Good morning, Gentle Reader. I sense that this will be a special day, here at the Fortress. Unusually for these latter years, there are no irritating home-maintenance issues to labor over or spend on. The routine chores have all been addressed; nothing lingers. We have adequate supplies of everything that should be kept in stock. And – thank You, God – there’s no customer-assembled furniture to build or fix.
It’s that rarest of all jewels, a completely free day!
So I thought I might talk about ideology.
The word ideology has an irritating etymology. Given its roots, it “should” mean “the study of ideas.” But of course, it doesn’t. Rather, it’s a categorizing term that’s used to answer questions such as “What is Marxism?” or “What is Islam?”
Here’s what the nice folks at Merriam-Webster have to say about ideology:
Ideology has been in use in English since the end of the 18th century and is one of the few words whose coiner we can identify. The French writer A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy proposed it as a term to designate the “science of ideas,” and in that sense the word was quickly borrowed into English. Though ideology originated as a serious philosophical term, within a few decades it took on connotations of impracticality thanks to Napoleon, who used it in a derisive manner. Such connotations are still present in some contexts, but the word today is largely used neutrally, most often to refer to a systematic body of concepts, and especially to the set of ideas and beliefs held by a particular group or political party.
Several political stances are routinely referred to as ideologies. Others tend to avert that categorization, though the reasons are often unclear. For example, while Marxism is called an ideology, capitalism doesn’t wear that label. Libertarianism, which is a relatively systematized ideology focused on freedom, does bear the label.
Regardless of what ideas or attitudes we may discuss, and whether or not they qualify as ideologies, one set of questions stands above all others. For any Idea X:
- What are Idea X’s goals?
- Has it ever achieved them?
- If so, what are its requirements?
Every idea that aims at achieving some goal will have requirements: a set of conditions that must be met for that idea, when put into practice, to have a chance of success. Absent those conditions, the idea will fail, or will be irrelevant.
Those conditions are called the idea’s domain of applicability. Within its domain, the idea will be effective. It will work, given some expenditure of time, money, and effort. Outside its domain, the idea is irrelevant, if not destructive.
One of the best examples of the importance of such a domain is the nuclear family. A family cannot be operated along capitalist lines. Demanding that minor children pay for what they need is pure madness; so also with a dependent housewife. The breadwinner must practice a kind of Marxism within the family: “To each according to his needs.” Else the thing flies apart, with much destruction and sorrow.
But when a nation-state tries to apply Marxian socialism nationwide, poverty and oppression follow. You cannot bind millions of people to one another by the bonds of love and mutual responsibility that occur within a (healthy) family. The nation-state is outside Marxism’s domain.
To limit the destructive potential of ideology – don’t kid yourself; your ideology can be just as destructive as any other – we must illuminate and emphasize the concept of domain of applicability. Of course, that demands that we put in the effort required to understand why Idea X succeeds in this case but not that one, and why Idea Y, which fails in the former case, succeeds brilliantly in the latter. And that demands that we be unsparing of ourselves and others in asking “What are you trying to achieve?” and “How will you know when you’ve succeeded or failed?”
The great Thomas Sowell has proposed three questions for us in the Right to put to those on the Left when one of their proposals comes up for discussion:
- Compared to what?
- At what cost?
- What hard evidence do you have?
Sharp questions such as those clarify an idea’s proper domain of application. They can put an end to a lot of nonsense, especially the sort of starry-eyed Utopianism that propels so many fanatical evangelists. Mind you, I’m not talking here about “proving” or “disproving” particular ideologies. I merely seek to limit their power to cloud men’s minds. Proof and disproof have their own requirements, none of which are found in common discourse about ideologies and their implementations.
We can only do the best we can.
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