Ideology, what it is, and the women who love them

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Ideology: a definition, or an explanation
The word ideology has been thrown at me ever since I was in college, and I could never figure out what it was.  Now that we have Google, I want to find out.

Ideology:  a system of ideas and ideals, especially one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.
"the ideology of republicanism"
synonyms:    beliefs, ideas, ideals, principles, ethics, morals; (More...)

Now, that was as clear as mud, so of course I had to click on “more”:

doctrine, creed, credo, faith, teaching, theory, philosophy;
tenets, canon(s);
conviction(s), persuasion;
(informal) –ism.

The last entry suggests that ideology is the particular “ism” that you subscribe to.

That was a good first step, but I wanted yet more, so I went to Wikipedia.
Wikipedia:

An ideology is a set of conscious and/or unconscious ideas which constitute one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology is a comprehensive normative vision, a way of looking at things, as argued in several philosophical tendencies (see political ideologies), and/or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to all members of this society (a "received consciousness" or product of socialization), as suggested in some Marxist and Critical theory accounts. While the concept of "ideology" describes a set of ideas broad in its normative reach, an ideology is less encompassing than as expressed in concepts such as “worldview,” “imaginary” and “ontology.”

Ideologies are systems of abstracted meaning applied to public matters, thus making this concept central to politics. Implicitly, in societies that distinguish between public and private life, every political or economic tendency entails an ideology, whether or not it is propounded as an explicit system of thought.

Now, we have this sort of thing in mathematics, so I think I know where this is going.  To clarify this from my point of view, I have to go into what we call a mathematical theory.

A mathematical theory has these things:

Some basic terminology, consisting of words which are not defined.  But to illustrate their use (which is sometimes almost as good as definitions), some statements are given, using the words, and these statements (called Axioms) are to be considered as holding in this theory.  (In the case of an ideology, unfortunately, it is not about a theory, but about the actual world.  This makes a huge and uncomfortable difference.)

Coming back to a mathematical theory, within a given theory you can prove certain theorems.  They follow logically from the Axioms.  So, for instance in a certain mathematical theory called Projective Geometry, all lines lying in the same plane must intersect.

Now, lines are an abstraction.  We all think we know what a line is, but you have to admit that, when you are looking at what you think are a pair of lines lying in the same plane, they may appear to not cross each other, but we just don’t know, because we can only see a finite portion of the lines.  But in Projective Geometry, it is convenient to play along with this Axiom, and certain math problems can be solved in the theory very conveniently.  But other problems can’t, so we can adopt a different theory to solve those.

As far as Ideology is concerned, reading between the lines, there appears to be a certain subjectivity in the definition of what an ideology is.

It is a system of beliefs.  This means that it is a logical structure based on certain statements (about the world) that cannot be proven, but which are accepted because they lead to the conclusions that one finds desirable.  Suppose we want to accuse Mr. A. of subscribing to a particular ideology.  This means we think that Mr. A has accepted certain statements as axiomatic, because Mr. A. has discovered that the conclusions from those axioms are compatible with Mr. A’s world view.

Normally we would be calling Mr. A’s philosophy an Ideology only if we do not believe in it.  For instance, if we don’t believe in Marxism, we would say that anyone who does believe in Marxism is a believer in Marxist Ideology.  So in one fell swoop we have managed to convey:

(1) We don’t like Marxism,
(2) Mr. A has accepted various Marxist Axioms.

Unlike a mere theory, as we said earlier, ideologies are based on axioms that describe the world of people and society, and by implication, business, economics and politics.  Let’s get away from the idea that the term “ideology” is subtly pejorative, and try to see whether the word can be used in a more precise way.  The main idea seems that someone (Mr. A) has accepted certain Axioms from which he can explain what he observes in society to his own satisfaction.  His system of beliefs is more likely to be considered an “ideology” if he can be observed to stick to his beliefs despite new facts and situations that seem (at least to us) to contradict his axioms.

The problem is that whether or not the new facts contradict those axioms depends on interpretation.  To us it may seem that the new facts and situations clearly contradict Mr. A’s axioms.  To him it may appear that either the new facts do not contradict the axioms at all, or that all the information is not yet in.

