this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2023
256 points (68.2% liked)
conservative
946 readers
117 users here now
A community to discuss conservative politics and views.
Rules:
-
No racism or bigotry.
-
Be civil: disagreements happen, but that doesn't provide the right to personally insult others.
-
No spam posting.
-
Submission headline should match the article title (don't cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).
-
Shitposts and memes are allowed until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.
-
No trolling.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Why do people feel the need to sign up with an ideology in the first place? You know you can hold all your same beliefs without declaring meaningless solidarity with every other goon that chooses the same team name.
Everyone has an ideology, whether you realize or acknowledge it or not. That doesn't mean that everyone who subscribes to the same ideology has the same views on everything.
People who consider themselves conservatives do exist, whether we like it or not. I much prefer them to be forced to be confronted with other views and opinions every now and then that challenge their worldview.
Otherwise, they will go to some echochamber hosted by right wingers. This has already happened to the point where they basically live in a parallel universe and self-isolate. I don't think it's in anybody's interest for us to also encourage this self-isolation..
Everyone has ideals and beliefs, an ideology is a curated selection of ideals and beliefs that help people that don't really want to sort through their own ideals and beliefs feel connected. Most people who claim an ideology haven't really thought through the reality of those beliefs and people who think through the reality of beliefs tend not to want to be defined by a particular ideology.
Of course if you only look through that lens you can just sort everyone you hear from into a familiar box and that will further reinforce your belief that everyone has an ideology. so this probably won't change your opinion on that.
But whatever people's beliefs are- what I find amusing is the "as a liberal\conservative\independent\anarchist\libertarian\whatever, I think" crowd. Their declaration of allegiance comes before any expression of their ideas or beliefs, which tells me they didn't come to those beliefs by reason or experience, they're just representing their belief club.
I don't want to get into a discussion about definitions, but in my view, an ideology is a set of principles, believes and values. Often ideologies overlap and are shared among different people, but you could also have a unique and personal ideology. In my view, everyone has an ideology, whether they deny to have one or not.
What you describe here I would call dogma, which is a strict ideology often enforced in a top down fashion.
We are simply talking about definitions.. You can call it "a set of ideals and beliefs", I generally call it "ideology". But I'm flexible with my definitions, what matters to me is that we understand eachother.
I agree that this seems to be a trend that is much more common in the past couple of years where everyone has to apply a strict label to them as a person. I generally avoid that, or I use something vague like "leftist" to describe myself, but I do think it often leads to prejudice where people assume they know all my personal views simply based on the label I use, but that's generally how it goes on the internet especially.
Well you did a poor job of not getting into a discussion about definitions- lol. But I don't really care. People who declare their ideology pre-discussion are self-enforcing their chosen ideology as dogma, so pick whatever term you prefer.
Then what is the value of that label, or any? Why not just express your ideas on their own merit and avoid the association altogether?
I mean at least I'm not arguing that you have to use my definitions or that my definition is the only correct one. I kinda have to know how you use the term to understand, but now that I do, I don't have an issue using the term "ideology" the way you do.
In my opinion, there is not a lot of value in labels. I agree with you here. That's why I try to avoid them.
But sometimes, people will start to apply their own labels on you regardless and it will often be labels that don't fit. And at that point, I will rather use my own label than have a label that I don't like be applied to me.
In those circumstances I recommend turning it around on them and make them explain why they assumed a label for you. Let them expose their own ridiculous team name biases. Or better yet just ignore them because anyone who speaks to you as a representative of an ideology isn't really speaking to you at all.
You lack imagination. Not everyone in the world thinks exactly like you do. There are billions of humans.
You're right of course. There's a reason that humanity has never organized itself into groups before.
I'm not saying everyone thinks like me or that everyone thinks in the same way.. Obviously everyone has, to a certain extend, their own ideology..
"An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology
yeah that's not what I'm talking about.