What you believe isn't the problem, but how you believe it is

Recently, I had a bit of a discussion with a couple of folks on Facebook. They were slamming religion in general and, as they thought (erroneously, it turned out) Christianity in particular. I was trying to point out that they were simply ranting about things they knew nothing about, which didn't stop them, but it did get me thinking.

These guys were claiming, in their own way, that "religion" is responsible for the world's ills. This is obviously ludicrous on any number of levels, but ludicrousness never stopped anybody from making fools of themselves. That we have large, multinational corporations and businesses raping the environment, heating up the planet, exploiting and oppressing those too weak and poor to defend themselves seems to have escaped them, as has the blind belief in rapacious capitalism that "justifies" those corporations' actions. The fact that we have national governments (some of which claim to be democratic) which are autocratic, dictatorial and oppressive, which will use any means at their disposal to suppress dissent, curtail freedom and, for all intents and purposes, brainwash and enslave their populations seems to have escaped their attention, too. But, to them, religion's the problem. And I got to thinking that for all the delusion in their arguments, maybe they have something of a point.

The first question we have to ask, of course, is "What is (a) religion?" and our first task here is to come to some kind of consensus as to what we mean when we use the term. In simplest terms, a religion is some kind of cultural system, or set of beliefs, that includes behaviors and practices (many formalized as liturgy and ritual), which are based on mythologies (or highly revered stories) that may or may not be contained in what they consider to be sacred texts, which provide some kind of societal, organizational guidance. I know that's a mouthful, but if you go through there carefully, it becomes a bit clearer why, say, Christianity is generally accepted to be a religion, but why the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or a periodic Star Wars or Star Trek conference aren't. Some religions try to make clear to us how we got here, almost all try to explain how we should be, and all of them are based on faith; that is, a blind, if not unquestioned belief in certain tenets of the given religion. It is estimated that around 85% of the world's population ascribe to one of the five major, and perhaps 10,000 folk religions; the rest are free agents, if you will, though I would maintain that many of them, particularly those in the West, belong to what I would call quasi-religions, a topic I'll come back to in a moment.

Religions (and I include the quasi-religions here as well) serve two basic functions: they give people hope and in their own ways, they provide their adherents with a sense of belonging. Let's face it, life's tough, and when everybody around you sort of sees the world the way you do, you get the feeling you're not necessarily alone and that somehow, given enough communal effort, things just might get better. What is more, religions, some more clearly than others, provide us some kind of meaning in our lives, whether it is stories about how others overcame adversity, or that there is simply some reason why we're all here in the first place. Also important is the fact that all the major and most of the better-known minor religions have what I like to call a "", some variation of the Golden Rule that admonishes you to, well, just not be an asshole. This particular tenet, of course, is the one that is forgotten and ignored most often. If most people are lucky, they'll apply it to those who belong to their immediate sub-group, but beyond that, well, it starts getting lost.

If we just recognized and understood that much, we'd be a long ways toward reducing the amount of ill in the world, but there are two tendencies that religions have that thwart this: the first is the notion of "exclusivity" and the second is "fundamentalism". Exclusivity -- the idea that my way is the only way -- ruins everything. I don't know how people come up with this, but it's particularly, but not exclusively, prevalent among the so-called Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). In a way it's related to the second tendency, fundamentalism. By this I mean that there is some tenet, law, rule, belief, article of faith, or whatever that an adherent believes is literally and universally true. It could be that any given fundamentalist has more than one, but there's at least one. It might be the literalism of the Bible (though very few people can read it in its original language), it might be the belief in the Trinity or the divinity of Jesus, it might be the inviolability of the person of the religion's founder, it might be anything really, but it is this one thing, this one belief, this one statement that the "true believer" hangs all his or her faith on. If this one little part turns out to be not "true", everything literally falls apart. Believers will die for this and are too often more than willing to kill others (thereby violating the don't-be-an-asshole clause) if it is challenged seriously in any way. And though I've not done a valid study to find out, I would strongly suspect that the more fundamentalist a believer or group of believers is, the more rabid their defense of their belief's exclusivity. What's so unnerving about these tendencies, however, is that they are accepted on pure, blind faith; they cannot be proven, there is no real evidence to support them ... they are basically assumptions upon which everything else is based.

What I've just said about religions applies, mutatis mutandis, for quasi-religions as well. A quasi-religion is a system of cultural beliefs, just like a religion, but one that is not generally recognized as one. Examples include capitalism and scientific materialism. Both of these belief systems include all the elements we identified in our general definition of "religion" above. They include beliefs, behaviors and practices that provide insight into why we exist and how we should live our lives. And the tendencies just described apply as well. Thatcher, one of the "patron saints" of a particularly aggressive form of fundamentalist capitalism, most often known as neoliberalism, stated flatly that "there is no alternative" (to this economic system of belief). Its fundamentalist tenets include low taxes for the rich and austerity for the poor, both of which are the golden path to economic salvation ... even if there is not a shred of evidence for them; and if you don't want to believe me, as the Chileans, the Argentinians, or the Greeks. Or take the particularly rabid form of scientistic belief that this making itself known: Richard Dawkins, a "holy figure" in this last camp will tell you in no uncertain terms that spirit and consciousness don't even exist, though it is life, an unidentifiable and unquantifiable force, that animates him and his own consciousness that allows him to make his silly claims, even though he'll be one of the first to tell you that this consciousness doesn't exist, it is a mere illusion. These quasi-religions, just like the "real" ones we considered above, are based as well on some fundamental , literal "fact" that turns out upon closer examination to be just an assumption, and their exclusivity is tied very closely to that assumption. The reason they only qualify as quasi-religions is that neither of these two examples includes a don't-be-an-asshole clause. All the worse for us all.

We are all on their earth and are in the same boat. It lies in our nature as human beings to want to know where we come from, why we are here, and where we are going. Most of the world's religions, large or small, try to provide answers to these questions. Their answers cannot be proven nor disproven, but the additional interpretations and claims made by specific adherents and groups of adherents may complicate the matter as they go above and beyond those generally acknowledged as being part of the religion in general. (For example, there are an estimated 2.2 billion Christians in the world; almost 60% of those are Roman Catholics and around 40,000 different "Christian churches" share the remainder among themselves.) What I am advocating is that perhaps we need to be a bit more open for and tolerant of religions. Good and bad has been done in religion's name, but if you are going to condemn something you should at least know what you're talking about and tailor your criticism appropriately. Prejudice is prejudice regardless of whether it is regard to race, religion, creed or whatever. Religion per sé is not the problem, fundamentalism and false notions of exclusivity are. It's not what you believe that matters as much as how you believe and what you do with that belief.