So the question of whether someone has an ideology or not is very much in the eye of the beholder.  Unlike mathematical facts, the axioms and the observations are not clearly connected by logical or mathematical links, and (at least in the eye of the spectators) there is a lot that depends on interpretation.

The whole question was recently made interesting by two developments.

The Mid-Term Elections
In a recent post, a certain writer observed that the GOP has related to Barack Obama entirely politically.  In other words, they’re deciding whether or not to compromise and cooperate with the Democrats only based on the issues surrounding getting re-elected, and discrediting Democrat candidates, and not on what is best for the people.  As a case in point, he puts forward that the House Republicans rejected the President’s offer to compromise on the budget, and reduce Social Welfare services, which resulted in no reduction in services, and increased the national debt.  They refused to participate in Health Care reform, to deny giving the ACA the appearance of having bi-partisan support and had eventually to accept features that they did not like.  We could accuse House Republicans of being ideologues, because they stick to Conservative and party axioms in the face of evidence that indicated that compromise is better for both sides.  The word ideology is strongly associated with philosophical inflexibility.

Pope Francis
Again, in a recent post, it was reported that Pope Francis charged, on a certain Sunday in October, that religious ideologues are bad for the Church.  Here he is using the word “ideology” to refer to inflexible doctrinal axioms adopted by certain Catholics, who refuse to moderate their stance or compromise their principles.  ("The faith passes, so to speak, through a distiller, and becomes ideology.")  In human affairs, abiding by rigid principles of conduct has, over the last half century at least, come under justified criticism.  Religious morality, and certainly Christian morality, is all about moderating judgment with mercy.  The attitudes of ideologues is bound to inflexibility, being judgmental, and in inflexible application of simplistic moral principles.  The words of Pope Francis should be read directly, to understand what he means, but I for one believe that, in a sense that I understand, the inflexibility of the Religious Right is what the Pope, along with so many of us, is decrying.  The Pope is further saying that in his opinion, religious morality cannot be applied mathematically; doing so is not what is best for the Church.

As a youth, I have to admit that I was an ideologue.  Among many "ism"s that young people are susceptible to are various sorts of absolutism, the belief that a particular social philosophy, such as Capitalism, Socialism, Marxism, or Christian Morality, can be applied to all situations without modification.  As one grows older, one begins to understand that certain basic principles are certainly widely applicable.  But the application has to be flexible.  For instance, I still believe in the principle that the least financially self-sufficient sector of society has to be assisted by the state, regardless of whether the assistance is taken advantage of by unscrupulous individuals.  If a class of lazy good-for-nothings comes into existence as a result, so be it.  Similarly, I believe in protecting the environment, even if it is at the cost of lowering our standard of living.  Similarly, I believe in the right of every child to better than a basic education, though I also believe that we must work away at [added later] eliminating the stratification of occupation based on social class.  I can't see having to compromise these broad principles, unless compromise is necessary because they are seen to logically contradict each other somehow.

In contrast, there are a lot of people around, many of them House Republicans, who hold certain truths to be self-evident, such as if a Democrat says something, it has to be a lie; or if there is a piece of scientific information that they cannot understand, then it cannot be true, or important.  For instance, at a congressional hearing on Warming, certain Republican congressmen challenged the scientist who was giving evidence saying that there seemed to be a lot of thinking "out there" that suggested that global warming is all exaggeration.

The scientist came right back with suggesting that it would serve the congressman better if he read the scientific literature rather than the opinions of laymen on YouTube.  (It turned out the particular congressman involved had been heavily supported financially by energy companies.)

The congressman responded saying that he could not take seriously the testimony of people who studied climate change for a living, since it was in their interest to exaggerate the degree to which it was taking place.

That, of course, was such a great non-sequitur that it appears that the scientist gave up that particular exchange.  As Jon Stewart put it, it is impossible to talk to someone who prefers the opinions of laymen over those of professionals.  The congressman went on to accuse the scientific community of scare tactics.  In short, messengers who bring bad news must be censored.

I think this qualifies as ideology.  It is the particularly pernicious ideology of discrediting any information that is uncomfortable.  Today, there is very little comfortable information coming in, so it is an ideology of burying heads in the sand, and putting a bullet into any head that remains unburied.

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