Ideology is a red herring

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Necronic

Necronic

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I hear people talk about ideology all the time when they discuss politics. Like "welfare is bad because the government shouldn't be giving handouts like that and it just keeps people down" or "big businesses and the rich should be taxed more heavily because they have more money and contribute nothing" or "everyone should recycle and use green energy because green is good."

Those aren't great examples, but at the heart of a lot of people's political views is an ideology from which they derive policies.

I've come to decide that not only are ideologies unnecessary, they are actually bad. When comparing 2 different political options there should first and foremost be a question "will this work". A lot of people answer that question by looking to their ideologies. No, it won't work, because it goes against my fundamental beliefs. Or, who care's if it works, its fundamentally immoral.

That's wrong. All that matters is what works. If it works, use it. If it sort of works, do a cost benefit analysis and work from there

There are exceptions to this of course. Some ideologies must be held sacred. They are our mission statement as a country. Freedom. Democracy. But don't get too hung up and up your own ass about exactly what those mean. Getting to that level of definition is something that only people with lots of freedom actually worry about.

Does having the federal government tap my phones without a warrant actually affect my life at all? No. Does it work. Yes. Does the 170 bil spent on welfare each year affect my paycheck (5% of national budget). Not really. Does it work? I don't know, but it doesn't cost that much and the effects of removing it could be devastating. Not worth the risk for the cost. Would legalizing marijuana free up/bring in massive amounts of capital? Yes. Would there be an increase in crime and a decrease in productivity that would counteract that value? I don't know. Maybe you should do a fucking study on it.

I know a lot of people may think this obvious and stupid to point out, but I really think that ideology is something that wayyyyy too many people get hung up on when discussing politics. Ideology doesn't matter.

Edit: I haven't really stated my case well here. But its something I have started to more and more strongly about. uh oh....that sounds like an ideology.
 
MindDetective

MindDetective

Well, I like the pragmatism. Find some objective measures of what works and what doesn't and I might be on board. See my sig, really, for my general views on these matters.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

Plenty of things that work are certainly not something i'd like to see implemented...

See here:






Of course ideology should always be tempered with pragmatism, otherwise it's zealotry.
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
Well, mass murder kind of falls into a category where I would think people would say "hm, you know that goes against freedom and democracy."
 
Eriol

Eriol

Necronic said:
Well, mass murder kind of falls into a category where I would think people would say "hm, you know that goes against freedom and democracy."
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If you start down the "no ideology, just pragmatism" route, you quickly get into the questions of WHY are we taking such actions at all? If you were to kill 99% of the humans on earth, maybe the resultant society would be pretty damned nice for those left over? Why is that bad? Why is killing generally considered bad, but OK in some other cases?

All those questions have answers to them (most of them have more than one), but that's not my point. My point is that you can't have a debate over what actions you want taken if you have no common ground upon even what's a good outcome. So you can't say any specific action works well or badly if you can't agree on what a good outcome itself is.

And don't get me started on the meanings of "freedom." Ugh. That's a rat's nest. And unmitigated democracy is called "Bad episodes of Survivor."
 
R

RealBigNuke

"Well, mass murder kind of falls into a category where I would think people would say "hm, you know that goes against freedom and democracy."

Oh, stop being idealistic. That's not only unnecessary, but it gets in the way. Mass murder *works* to solve problems.

Racial equality, women's sufferage, the idea of inalienable human rights and freedoms, charity, and democracy can all be considered ideologies. Just about any political school of thought you can name would work if everyone agreed to work with it. Communism would work if people agreed to work hard and share. Anarchistic capitalism would work if people didn't try to monger power by collusion and dirty business practices. That's not ideology's fault, it's human nature's. When you get right down to it, ideology is the only thing that's capable of separating humanity from the horrors of its own nature. It works to be a lying, cheating, stealing sum'bitch.
 
S

Soliloquy

Yeah... some people seem to think that ideology is the only thing that holds us back, but in reality, it's the only thing that holds us up.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
You guys are all wrong. Necronic's views on life and everything are based on a fish.

Quit reading things into stuff.
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
me said:
There are exceptions to this of course. Some ideologies must be held sacred. They are our mission statement as a country. Freedom. Democracy. But don't get too hung up and up your own ass about exactly what those mean. Getting to that level of definition is something that only people with lots of freedom actually worry about.
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Yeah, maybe next time read the full post.

Edit: And I agree that in the past the ideologies that were behind useful moves forward, but like I mention in my above statement, I think we have achieved the major aspects of freedom and democracy for all, and most people are just quibbling about minro differences.

---------- Post added at 09:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:12 PM ----------

Some of the comments on mass murder also made me think of another example of how ideology is such crap.

The Death Penalty.

Every practical measure has shown that the death penalty costs much much more than life in prison, there is the possibility of getting it wrong and killing an innocent, and it doesn't work as a deterrent. The only argument for it is an ideological stance of "an eye for an eye" or some such nonsense.
 
E

Element 117

I have an awesome solution to the questions raised herein: Shooting all of you.

Good day.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

Necronic said:
The Death Penalty.

Every practical measure has shown that the death penalty costs much much more than life in prison, there is the possibility of getting it wrong and killing an innocent, and it doesn't work as a deterrent. The only argument for it is an ideological stance of "an eye for an eye" or some such nonsense.
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That just because people the ideology not killing any innocent people makes the government spend more money on appeals and other stuff... if we where more pragmatic we'd just use it for what it is, a scare tactic against those people that aren't desperate (or crazy).


Like i said, ideology without pragmatism is zealotry, and that's what you appear to have a problem with.
 
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