 Street Photograph by Marcio Faustino. Ideology; everybody has one if you understand that ideology is just a set of ideas and beliefs that is based on the individual or group psychology and behaviour rationalisation, and which is not necessarily good or bad.
Every country and society has many ideologies. Among them one emerges as the dominant one, which will impose its psychology and behaviour based on its understanding of what is acceptable and what is “normal”. It means what makes sense from the point of view of one’s own psychology (and which may not make sense to others’ psychology, since truth is only a measure defined by a set of parameters that allow us to interpret our own limiting understanding of the complex rich reality. Such parameters will vary according to different ideologies and their psychologies). People in every society will tend to fit in the dominant psychology and behaviour, even if it is not originally their own psychology and behaviour, in order to fit in the social expectations and standards and to become socially accepted, politically recognised, economically successful (or finding more chances for such success). Those who have more difficulty fitting in tend to be excluded in a way or in another, depending on their group size. Regardless of whether one adapts well or not to the dominant ideology repressing one's own psychology to fit in will always cause a negative psychological effect. These negative psychological effects are sometimes well noticeable and sometimes they are not. There are times it becomes the dominant ideology of a group, as part of their group identity often recognised by the group members, but they seldom identify their ideology as being based on a repressed psychology rationalisation. An ideology and its physiology tend to see themselves as logic and rational while regarding alien ideologies (the ones they are apart) as irrational, stupid, inferior or mad. This is why many people in the past diagnosed with hysteria were sent to madhouses, especially women whose psychology tends to differ from Men’s. "The game is played as if there is an objective reality that can be accurately perceived without implicating the perceiver." - What Are We? by Siri Hustvedt. Despite the fact that men can have, and often have, some of the characteristics which are predominant in feminine psychology, and vice versa, our society, that has a patriarchal materialist foundation, is based most on the masculine ideology and in a conservative society with such ideological tradition many women will have psychological distress caused by their own feminine psychology repression. In modern societies where women are largely emancipated we find a combination of women well fitting to the dominant social psychology as well as society adaptation to some of the feminine psychology. We notice for example some strong masculine psychological behaviour, such as walking, talking and spontaneous reaction to distress, in societies like Germany as well as the Nordic Countries that is distinct from what we notice in Latin societies. I said at the beginning that every society has many kinds of ideology in their physiology. Among them all there are two kinds of ideologies that I will give a generalized example based on my understanding so far. The first I like and the second I dislike because of my own physiology. The first group is the kind who is often questioning things and because of it they are often questioning themselves. Because of it they are more willing to listen to people and ponder about others' positions, even if they already have an opinion or believe about what the other person says, they are willing to still find out if there is anything else to know, if something new will come up, learn and perceive from others. So even judging others they respect others, and even when certain about their views and opinions they don't take things too serious because they know that eventually they might find out something else to learn about. In short they are not absolutist (not religious) about what they have as their understanding, so they are able to adapt to changes and learn through unexpected casual circumstances which they set free. This first group is often perceived as insecure by the second group, and in fact when one’s question too often his understanding insecurity tends arises and becomes anxiety. “The things that fantasy can do is to normalize what psychologically is unbearable, thereby inuring us to it. In one case, fantasy beautifies the world. In the other, it neutralizes it” - Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag. The second group doesn't like to question their knowledge and believe because for them it is more important to have certainty, to be sure about one’s own, than to risk the uncertainty. For this reason they are less willing to listen and ponder what people say because they don't like their certainty to be shaken. For this reason there is less respect among them and they are less willing to adapt and learn things when changes come. In other words, they are more conservatives. They are absolutists, if you propose another point of view they get offended, they tell you you are wrong, if pointed at a problem in their absolutist rules it is not the rule that has problems but you (for not fit in the rule so finding problems in it). It's ironic the second group to perceive the first as insecure because the second group is often highly insecure. Because of their insecurity they are attached to their certainty and are afraid of those who question what they