Tag: Ideologically Driven Processes

Current Events – Values

Events in the news cry out for comment; there is much heated debate with little real dialog. Getting bogged down in the details might be an exercise in futility, rather it would be interesting to look at these times using concepts from my book “Light of Truth: Anticipating the Triumph of Righteousness” and the corresponding website. We will comment on values as exemplified by an elected political leader and how strongly this leader is supported. We find that one of the “Talking Points” pages on the website, “Ideologically Driven Processes,” explains these times very well.

Coloring an entire movement with the characteristics of one leader sometimes may be unfair, but in our political environment one leader has taken advantage of our strongly polarized society with no opposition from his supporters, in this case such colorization is warranted. If his supporters disagreed with him there would be public comments. This silence is confirmation of their support, even admiration, of their leader. His values and ideals have become their values and ideals.

This leader admires only those world leaders who are brutal dictators such as Kim Jong-un in North Korea and Vladimir Putin in Russia while he says unkind words about democratically elected ones such as Angela Merkel in Germany. These are the values admired by his silent supporters.

This leader forcibly takes young children from their families and locks them in cages. He has unkind things to say about women, those with handicaps, the free press, and minorities. These are the values admired by his silent supporters.

And there is more.

Why is there silence from his supporters? In order to get elected and reelected politicians need financial support which will dry up if they go against this polarizing leader. These politicians are afraid to speak their minds because if they do, there will not be enough funds to run a political campaign. The money they need comes from wealthy donors who have a particular ideology the leader espouses.

These wealthy donors have a set of values they believe in strongly and they are willing to give a large amount of money to further their values. To them these values are so important anything is acceptable as long as it enhances their values. Therefore they give money to this leader and those supporting him, all of whom have become beholden to the wealthy donors.

What is wrong with this? What is wrong with following strongly held beliefs? The problem is that everything needs a solid foundation. Just as we cannot build a house upon sand, we cannot build our life on a moral quicksand; there must be a firm moral foundation. When any goal becomes so important that morality is lost, the goal becomes unattainable. After this point there will be no way to evaluate decisions, no way to judge which is the proper course. Going astray is inevitable.

As an aside, for those working to counteract climate change the motivation is the health of Mother Earth. Everyone, even super-billionaires, depends on their environment for sustenance; therefore working to protect our environment for the good of humanity might be an acceptable foundation. However, this is not adequate because violent radicals would be unrestrained; a more enduring foundation would be to recognize that everyone has within them an actual spark of God;[1] He is literally within each thinking human being. With this truth as a moral foundation, protectors of Planet Earth will be well guided. With this as a moral foundation there will be a way to judge each proposed action: what effects will the action have, will it harm human beings who are indwelt by God?

How did this leader come into power? Because of the extremely unequal distribution of wealth in our society (and around the world), a significant segment has been disadvantaged and frustrated. These frustrations led them to vote for anybody promising to help them. Of those running for this office, one largely ignored these disadvantaged voters while the other made empty promises but cut taxes for the rich once elected.

Our polarized society needs to recognize the value of every human being; since everyone equally has within them a spark of God, everyone has value. God is no respecter of persons, He respects everyone equally. This truth needs to be incorporated into our greed-filled economic system, our overburdened welfare system, our immigration policies, our interpersonal relationships, and even into how we think about our sisters and brothers.

  1. Bible: I Corinthians 3,16 ↑

Ideology Becoming Dogma

In this posting we revisit an important topic covered in our previous blog; what happens when an ideological goal becomes the primary focus for a group of people? Having such a goal is not a problem but difficulties arise when the goal is not based on facts or reality. It is OK to have an idealistic ideal to strive for, some transformation needed by society, but ignoring certain facts of life makes any goal unattainable.

In our society there are many crosscurrents involving various points of view. Having several differing viewpoints is not a bad thing but expressing them with heated emotions is now more common than in the past. Many feel their worldview is the only valid one there is, they cannot even begin to understand what motivates those who hold differing opinions; these viewpoints reach the level of dogma.

“Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview—nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty.”[1] When the ideas driving individuals reach the level of dogma, there arises a disconnect from reality. Dogma means accepting ideas and principles without question.[2]

This is what happens when a particular idea or goal is considered to be so vital, so important that achieving this goal is the focus of their being, their reality; an ideology is simply a set of beliefs shared by a particular group.[3]

The process proceeds in this way; first a group of individuals gather and discuss some particular goal, something important that is missing from their society. They reach a consensus on their goal and develop a plan to achieve it. At some point they might declare their goal is so vital any means must be used to reach their goal; this recognition may evolve over time as they recognize their goal is not being reached. The goal has then become their morality and their ideology has become dogma.

This mixing of goal and morality is a catastrophic blunder because it means there is no moral framework, no moral foundation to determine which actions are acceptable and which are not. {Moral Foundation} This is especially important for goals which are difficult to attain, those involving a long time frame. Without a moral framework it is too easy to take moral shortcuts when progress is not apparent. Impatience was a major factor in the downfall of Adam and Eve.

Our largely secular society may want to forget about our Heavenly Father, creator of all things and beings, but God is a fact of life who cannot be ignored. God is actually present within each thinking mortal on Earth. Recognizing the presence of our Heavenly father within each of us will provide a strong moral foundation and give us a chance to attain our idealistic goals because now our work is based on reality, on God.

No worthy goal can be attained without realizing God is with us and guiding us, we need only listen to Him and follow the spiritual guidance each of us receive.

  1. Stephen Jay Gould, quoted by John Mauldin in “Thoughts from the Frontline” 6/8/19 ↑

  2. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/ Retrieved 6/10/19 ↑

  3. Ibid ↑

Ideologically Driven Processes

This posting discusses “Ideologically Driven Processes.”

Ideologically driven processes occur when individuals seize upon a particular goal so strongly they will go to any length to attain it. They feel their goal is so vitally important anything is acceptable in their quest; this goal then becomes their morality. Their actions are no longer measured against right and wrong but against how it helps them reach their goal. There is no possibility of success when goal and morality become confused in this way.

An example of this is Communism. Their original goal was to attain a “workers’ paradise” where common labor would be properly compensated for their work, which is certainly a worthy goal. The problem with Communism is they had no moral foundation, they felt it was necessary to use any means whatsoever to attain that goal, thus resulting in the socially repressive conditions of their regimes. They felt obligated because of the difficulty in convincing governments to recognize the rights of workers; since they were impatient and wanted results soon they felt obligated to use strong methods. Once they started on the path of seeking their goal at all costs they gave up any chance of reaching that goal. Those who embark on such an ideologically driven process can never attain their goal because of their lack of moral foundation.

Having a moral foundation based on the truth that God is present within each thinking mortal on this planet is vital. When we realize this and use it as our moral compass, sorting out priorities becomes much easier.

Terrorists in general fall into this category because their goal, whether they seek social or religious reform, is seen to be so vitally important they feel conventional morality no longer applies, the supposedly transcendent goal has overtaken their morality.

Terrorists seek out those who feel disadvantaged in some way; this may not necessarily be because of poverty. Recruits would be carefully fed information to indicate a way out of their misery; once these individuals have fallen into the terrorist mindset it is difficult for them to return to society.

An article in Foreign Affairs Magazine addresses this point; “Teenage Terrorists Aren’t Lost Forever” by Nabeelah Jaffer discusses this issue of returning young terrorists to society. The radicalization process is termed “de-pluralization” where potential recruits are led to “see the world through the lens of a single story.” This story then becomes the focus of their existence as they buy into the terrorist mindset. “The urgency of the problem demands an urgent response: Violence seems justified in pursuit of a noble cause.” They have therefore bought into an ideologically driven process.

One way to return these individuals to society is, in effect, to reverse the process; in other words they aregradually introduced into a more pluralistic view of the world. Such procedures offer more promise than to force feed them “proper” dogma. The gradual pluralistic approach certainly seems the better way.

This process could be used in any instance where radicals have become fixated on a certain idealistic goal to the exclusion of morality. Such individuals could be introduced into a more pluralistic mindset, have their point of view expanded to the point where we all are sisters and brothers because each one of us has a spark of God within. A firm moral foundation must be in place before the needs of the disadvantaged can be addressed.