Neither the future nor the past is what it used to be

During Lent, for the most part out of habit (but not one that I would rather not think about), I tend to think (or wonder) about others. Fasting, even its mildest forms, can do that to you. (You really should try it sometime ... you might surprise yourself at what you find.)

Yes, I have friends who think that technology, the internet, social networks, digitalization (, whatever) are going to "save us" (whatever that means). They're deluded. By the same token, I have friends who deeply -- and I mean deeply -- long for the way it was, some (merely perceived) Golden Age of the Past when everything was as it should be. In between these extremes, I have friends who think that an adjustment here, some fine-tuning there, and a bit of elbow grease will get things back on track. And, I have friends who believe that no matter what we do where to what or how, we're heading down the tubes: the end may not be here, but it's fast approaching (and there's not a damn thing we can do about it). And, yes, in between those two interim extremes, I have friends who think we're just exaggerating everything: things have always been suboptimal and they always will be.

If Life were a multiple-choice test (as in America, where there is only one "right" answer), I'd have to write in (as I have done in the past) "e) none of the above". Sometimes all the "given" answers are just, well, wrong, or inappropriate, or irrelevant, or whatever. That's what I love about almost all my friends: they think there is a fixed set of possible answers and somehow, if we knew enough or were smart enough or, even, lucky enough, we could pick the right one. I hate to be the one to break it to them (and maybe to you): there is no one right answer to Life.

Oh, that's not to say that there aren't things we want to hold on to, irrespective of the cost: guns, freedom, individuality, rights, commonsense, discipline ... the list literally goes on forever. But, in all seriousness, how can you reduce the world you experience, the world you have to face day in and day out to one, and only one, issue or concept or rule or guideline or religious precept or ... whatever. But, I have to say, that's how most of my friends are: if everyone would only think like they do, the world would be damn near paradise that they so deeply long for. Turns out: reality is rather messy.

Most of you are thinking, I'm sure, I'm not talking to or about you, but I am. Just look at the latest primaries crap that the Americans are wading through, look at the crap about refugees and trade agreements that the Europeans are wading through, look at the crap the anything-but-the-dollar tactics that certain currently frisky nation-states are wading through, look at the crap the poverty and starvation that a third of the world is wading through. We're all in it, and we're all doing a poor job of dealing with it.

We have a terrible past behind us and we have little, if any, idea of how to deal with the future because, in a word, we just don't know what we're doing. We're so blinded by our petty, individual and national interests that we can't see the forest for all the trees. Oh ... yes ... I'm sorry ... we're (literally) cutting those (and real) trees down faster than any forest can grow. But, what the hell ... there's money to be made.

Yeah, the reason I sleep so well at night is because I know there are so many people out there who have it all figured out.

Groundhog Day redux

Though I've been accused of it again, I'm not going to bash Americans and their quaint customs. I did that already. OK, it really wasn't a bashing, but just about anything I say these days is taken by one of my fellow countrypeople as offensive. I wonder why they're so thin-skinned?

Personally, I think pseudo-holidays are fun. The only thing similar to Groundhog Day in these parts is Siebenschläfer (lit. "seven sleeper", that is the rodent glis glis, or the fat/edible dormouse (the Romans raised them and considered them a delicacy) ... not necessarily the one who told Alice anything, but perhaps), which is on 27 June (and if it rains on that day, it's supposed to rain for the next -- who would have guessed? seven weeks). But Siebenschläfer isn't as hyped and overdramatized, and it certainly was memorialized in film, as Groundhog Day.

OK, maybe because I was born and raised in Western Pennsylvania where groundhogs are not only cute but tasty (and that's for all you who rumpled your nose at the Romans) that I think it's kind of fun to pretend not to believe the nonsense, even though most people do.

It's OK, you can face up to it. Sure we don't "believe" any of this superstition, but when the day comes, we do stop and try to find out what's what. For most people, Phil's shadow or Siebenschläfter rain, tells the story. And don't give me any of that we're-all-into-science-and-not-superstition stuff. Didn't the US Senate just recently pass a resolution that disavowed the science of global warming? As if legislative votes had anything to do with any kind of reality known to the everyday person.

But inspite of all the denial, when it comes right down to it, when push comes to shove, when we have nothing less to raise as arguments, these are your elected representatives -- the "upper" house, no less -- and according to rules of democracy (which you all also claim to love so dearly and love proclaiming so loudly), whoever wins the election represents everybody, because, well, that's how the system works. Live with it. Should the world turn on its head and America fall to being just another failed empire, you'll all be guilty of whatever the new bad-boys on the block will want to accuse you of. If you don't believe me, just ask the Germans; they have some experience with this sort of thing.

And that's what I love about Groundhog Day. It keeps coming around again and again and again, and just as Bill Murry is a different person each time around, till he changes at heart, he really remains the same. And so is it with any and every empire that has ever plagued the earth. Oh, don't get me wrong, there is good in everything and good can come out of everything, but for the majority of people who have ever lived, we haven't been given the clean end of the stick. That, however, can, and should change. But, to effect that change, we have to start thinking (and acting) differently than we have before. We have to change at heart. Can you?

Is there such a thing as "Western culture"?

If I take my own "definition" from last time seriously, the answer would be "no", but that would be a bit short-sighted.

The factor that stops us is the first one -- Language -- for we in the West certainly don't speak a single tongue. In the narrower sense of the term "language", this is true, but we need to step back a bit and look at the bigger picture. Linguistically, most Western languages (Hungarian, Finnish, and Basque excepted) are at least loosely related. The number of Greek and Latin-based words that have found their way into all Western languages, often in their own language-specific forms yet they are still often recognizable (e.g., the differences between philosophia-philosophie-philosophy-filosofia, etc. are not all that extravagant). Very often, key concepts are shared, even if the words themselves are different (e.g., notions like "holiday", "illness", names of body parts, etc.); that is, there is often almost a 1-to-1, word-level translation possible. Keeping in mind my admonition to look for what connects rather than what separates, we need not dismiss language outright.

Similar, but perhaps not as obvious, comparisons could be made in regard to the other factors I identified, but what interests me most is what is not obvious at all, what is so taken-for-granted, that we don't think about such things at all. This is particularly evident in the Beliefs and Customs areas: for example, that marriage is between only two people and is generally done in a ritualized manner in front of witnesses; that the roles played by men and women are asymmetric; that the individual is special; that the notion of "property" held in very high esteem; that a scientific, objective approach to problem resolution is worthwhile; that reason is a good thing; that we have at least one holiday honoring our home country and that most of the other holidays have Christian roots. When I was young, however, much of this was much more apparent and, consequently, taken even more for granted. But there are indications that the underlying cement of Western culture is starting to crumble.