have as absolutely true. They need it in order to feel confident and secure about themselves and, at the same time, they fear others’ judgement about them if they don't show they are right and certain about their beliefs. On the other hand, the second group is more organised socially speaking because their lack of questioning what they have as absolute true, moralistic and rules makes them follow and fit in it regardless what, regardless of circumstances. It means they are more bureaucratic, they also speak a more bureaucratic language, and they are less adaptable to what is not expected. But when changes come they are the ones who have the more difficulty to adapt to, for being socially conservative, bureaucratic and absolutist. The reason I like the first group is because individualism is more accepted among them. It means being different (according to your own psychology) and still being accepted as you are, even if one looks and sounds weird because it’s of to express you distinctive side. But while there is a sense of socio psychological freedom in the first group it also has the side effects of a social crisis of belonging. Where there is pluralism and fast shifting of trends it’s harder to find out where we belong to. Such a crisis is less noticeable in the second group where people identify themselves in the social predominant psychology an absolute order and behavior which they attempt to fit in regardless of what. But even then, the second group has its psychological side effects which is well noticeable in their tendency to impatience, grumpiness, rage storming, social phobia and cynicism about wherever they don’t identify themselves with, the alien ideologies and their psychologies. “The most part we call “irrational” is just the Natural; but our “rationale” has become so unnatural that we see everything natural as irrational. Hence our psychology as the climax of men’s self-realization is inadequate to explain change because it can only justify the type representing the existing social order of which it’s an expression” - Beyond Psychology by Otto Rank. Both groups can be part of any political spectrum. It doesn't make the person more left or more right wing in politics and economics if they are from either of the groups described.
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 Street Photograph by Marcio Faustino. There are things we hide from ourselves but we are not aware of it, they are kept in our unconscious. At the same time we express it through or activities, speech and feelings that generate our thoughts but we still remain unaware of it. Even if somebody points it out to us we tend to not recognize what we are hiding from ourselves and there is an emotional reason for it. What people want to deny the most in a debate is the evidence they are being emotional rather than rational. As demonstrated by Antonio Damasio in his book "The Strange Order of Things", we are essentially emotional and not as rational as we like to believe,
Many people are starving for recognition. The reason of it is because identity is ephemeral in a society where we can dream of and pursue to become whatever we want to. Otto Rank describes the past civilizations with a strong sense of belonging and identity through their activities. Back then, people normally continued to live in the same community where their family had been for generations, working in the same field and business that their family had for generations as well, without ever think of or dream about to become an aristocrat or a noble. Each social group, and their relation to their jobs, had their own distinct psychology, mentality, behavior, fashion and culture where individuals tended to bound together. This distinct social characteristics is where they would always find their sense of belonging and identity. People were recognized by their work and community. David Harvey goes further by presenting how the community's land and landscape are so strong related to the individual sense of identity. It justifies the socialist worker unions in deteriorated industrial economy - conflicting with globalists socialists - fighting to keep their unhealthy jobs as well as polluting industries in their community. Because without it they feel they are losing something about themselves, the sense of identity and belonging that they get from such activities and landscape, because it's where and what their entire community have been living and working through all their lives. With the development of capitalism, and consequently the rise of the bourgeois psychology, as Hannah Arendt describes it, the nationalistic sense of equality as the dominant social ideology influenced people to move from their communities and from their traditional activities to cities, looking for better economic opportunities in different jobs - also losing their "know how" with the development of technology and specialization. The result is the crises of identity we find in society today. Our identity is presented through our expression and every expression is a message to an other real or imaginary person (sometimes ourselves). Siri Hustvedt explains, there is no "I" without an "other" because the other feedback is what makes me perceive and know who I am. Because we can go after whatever we want to be, by chasing down the best jobs opportunities and neighborhood to live in, we need constant feedback about what we become. Or even worse, the confirmation that we are accomplishing the success of our personality, meaning archiving our dreams that is related to our