Thailand, Mali, Philippines, and Malaysia which might enlarge the list to 31 nations. Yes, we have rich European States such as the Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland. Yes, we have a few oil rich States such as Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Sudan, and Algeria but the stability of these societies for the duration are doubtful for now. Maybe Algeria is a strong candidate with the guarantee of the European Union for its stability.
In short, I decided that we have 23 nations and 8 more potential nations and 6 super Nations (USA, China, India, Russia, Brazil, and the EU). The European Union is definitely a new type of generalized nation based on common culture, a culture that the “other people” would have the task of defining explicitly through the actions and policies of the EU. That is fine and dandy; how to reach World Peace and Stability? How to secure a viable and durable future for the next generation? Check my article “Sabbaticals for thinking”.