Our beliefs and customs most often found their expression through the medium of religion, and that's what's changing most quickly and most deeply. Even though Christianity is anything but monolithic (i.e., three primary divisions: Catholic Protestant, and Coptic; two flavors of Catholicism (Roman and Orthodox, the latter breaking down into a growing number of subgroups); Anglican, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Pentecostal Protestants, the latter three having split into innumerable specific denominations, as well as special-cases like Mormonism. What binds them together is much, much less than what makes them different. In times past, most people were either unaware or unconcerned about the differences, but these days, they are playing an increasingly important, decisive, and divisive role. Couple this with a dramatic rise in the number of individuals declaring themselves atheist (whereby, the vast majority of these are, I believe, merely agnostics), and a growing number of people who more or less reject religion altogether in favor of a much less clearly defined "spirituality", and it soon becomes rather obvious that what made us in the West a WE is rapidly losing its cohesive strength.

As is so often the case, these factors, trends, and developments are neither good nor bad, but that our thinking make it so. The current attempts to unify the West religiously to combat what is perceived as a more monolithic religious threat (e.g., Islam) clearly show just how disconnected we've all become. Maybe it is time to finally drop the notion of a "Western culture" all together. The world is getting smaller by the day, so perhaps it is really time to starting thinking more about what we can and do share and stop worrying at all about what makes us different. Deep down, we're hardly different at all.

What, then, is "culture"?

Nations are new. Cultures are as old as humanity's presence on the planet. There are, indeed, various kinds of cultures: tribal, local, regional, corporate, national, or transnational even. When we think and speak of "culture" these days, we almost automatically think of a "national culture", but only because we are often ignorant of all that history, anthropology, ethnology, and sociology may have to offer us. I'm not going to try to fill that gap, I'm merely going to point out a few salient features of "culture", because our ignorance is causing a lot of misery in a lot of lives.

In simplest terms, a culture is the language, customs, beliefs, and actions of a given group of people who feel bound together because of those four things.

1. Language is a strong component, to be sure. This is why one often speaks of the Anglo-American culture (which also includes, oddly enough, the Australians, and for some, the South Africans, but not necessarily (or at least not consciously, the Belize), or the German culture, whereby the language is spoken as well in Austria and parts of Switzerland, and these are included in the concept.
2. Customs describes "the way we do things around here". It includes holidays, like a big, family meal at Thanksgiving, or Santa Claus (or whoever brings Christmas gifts); and sports (baseball, football, soccer, lacrosse); and little things like whether people shake hands when they meet, and more.
3. Beliefs include the stories and myths that a particular group holds dear, be it the Pilgrim Fathers, Charlemagne, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, etc. These may be religious in nature, but they can also be secular and profane, like owning guns is a fundamental right, or all persons are created equal, or property rights trump personal rights.
4. Actions are what really defines a culture, though. These are the things a group does, not only because that's the way they do things, but because they believe they have a right to do them. It's not only the way a group acts towards others, but because they have always been able to act that way. In other words, the customs and beliefs often drive what a culture thinks it's OK, good, right and proper to do.

I would be the last person to say what a given culture says, believes, or does is good or bad or right or wrong. All I know is that there are a lot of different ways to slice the reality pie. What I also know, however, that there are way too many cultures on this small planet which think that however it is that they have decided to slice that pie is the "right" way, the "proper" way, the only "reasonable way" to slice it. My only response to that is, well, "bullshit".

Beneath, behind, and beyond whatever we think our culture "entitles" us to, we need to recognize the simple, unalterable fact that everything any of us, individually or collectively, say, believe, and in particular, do has effects on others; that is, anyone other than ourselves or our (cultural) group. We forget that all too often.

Whatever we think is good, right and proper is only what we think is good, right and proper. Some values are universal (not harming others, for example), but even these can be relativized once we start thinking that "our" culture is "better" than "their" culture. Unfortunately, that's where we are today.

We believe we are the good ones, and those "others", well, they're the bad ones. It turns out, however, that they are merely the others whether we like it or not, whether we want to admit it or not. Knowing what that otherness is and understanding what we have in common rather than what separates us are the true marks of the cultivated, civilized person. No more, no less.

Standing up for what is right

Before anyone gets the wrong impression (again), I would like to point out that everyone is free to believe what they want. I don't really care ... as long as it doesn't affect me, or anyone I know, or, well, anyone else. You see, beliefs are all well and good when taken for themselves, but problems arise when our own beliefs start interfering with others' beliefs.

What too few people have are beliefs that can stand up against others' beliefs. Kim Davis wasn't any more a representative of "religious freedom" than the Pope, who met with her, is a representative of Christians everywhere. The Westboro Baptist Church is no more representative of Christianity than the IS is representative of Christianity. The chicken hawks advocating bombing Assad into the Stone Age are not more representative of a reasonable Middle East policy than are the dumb-down doves are representative of the position that Russia will bring peace to the region. No, everybody has a stake in the game, and, by definition, everybody is spinning the tale to make themselves look good.

Truth be told, what I find most amazing in all of this is the fact that facts, actual verifiable and documentable happenings, statements, and signed agreements mean absolutely nothing at all. What matters is what one side wants you to believe, how one side is interested in having you believe a certain way, and how what is must invariably yield to what others want.

Everyone involved in the current "crisis" is a jerk (I would say "asshole", but I'm trying to remain at least implicitly impartial); everyone has an agenda; everyone has a definable interest, but none of the players have the least concern for the everyday people involved.

The entire Middle East is underlaid with oil and that's what we -- and probably everyone else wants. Whether the people sitting on this resource are democratically inclined or subject to brutal dictatorial oppression is irrelevant. What WE -- the USA, or the Russian Federation, or the EU, or whomever -- want is all that matters. The cost, the consequences, the collateral damage, the ... makes absolutely no difference at all.

The so-called fact of the matter make no difference at all. What matters, in the end, is what any given country with any given interest believes is their "right" to act as they deem appropriate given the current situation and compilation of power.

The human suffering, the human casualties, matter not at all. Somehow national interests and national pride are more important than anything that may happen to any given individual or population. How proud we must be. We define the world. We define what is right and what is wrong. And in the end, we are always right. Oh, how proud we must be.

The case of mistaken identity

We need to get a couple of things straight.