identity, which is confirmed only by other people recognition. When a person still feel insecure about their accomplishments and recognition they pretend (to other people and to ourselves) they are successful and confident about themselves. The person pretends to have the recognition or accomplishment they don't have as a way to convincing everybody (and even himself) it's true, calling those who don't recognize their successful personality as envious, afraid of them to revel what he has been hiding their fragile image. By pretending the person can play it as if it is true and consequently he feels it as if it's true, often convincing people and even themselves it's true even if deep inside their unconsciousness they know it is not true. John Berger shows how the glamour was born, the acquisition of the personality image that other people wish to have. The aloofness is the bureaucrat attitude of those who are the gatekeeper of the social recognition and consequently social integration (the group acceptance that gives the person the sense of belonging) through images, as described by Frédéric Lordon. The pretending is in order to not feel excluded, as attempt to protect oneself from feeling miserable for not feeling partially or totally belonging to a group recognized as successful by today's society. The biggest fear of any bureaucrat is to lose their power. A power that is imaginary comes with insecurity. Certainty is the tool insecure people have in order to convince themselves about who they are. They have to believe that what they are is absolute. They need to believe in the absolute in order to overcome the insecurity. In a debate we talk about our opinions, knowledge and beliefs but these three things are not just data that we put in and take out our mind, they are identity. Identity is related to people's cognitive experiences because the brain does not compute, it emotes. What we have as truth is from what we trust. Trust we get from what we identify ourselves with, as being from what we belong to or wish to belong to. For this reason insecurity tends to make many people to believe that opinions, knowledge and beliefs are absolute. Or even worst, it makes people believe that science is absolute. When the person believes something is absolute they don't need to question it ever, and they will not like if somebody else questions it. Questioning something the person believes to be absolute if for him as if you are questioning his identity. Changing opinions or point of view demands a changing of how you perceive and identify yourself with the subject, which literally means changing who you are. The person who looks for absolutism doesn't want changes because changes are the cause of the insecurity they are hiding behind their absolutist beliefs. Many people want to believe that science and logic are absolute so they can convince themselves that their supposed absolutist beliefs are scientific and logical. So they can use personal attack on the identity of those who question them, and their absolutist belief, as no logic or no sense. But science is the opposite of absolute because reality is in constant movement and changes. So it requires the person to always question, challenge and change what they believe to be their knowledge in order to gain and grow their knowledge forwards. Certainty does not allows it. If a person questions the thing they believe to be "the truth" then they may not be certain about their "truth". They they may not be certain about his absolutist views and such uncertainty exposes insecure people to their own fears. At the end, most people tend to research about what confirms their bias, what they strongly identify themselves with, often pretending they are looking for knowledge when in fact they are looking for their certainty confirmation. Absolutism is not for people who want knowledge but certainty, as the David Bowie 's "Law" song narrates. Certainty is for the person looking for control (about themselves, about a group of people or about society). The faith of an absolutist rule that will not allows things to change (so people believe). Every search for control, morality and rules comes out of fear. The fear of the unpredictable spontaneity. The desire to force reality/nature to adapt to them instead of adapt themselves to reality and nature symbiosis, with the believe they have the absolutist knowledge and science to impose their wishes upon nature and reality. Nothing of this is new. It is so old that the Greeks dedicated many of their narratives to it. It's called Tragedy. Stories about heroes who try to run from their fate but they can not. Greek Tragedies teach us about our incapacity to control the reality symbiosis. A symbiosis that we are not able to fully understand. More than that, it's good that we can not control it because it is the over control that breaks life and nature symbiosis, so shifting times come as the symbiosis own self regulation. If we understand it we become able to stop blaming other people for the changes in society, in groups and in ourselves that make us so insecure. Then we better can recognize our insecurities and fears because we become more honest with ourselves and with other people. Through honesty we start to identify ourselves with people around us then and find comfort in them, feeling belonging instead of feeling the fear of social segregation (the losing of an image and its segregating privilege), the fear of a lack of belonging in a society of ephemeral identity. |
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