Coming to Grips with Intellectual Chaos

War of Meanings in the 21st Century

Photo by Jené Stephaniuk on Unsplash

It may be time to take another look at ideology, the much maligned “evil” of mid-20^th century liberalism. 

I could write far more than any of you would want to read about “ideology.” But I do need to define broadly what I mean by the term. All of us have beliefs that serve as a foundation for much of our thinking. We use them to deduce rules of life and how the world works. The give us “roadmaps” for our lives. They are ideologies.

Seen this way ideologies are neither “bad” nor “good.” During the last century many of us thought they were bad, because too many people seemed to be “True Believers,” i.e. viewed their constructions of reality as absolute truth.

We felt their ideologies were constraining forces, limitations on creative thinking and effective policies.  “Ideologs” were “closed thinkers,” making obedient ideas into guard dogs policing the boundaries of convention. 

Our main objection was that the ideolog (the person who thinks ideologically) was not willing to accept his or her fallible human side, the wellspring of doubt that curbs absolutist certainty and makes substantive debate possible. 

We saw such passion as dangerous.

And today?  I see holding passionate views about the world, even if sometimes with too much certainty, as an intellectual excitement that helps us escape the partisan brands and institutional interests that encircle us.  It is a churning, somewhat inchoate, mix of intuitions, imaginings and personality.  It is youthful, troubling, and essential. 

Although I still view closed minds as dangerous, I believe that today we must encourage the desires of different dreams and alternate futures, even when immoderate.

For these are the years of new beginnings. 

I see incoherence, a mix of overreaching aspirations and some “zombie” ideas rising from “the dead,” as a challenge for the best in us, a playing field mastered by our ancestors and worthy of our children. 

Perhaps we can learn to hold our ideas like the great golfer Sam Sneed recommended we hold our golf clubs. Like a young bird, he said. Lightly enough not to kill the bird; strong enough that the bird doesn’t fly away.

Or maybe I am just the optimist that, when discovered digging through a pile of horse manure, replies, “this much manure, there has to be a pony here somewhere.”