In the world in which I live there are religious, not-so-religious, and non-religious people. There are those who abhor the label "religious" and prefer to refer to themselves as "spiritual", which I accept, and there are also non-spiritual people as well. In the world in which I live, there are capitalists, free-market advocates (if not, devotees), socialists, anarchists, humanists, and just about every other kind of "-ist" you can imagine. Some people are fervent in what they believe and advocate and others are lukewarm. Hell, I even know quite a few individuals who could give a care one way or the other about anything. There is, in other words, a merry, colorful patchwork of thoughts, ideas, ideologies, views, Weltanschauungen, feelings and desires that make up the world in which I live. And I would have it no other way.

Having said that, I am, above all else, prior to anything else, deep down inside, at heart, a human being who loves my fellow human beings, all of us as imperfect as we are. My most fundamental belief (which I believe, with a little bit of effort, I could "prove") is that all of us human beings have much more in common that what makes us different. At least that which we have in common, makes us human. Everything else is, well, irrelevant details.

It is against this backdrop that I look out into the world and react to whatever comes my way. These days, there are so many different "things" that people believe and hold to be true that I have trouble following them. What is more, I am (literally, and honestly) shocked at how much how many people are willing to invest in what they "believe". (I put that last word in quotation marks intentionally. There is very little in this world that we actually know, but there is one helluva lot in it that we believe.)

There are so many people who believe that what they believe is right. That's fine as far as it goes, but in that moment when you encounter another who may not, who most likely does not, believe (and "know") what you believe, well, you have to decide whether you are willing to engage this person or not. I say, let's explore; let's exchange ideas, thoughts, notions, beliefs; let's talk about, discuss and, if necessary, debate, those things; let's understand why you believe the world is one way and I believe it's another. Why? For the simple reason that my experience has shown me that given half a chance, I can learn something that I didn't know before, that I can grow in some way that I had never even imagined, that I might become, given the right set of circumstances, a better person -- and we might even (hopefully) agree on what "better" means in this context.

But, I will be honest, I'm having trouble finding anyone who is willing to engage.

What I -- and so many others, I am sure -- am left with is a whole bunch of know-it-alls, people who think they know what's what. Unfortunately, they don't. They only think they know, but they are damn sure about it nevertheless. Too bad. There's a world of difference between knowing and believing and those yacking the loudest don't know there's a difference at all.

The case of the unchecked clerk

Some things simply boggle my simple mind. OK, I spend more time on Facebook than I should, but it's like driving past a nasty road accident: you know you shouldn't look, you might even have to throw up, but you just can't turn away. Yeah. I know. _mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa_.

But ... lately I've seen so many things, especially comments, that almost leave me speechless. The most vitriolic, nonsensical, uninformed, hateful, spiteful, vociferous, and, well, ignorant ones have had to do with the county clerk down in ol' Kentucky who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples because it violated her religious beliefs.

Now, for those of you who have lost your watches or calendar, we're writing the 2015. You'd think we might have learned a thing or two by now, but apparently not. It just so happens that the Supreme Court of the United States, of all institutions, recently ruled that same-sex marriages are allowable and that laws forbidding them are unconstitutional. That's their job, which -- I'll be the first to admit -- they don't often do very well, but that's what they decided. When they say you can't forbid something, that's all it is: what you did wasn't right so it doesn't count. That's not legislating, that's judging, and that's what why they are there whether we like it or not. What's more, it's a completely secular institution, as are the legislative and executive branches of government, not just in the United States but pretty much worldwide these days.

Our not-so-friendly county clerk refused to issue the licenses by arguing that it violated her personal, religious beliefs. Now, in case you didn't know, I'm a big fan of personal, religious beliefs, even if they are bothersome, and even though some folks are favored in theirs over others. (That's a topic for another time, so forgive me if that's all I have to say about that here.) However, However, she is (apparently) an elected public servant and she gives personal reasons for not being able to do her job. After all the back-and-forth, a judge, who had directed her to fulfill the public responsibilities associated with her job, finally decided that since she still refused, she had to go to jail. That is, as far as I can tell, the so-called "facts of the case" (described, I hope as neutrally as possible).

So, here's my question: why is this such a hot-button issue? We don't have more important things to concern ourselves with (anybody happen to see the picture of the lifeless, Syrian three-year-old on a European beach)?

I know it is difficult for people with strong religious beliefs to realize that not everyone is as religious as they are. I know it is difficult for some people to realize that with us here in the West, there is some kind of separation between "church and state", or more properly the religious and the secular. I know it is hard for a lot of people to come to terms with the fact that standards and values and even what we consider to be moral -- as a society -- changes over time. I know that we humans are fallible and don't always make the best decisions when it comes to legality and morality (e.g., slavery, Jews in Nazi Germany, blacks in America prior to the civil-rights accomplishments). And, I know that it takes courage, fortitude and dignity to accept that we have to deal with what we have, not with what we would like to have as a society.

Still, that's the least we can expect of you as a citizen of today's world in this day and age. And that's why we expect it. Grow up.

The time game

There a quite a few people I know who yearn for the "good old days", you know, those times when the world was still OK. Most people are referring to their childhoods, and for those I've known since then, I can tell you that the times then weren't all that great.

But, we think they were (or at least like to think they were). Our perception of them over the passage of times makes them appear that they were. Most of all, we wish they were. Hindsight is 20-20. Time heals all wounds. Or, as Heraclitus noted, Time is a game played beautifully by children.

We are, however, no longer children. The relentlessness of the seeming endless march through morning, noon, and night. Our continual obsession with the past, our total ignorance of the present, and our self-induced fear of the future haunt us mercilessly. And we think that somehow time moves unerringly from some point in the past toward that most-feared point in the future, death. Then we remember, sometimes only fleeting, how beautifully we played the game of time when we were children.

What bothers most of us and what bothers us most is the fact that it seems to be moving faster, that it seems to be slipping away from us. We invented clocks to mark the hours and somehow know that a minute then was really no different from a minute now, but it certainly seems different. We all know that as we grow older our sensation of time accelerates, and given the fact that our lives are now driven by the clock, it seems all the worst. And then we find ourselves wasting time, even (ruthlessly) killing time ... how sick do we have to get before we realize that we've that we no longer have any idea how the time game is played.

So here we are, all grown up; our own persons; doing our own thing and making our own decisions; pretending to be large and in charge, bragging that we've paid our dues and know how to play the game ... but that's a much different game we think we know how to play. Sure, there are lots of folks who can play the get-what-you-want game, the pulling-the-wool game, the talk-big game, the act-brave game, and many more besides. But the real game, the most important game of all is the one we forgot how to play.

Too bad, too sad, it was the most fun game of all.

