Chasing Phantoms: a comment on ideology

Familiarity and habit, even in the worst social environments, bring with them an endearing level of predictability to human interaction (better the devil you know). As such, there is a tendency to view social or political change as an all or nothing endeavor--either "our" side prevails and the system is saved or "we" are defeated, ensuring the onset of a new Dark Age. When the latter is perceived to be the case, it is often blamed on weak-willed turncoats and sinister opponents with no regard for the sanctity of the established order.

Of course, the world, to say nothing of politics, would be infinitely easier to understand if it did indeed operate in this manner. But alas, it rarely does. Conspiracies are almost never vast and few dissenters live up to their "Dick Dastardly" caricatures. Moreover, although there will always be fools and knaves, partisan fervor tends to grossly overestimate their number and influence.

Which brings us to the heart of modern political conflict in the United States: an excessive reliance on ideology. To surrender the exercise of one's reason to the will of party or ideology is to commit oneself to an intellectually shallow concept of human motives. For the very aspect which makes ideological principles easy to grasp through talking points, cable news, and talk radio echo chambers, is also what prevents adherents from understanding the difficulties of turning generalities into specific policy initiatives. That is to say, avoidance of the details of governance can lead one to equate skepticism with disloyalty or to demonize the underlying motives of competing ideas

The educated in this country have, in recent decades, increasingly fallen victim to such misguided suspicion. The academic emphasis on critical thinking--even when it is focused on refining a particular idea for the better--can lead to cries of "America hater", "Nazi" or "socialist". Yet, disagreement over particular ideas does not automatically place one in the camp of radical opposition. Such knee-jerk aspersions are inconsistent with the basic tenants of rational debate and unbecoming of any individual who wishes to have his or her own ideas taken seriously.

It is folly to presume that the US has nothing to learn from other countries, political systems, or ideological perspectives. The taking of specific ideas from either of these sources does not entail a complete and irrevocable conversion. ALL existing governments, including the one outlined in the US Constitution, are syntheses of competing political ideas. You simply could not have the hybrid system known as federalism without the opposing views of Jefferson and Hamilton; nor could you have those giants of the Revolution without the competing philosophical influences of Hobbes and Rousseau, and so on.

As a consequence, to assume that political purity is a precondition for effective government is to embark upon a crusade for a world that never was, and never will be. Searching for evil phantoms and dupes to rationalize the failure of society to embrace a singular ideological perspective is equally quixotic. For in the final analysis, the devil is in the details; complex societies can only be understood within the context of equally complex explanations.