Time to turn around

When beliefs become collective and unquestioned, they become a danger to us all. It doesn't matter if they are social, cultural, economic or religious. The result is always the same: massive death and destruction. I would like to think that we, as a species, are smarter than to keep falling for the same delusions, but I'm having a hard time maintaining that belief in the face of all the evidence to the contrary.

When we were looking at individual beliefs and knowledge, it was clear that this overshadowing threat was simply not present. For all intents and purposes, it really doesn't matter what any one of us, what any given individual, believes. It does not have a significant, and certainly not a negative impact on the world at large (though any misguided individual can wreak a lot of havoc and cause a lot of harm). The problem arose when too many people bought into a given ideology without critically questioning where the beliefs should lead. In all of the examples cited, there was one common feature that was the ideologies ultimate undoing, namely its focus on one particular group to the exclusion of others.

All of these ideologies are drenched in us-vs.-them thinking. It can be the Master Race, or the Master Class, or the Greatest Country in the World ... it doesn't matter: each and every one of these belief systems, these ideologies, is exclusionary. Any individual or any group who is not part of the "elect" will either be forced to acknowledge the superiority of the "true believers" or they will be forced to pay the price for non-believing. Isn't there a way to avoid this pitfall? I would like to think there is, but I'm convinced it can't be found in the ideologies themselves. It can only be found within ourselves as individuals.

This is the reason that I suggested not long ago that an alternative to reading this summer might be some intense or serious reflection. I don't think it's a bad thing at all when we are sure, when we have reasons, when we can make clear to others what we believe. We can (and should) do this independent of anything that anyone else might think. We don't need to belong to a group, formal or informal, we only need to be ourselves and be aware of our own, individual approach to life. We need to be sure of ourselves and in doing so, we become an inspiration, or a role model, for others.

But where does one start? Anywhere is fine. You can start with your economic or political or social or cultural beliefs. It doesn't matter. The most basic question is "why do I believe ? The rest is up to you, your desire, your intent, and your attention span. Find out what you believe, then find out why. If you can't find any reasons, the time has come to ask yourself whether you want to continue believing that or not. Another place to start might be the question, "When and for what reasons does (my) life make sense to me?" Or maybe, "What is the single most important thing that I wished everyone believed?" If you're serious about it, the rest will follow, all on its own.

It is very likely that none of us individually can solve the world's problems. The good thing is, we don't have to. We've all got more than enough to do with getting our own houses (selves) in order. If you're having trouble making sense of everything "out there", the least you can do is try to make sense of whatever you find "in here".

Ideological dangers

Ideologies are dangerous things, very dangerous. Even if they start out with good intentions, I don't know of a one that ever turned out to everyone's benefit. The reason for this is while they start out in "beliefs" they don't necessarily turn into "faiths". That's merely the religious trajectory. Yes, all religions are ideologies, to be sure, but not all ideologies are religions (even if they appear so to non-adherents).

History is full of ideologies, but they taken to new levels (of nefariousness) in the 20th century and are getting even more dangerous in the 21st. You'd think by now we'd recognize what is happening, but apparently we don't. We need to get smart quickly, however, or we could be in for really big trouble.

The classic example of an ideology is Nazism: a troubled connection between fascism (an economic belief) combined with a religious reverence for a certain mythology (a cultural belief) with a good portion of pseudo-science based on language and blood lines (a socio-biological belief). Yes, it has a little bit of everything and came close to destroying the world. Another, more recent one is Communism (though we should properly call this Leninism or Stalinism), which was primarily economic and social in its expression. And, most recently (and we're still on the secular side of things), we have neoliberalism (economic beliefs) or American exceptionalism (cultural beliefs). What they all have in common is a blind belief in certain precepts, none of which are supported or substantiated by hard facts, by hard evidence. What is more, in each of these examples, we are told there is evidence but we are never shown it. We are told that this or that ideology is correct, but the "proof", the demonstrations, the evidence is never, ever specific. It is a general statement, often amounting to "and what's the alternative?". In fact, neoliberalism is based solely on this argument, made most vehemently by Margaret Thatcher: "TINA (there is no alternative)"! Yet, there is plenty of hard evidence as to why any one of these ideologies is simply wrong.

This is, of course, the heart of the matter. As we saw a few posts ago, when our individual beliefs are threatened or challenged, we simply fall back to defending them. We simply disregard (or try to discredit) the evidence. The same is true of our collective beliefs; that is, of our ideologies. This is an all the more dangerous situation in that no one individual is responsible for the consequences, and there always are consequences: with Nazism it was obvious (Holocaust, devastating world war), with Communism too (state terror, the gulag, millions of deaths). The same holds, if we're honest, with neoliberalism (see Pinochet in Chile, the disparity between rich and poor, the economic subjection and killing of, well, millions worldwide) and American exceptionalism (Iraq and Afghan wars, the drone program; that is, millions of deaths). And I don't even need to address religious ideologies; one of our more poignant current problems.

Personally, I think it's hard not to associate massive death with ideologies, and it is obvious that they are massively dangerous. It's time to break ranks. It's time to get our own, individual thoughts and beliefs straight. It is way past due that we take the time to figure out just what it is that we believe.

Belief or knowledge?

One of things I learned very quickly while studying at a German university (though I had, in a somewhat lighter mode, been exposed to the approach in my undergraduate days in the States) is that if you are going to use terms (or, better, "concepts", "notions", etc.) you should be clear on what you mean by them. This applied just a well to new, technical terms as it did to everyday concepts as well. As I've been bantering around one such term in the past few posts, I thought it might be worthwhile to use it as an example of what I'm talking about.

The word I've been using, of course, is "belief". We all know what it means, regardless of what might be in the dictionary (for, after all, dictionaries are not authorities, rather they are the documentation of what is generally accepted at a given point in time ... words change meanings over time, which is another reason why it's good to stop and think hard about them every once in a while, like I'm doing now). One method of helping to make definitions and understandings clear is to compare or contrast them to similar terms and notions. One such helpful term in this case would be "knowledge". In other words, what do the two ideas have in common, but perhaps more importantly how they are different. Let's take a look.

A "belief" is something we think is true. We are convinced, for any number of reasons (or for no reason at all) that what we believe is true. It's "how things are" or "what something means" or anything along that line. By contrast, knowledge is something that we know is true. We are convinced in particular because there is some kind of verifiable evidence that others are aware of and acknowledge and hence we agree is "how things are" or "what something means". It would seem that the difference between "belief" and "knowledge" is the difference between thinking and knowing.

This difference is subtle, to be sure, but it is important. Others may believe what we believe; that is, others are aware of something and acknowledge it, yet the difference lies in the fact that the "evidence" is missing. Oh, believers may even believe they have evidence, but upon closer examination we find that it is not hard and fast evidence, rather it is an indication, a phenomenon of sorts, that the believers interpret in some way. To be fair, on the hard-evidence side, there is often data that needs to be interpreted, but here there are often strict rules of interpretation to assist in the interpretation process.

In the general and normal course of everyday life, this fine distinction isn't always that important, but it is becoming increasingly so, and for all the wrong reasons. When people have beliefs that contradict knowledge and insist that their beliefs are more significant/important/convincing/correct than knowledge, we have a bit of a problem. When beliefs go from being mere beliefs to this stage we can safely speak of ideologies, rather than mere beliefs. An ideology is, then, a set of beliefs (a way of thinking) that has been elevated to absolutivity; that is, it is presented as if it is knowledge. But, it simply is not.

Too many public discussions and too many decisions these days are being based on ideologies, not knowledge, and it's starting to become a serious problem.

If not reading, how about reflection?

While I do have my optimistic moments, I'm not the fool many take me for. I know well that most people I know wouldn't read much that is antithetical to their beliefs. The authors of those texts might have a point ... who knows? they might even be right ... and what do you do then? When our beliefs are challenged, the vast majority of us simply reject what we're being told (or what we're reading). It's a lot easier to simply deny than it is to change our minds. How sad is that.

Having said that, however, I'm not convinced that most people know why they believe what they believe. A lot of our beliefs are simply carry-overs from our childhood. Our parents believed certain things, we accepted them, and we believe them now as well. In our teen and young-adult years, our friends or people we admired or looked up to believed things and we decided to believe what they believed because we thought or felt or believed that we were like them. In our adult lives, we believe things sometimes simply because we would like things to be a certain way; our world would be much less threatening and stressful if things are as we believe. What all of these modes of coming-to-beliefs have in common, it is clear, is that they are passive in nature. We don't have to do anything to come to these beliefs, we merely need to accept them and make them our own.

That's fine in as far as it goes, but it's a rather weak foundation, especially when we think of how many people are out there claiming, arguing, hammering home, and trying to impose their beliefs on others. If someone wants to make a strong case for his or her beliefs, then I would like to think that they had at least thought about them seriously, that they had invested some energy in understanding what it is they believe and that they knew why they believed what they believed. Unfortunately, that's hardly ever the case. Beliefs are funny like that: all you have to do is believe them. Personally, I prefer people with convictions (thought-through and grounded beliefs), even if I don't share them myself.

So, now that summer is upon us, and now that many of us are thinking about time off or vacations or just lying out in the sun or going to the beach, I have little illusion that most of you will be taking a book with you. For those who are, I commend you, and I certainly hope you read it. For those of you who are not choosing that option, may I suggest a less strenuous, but I believe more challenging, and, perhaps, even more rewarding activity: reflecting. Yes, why not take the time in which you're not really doing anything else, and think about what you believe. Ask yourself why you believe it. Do little thought experiments about what it would be like, or what the world would be like, if you, or most people or anyone else, didn't believe what you believe. You really ought to try it. It can be a very enlightening experience, if done intensely and seriously enough.

No one's asking you to do anything but think ... about what you think and why. Who thinks they can handle it?

The power of questioning power

Most things come full circle ... well, they do if you allow them enough time to take their course. The question of power and the question of questioning power is one of those things.

When you get right down to it, "power" -- whatever it is, whoever is exercising it, in which form it comes or in which systems it disguises itself -- has one, and only one, "tool": fear. Power is powerful, because you are afraid. It is that simple.

One of my biggest heros, one of the individuals who walked this earth for whom I have the greatest and utmost respect, used to preface many, many things that he said with the simple words, "Fear not, fear not ..." In modern phraseology: "Don't be afraid ... ". Yes, yes, yes, we have gone through all the trivializations of this simple idea, and so we haven't come to realize just how trivial the idea is. And now, we return, after such a long diversion, to the root of the problem. How can you "speak truth to power", or question, even challenge, authority without real risk of repression? It's quite simple, really: ask questions.

Although I grew up in an age that scholastically lauded the Socratic method, questioning authority was simply something "you just didn't do". It was impolite, cheeky, pushy, cocky, and downright, insulting. Still, there are ways to simply "ask a question" that is none of these. What is more, when asked in the proper way, in the proper tone, at the proper time, a question can, and most often does, appear as a simple quest for knowledge and wisdom from someone who apparently and supposedly "knows". It is one thing to rebuke a claim, an assertion, a statement, but it is quite another to not respond to someone who is early seeking "to know".

Power always has the responsibility to answer a well-meant question, even if it may not want to answer at all. Power cannot simply reject a question, for to do so would expose it for what it really is: power for power's sake. Yet, we can learn from the three-year-old: keep questioning until the questioned can no longer answer, until his/her own power-based logic simply collapses upon itself. And, believe me, it will eventually do just that.

While fear is an extremely powerful tool, if not a weapon, it suffers from a significant, inherent weakness: it cannot stand in the light of Truth. I may not know the "truth", that is certain, but I believe (and Power believes) that Truth can ultimately be found. The way to the truth is questioning: pursuing the path, via the method, of perhaps the greatest philosopher who ever lived, Socrates.

Power knows how to utilize fear to its own advantage. Of that much, I am sure. However, Power is not immune from fear itself. And, if there is anything that Power fears, it is the power of the question ... the simple question. So, never, ever be afraid to ask "the next question", for it is always, without doubt, the most important question to ever be asked.

Question power before it questions you.

Question power

Power can be all-powerful ... well, at least it can be conceived as such. Most folks that I know would rather avoid any association with power, let alone a confrontation with it. As the Germans put it, "offering your forehead to power" (Macht die Stirn bieten), can reduce your height by about twelve inches (30 cm) and your weight by about 11 lbs (5 kg) very, very quickly. That is a tried-and-true method that power employs, but, as we saw, over time, as the shift from the merely physical to the more ethereal has taken place, a shift in "execution" of power has taken place as well.

In most places around the globe, we don't lop off people's heads anymore. Most peoples and nations have come to the realization that the same effect can be achieved with a lot less visual vividness. Sure, you can still imprison folks for long periods of time, knowing full well that "out of sight" (that is, not in the daily press" means "out of mind" (that is, forgotten). Or, you can simply "talk louder". The volume of mainstream media is always higher than anything an individual can offer. Another approach is to discredit the questioner: given enough money, I suppose, everybody's missteps can be found out and exposed, especially in the days of the Internet. What all of these "methods" have in common, however, is fear. You could be charged with a crime, even if you didn't commit one; most people are tried "in the press" before they ever get to trial. Convictions are then merely insurance. The mainstream media, since it is privately controlled, is more interested in profits than truth, so they can afford to make you a case instead of making a case for you, and they will benefit (i.e., profit) from it, in the end. What is more, given the lax security and the reluctance of most "good citizens" to challenge the "status quo", innuendo, even in cyberspace, can literally destroy an individual before s/he has a chance to defend him/herself. I know very few people who would be willing to risk going through any of that for any reason. You don't have to chop off heads to instill fear. At least, not any more.

Still, as long as fear dictates our lives, as long as fear is our primary motivation, whoever or whatever is in power will succeed. It has always been this way, and it will continue to be this way, unless we change. And, I'm pretty sure, that's really far down on the ol' priority list.

It's too bad, really. One doesn't have to start a rebellion, a physical, military, violent, armed revolution to initiate change. The most effective change is never public, it is private. Here's a very simple thought experiment: imagine that you had no fear of anything any more: what would/could you do? Think about it. Because we hang on too many "things" (our house, car, savings account, possessions, you-name-it) we are afraid that someone can or will come and take it away from us. It could be a thief, but it could be the "government". Why the "government" would want it, given that it extracts exorbitant taxes from you, often without you even knowing it is doing so, and it has you regulated, legislated, controlled, and subdued by the mass of legislation you have to live with. You are allowed to "talk a good (maybe even "tough") game", but if they decide you're done, for whatever reason, you're outta here. And that, dear reader, is the price you pay for (alleged) freedom.

And that's why I say, quite simply, question power, before it questions you.

The question of power

Lord Acton, who most of us have never heard of, once said something that just about everyone of us has not only heard, but said: "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." That's not a direct quotation, but it is a direct expression of the sentiment he wished to express. This is one of those old sayings, those "wise, old" adages, that we let slip from our lips without a second('s) thought, which may be why we don't really get it; that is, really understand what the good Lord was trying to say.

As I confessed last time, questions really got to me. But if there ever was a concept that occasionally rivaled that enthrallment, it would be the notion of "power". Here is another used and abused notion that everybody talks about, that everyone thinks they understand, but that is, without a doubt, one of the most illusive notions that we've ever come up with.

First, we have the concept of "enabling things to function". We need power to drive the steam engine and power to run our computers and keep the lights on. Power is what is talked about when we think of any kind of machine or gadget. We also relate "power" to "authority": those who can tell us what we may or may not do, what is permitted and what is not. And, we also use the concept to describe whoever or whatever can ensure that certain things happen, as in legislative power, or "the power of the pen". OK, in the latter instance there is no ensuring, but potentially a lot of influencing. When it comes to physical power, we have lots of good science to "explain" to us how it works, why and how machines are efficient or why some people can benchpress hundreds of pounds and others can't do a single push-up. When it comes to other kinds of power, though, we're pretty much lost.

Again, Shakespeare's Macbeth is ready at hand: it exemplifies Lord Acton's statement, hundreds of years before Lord Acton expressed it. It indicates that this is not a new problem we are dealing with. In the meantime we know (probably more than we want to) about the "power of the sword", "power of nuclear weapons", the (fire)power of the American military, the "power of the 'almighty dollar'", the (alleged) "power of the press", even the "power of persuasion", and many more. We quickly begin to realize what a complex and intricate concept "power" can be.

All of these phrases show examples, to be sure, but none of them, and certainly not any one of them, defines the notion of "power". Why? Because "power" is always the same and never the same, all at the same time. There was a time when "physical power", in any of its forms -- strength, superior weapons -- played the dominant role. There was a time when "political power", in any of its forms -- diplomacy, alliances -- was most important. And now, we live in a time, when the "power of perceptions" plays the dominant role. We all still have to deal with the same, old same-old, but it comes in ever-changing guises.

It doesn't amaze me at all that most folks feel powerless in the face of power.

The power of questions

Anyone who knows me knows there is one "confession" I must always make, especially when I meet new people or have the opportunity to work in new groups: I absolutely and unequivocally love questions. I do. I am fascinated by them ... mesmerized sometimes. They stir my imagination and unlock secrets. They are, without a doubt, the most powerful intellectual and analytical tool -- if used properly -- that I have ever had the privilege to use.

These days, I believe that questions are terribly underestimated and their true power has never been properly recognized.

All of this started, of course, when I was going through teacher training at college, oh, so many years ago. In "my day", there was only one, accepted pedagogical (teaching) method: the Socratic method. Lesson plans described a topic, a digestible amount of material, and the way to get the students from wherever they were to wherever the lesson was to take them was to be achieved solely through the use of questions. It was frowned up that the teacher provide any "answers", be it information or -- heaven forbid -- interpretations or declarations. It was up to the teacher to guide the students to discover knowledge for him or herself, solely through the use of appropriate questioning techniques. This is considered more than old-fashioned these days, but, truth be told, this was a very old method when I became exposed to it. If you want to see brilliant examples of how it works, I recommend reading Plato. His writings are nothing other than Socratic dialogs (for Socrates always plays the main role), and they are every bit as informative and didactic today as they were at the time they were written. Some things simply refuse to change. (And anything that does, and anything that stands the test of time like questions do, deserve a second, third, or even an infinite number of looks).

And when did this fall out of favor as a teaching method? I don't know. I suspect, however, that it was about the time that "somebody decided" that the results of standardized tests or the regurgitation of factual knowledge was more important than the ability to think, to explore, to discover, and to search (for the truth). Oh, I'll be the first to admit it: questions can be uncomfortable, as any parent on the planet will tell you. There isn't a parent alive or dead who hasn't been exasperated (positively or negatively) by their 3-year old who will not give their questioning a rest. Once you fork down that "why" path, there is never an end in sight. Nor should there be. What we don't do as parents, or what enough parents don't do, or what most parents do not encourage, is that they continue asking those questions. If there is one ability in our children that we should never, ever discourage, it's the asking of questions. I firmly believe that the world would not be in the shape it is, that we would not be confronted with all the challenges that we have to deal with, if we had been encouraged as children to question more.

To me, it's never really been a priority to just "keep on trucking". No, for me, it's important to "keep on questioning."

Ideological subterfuging

It could be that I mentioned it somewhen before, but I love neologisms. New words, that is. I love thinking them up, and I love to watch the pained and sometimes even surprised expressions on people's faces when I use them around them for the first time. Oh, I've had downright "battles" with people over such words. They're argument is, if it's not in the dictionary, it's not a word. I say, in Shakespeare's day, they didn't have dictionaries and if they had had them, I'm not sure he would have cared. He is -- and I know I have said this before -- is my absolute hero, idol -- the Master of Masters of the English Language -- as far as I'm concerned. I don't feel even worthy to walk in his shadow, but that's not going to stop me from trying to sneak into the shade from time to time.

There has long been a lot of debate, not necessarily in public, but certainly in certain academic circles, about the relationship between language and thought. Whorf is probably the most widely known name in this regard. He postulated a direct link between language and how we access reality. I tend to think he's got a point, and whether language influences, or even determines, thinking or vice versa is not the real point for me. There is a relationship, undeniably. I am tending to believe it is symbiotic, not unidirectional, nor causal, but I still have to think a bit about that. What I am sure of, however, is that our experience of reality is most certainly influenced by the language(s) we speak.

Even this is, of course, too much for some people. They like to think they've got a complete, comprehensive, and objective grip on things. Nothing could be further from the truth. We can know a lot. We can be right about a lot of stuff. Our perceptions can conform to objectively verified, factual realities, but we never really have a sound "grasp" of things. We only know our experience of things, and that, dear reader, is the definition of subjectivity. You and I have different experience sets, hence we must, by definition, have differences in our perceptions of reality. This is not to say that we can't agree about many, many things, but there will never be a 100% match between your (perception of) reality and mine. That's OK. I can live with that. Unfortunately, there is a large (and growing?) number of people who can't.

Language is certainly one perceptual filter, but never, ever underestimate the power of ideologies (as I've talked about the last two posts) in filtering our experiences. Ideologies, once we believe in them, are personally dangerous in that they are so obvious to us that we fail to question them. We assume that their filtering is accurate. In most cases, we're not even aware that they are there and at work.

So, how does one "protect" oneself? Is there a way to at least mitigate their effects? But of course. There is no problem, no hazard, no disease or illness, no anything that Nature has not provided a cure/antidote/help for. In this case, our own human nature comes to our aid. We humans, believe it or not, are the only living species that can question.

Question everything.

Ideological abusings

The dominant ideology these days, as I said last time, is Neoliberalism, unbridled capitalism. Its purpose, of course, is the justification of the outrageous economic inequality that we are all experiencing and the exploitation of the climate and natural resources that are becoming ever more threatening.

The foundation of this particular ideology is what has become known as the Washington Consensus, first expressed in 1989 by John Williamson, the then chief economist and vice-president of the World Bank. Its goal is simple: the privatization of the world, and this by means of a very few simple principles:

• Tax reform: fewer taxes on the rich; more taxes for the working and the poor
• Total deregulation of all financial markets and the worldwide economic sector
• Protection of foreign investment and investors
• Increased protection for private property
• Reduction of national deficits
• Elimination of public subsidies
• Elimination of the public sector

Now, there is nothing in this list that we haven't seen being put into practice (well, except, of course, for the elimination of public subsidies ... as long as major corporations can get an extra hand from government, one shouldn't become too radical), but there is also nothing in this list that is a good idea because it is based on sound experience.

The rich and the benefactors of capital gains received preferential treatment, as was recently noted around Tax Day in America. The deregulation of capital and financial markets produced an economic meltdown that the little tax-payers got to bail out; the next (I believe, more severe) crash is on its way. And, we only need to look at what is being done to Greece (or look back to what was done to Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, Poland, or even Russia) to see what the results of these principles are. Yet, even though there is no factual evidence to support these principles, they are pushed and propagandized to such a degree that even their victims have begun to believe in them.

And so we are made to believe that this is how the world "is", that there are natural, economic laws that decide who succeeds and who fails, and yet not a word of it is true, nor can it be demonstrated by example. The propagandization of the ideology, however, and we should remember that all propaganda is based on fear, instills fear into the heart of the so-called middle class, those who thought they had risen above all that had been so painfully achieved on May Day.

I am ashamed to say that they got my generation to buy into this fantasy, but as is so often the case, converts are the worst. We have come to love and defend our oppressors. How sad is that?

Ideological musings

May Day could have been so worth celebrating. Too bad all we're left with is those long demythologized notions about the rights of spring. OK, that could be a reason for celebrating too, but we decided in our enlightened ignorance that anyone who came before ourselves really didn't know all that much in the end. We think so lowly of our forebears and ancestors that you really have to wonder how you can explain that we have survived as long as we have as a species.

Of course, we're poised to take care of that too. You can lie to yourself all you want, you can have governments censuring employees (in a supposedly free country), but you can't change the fact that we humans are doing our damnedest to pollute and heat up our planet so badly that Mother Nature will have no choice but to retaliate. But that's a discussion for another time.

No, what I wanted to pick up on was an idea in my last post that might have been overlooked by some of you, namely the part "ideology" played in the workers' defeat. We tend to think that when the Soviet Union collapsed it was because our own ideology proved to be "right", but as Wadsworth points out in the movie Clue, "Communism is simply a red herring." And that it is. No, there's a new ideology on the street to get us all, and it's known "officially" as Neoliberalism, or, for the less erudite among you, unbridled capitalism.

First, let us get clear on what an ideology actually is. In simplest terms, it's an "idea" posing as a "science" (-ology), that is an objective, clear, and proven way of knowing about the world. The key here, though, is the word "posing", for ideologies are diametrically opposed to science of any kind. When it comes to ideologies it is not so important that you know. It is much more important that you believe. And that's why they're so dangerous.

Every single ideology is there for one reason only: to interpret the world, to tell us how the world "is". To do this, it constructs a system of expression and symbols that follow the ideology's own internal, relative autonomous logic (cf. Jean Ziegler, Retournez les fusils!: Choisir son camp, Paris, 2014). While that all sounds relatively harmless, it ideologies are belief systems that provide justification for the actions of its believers. For example, the ideology of American Exceptionalism says it's OK for the USA to do things that they believe others have no right to do, such as overthrow governments or assassinate foreign politicians who resist America's right to do as it pleases, simply because it is in a unique position in the world. Or, the ideology of, say, Calvinistic predestination in the 16th century which was provided justification for the rise to political power of the commercial class and even the genocide of indigenous populations in the name of expanding trade, for example, in the American, Dutch and British colonies.

In other words, a given ideology is not based on facts, evidence or experience, rather it is a way of seeing and explaining the world that is grounded in a set of beliefs that are then used to say why what someone or some group is doing is good, right, and proper. Challenges, of course, usually come from outside, but not always.