Roll Call, AW Conservatives

[AMCrenshaw]

I like Sartre a great deal. But he proceeds from an ideological foundation, too.

Let me be clear: I'm not speaking--necessarily--of specific and common ideologies, but of the reality that everyone approaches things through such a prism. AMC calls it a world view. Fine. But the idea that intent is lacking is flawed, in my view. No one thinks and speaks of the political, sans intent.

And with regard to Sartre, this is crystal clear. In many ways, he is an ideologue of the first order.

AMC also calls it having a perspective. It's a tight stretch equating ideology with perspective, is the main point. Not sure you'd disagree.

But there is something fishy here: we do speak of the political minus intent quite frequently. In fact, in politics we can only really be concerned with effects and consequences since deciphering intent (or sincerity) of politicians, for example, is utterly impossible. And, let's say one is concerned with intent, the only way to arrive there is through the continuity or discord in action and consequence-- even that's basically unreliable since it assumes some level of sincerity at some moment in time that simply might not be there.

I have an ideology I'm aware of. I entered it purposefully, intently. I doubt highly that I had one before. What I had before I also have now: perspective, but something else, something in addition to the normal prism is there as well.


AMC

 

[darkprincealain]

since it assumes some level of sincerity at some moment in time that simply might not be there.

Sincerity? There are some who'd argue it's not there when it comes to American politics. That generalization, though, is probably interpreting intent too broadly.

I think a lot of folks really do think they're doing the right thing, when they're not. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and all that.

 

[robeiae]

But there is something fishy here: we do speak of the political minus intent quite frequently. In fact, in politics we can only really be concerned with effects and consequences since deciphering intent (or sincerity) of politicians, for example, is utterly impossible.

I mean the intent of the speaker, of you, not the intent of those being spoken about.

No one opines on political issues without intent.

And I submit you always had an ideology. Perspective (and experience) brings clarity in this regard.

 

[Contemplative]

Is there such a thing as a personal ideology? No.

I'd love a cite on this.

I can't find any formal definition of Napoleon's ideology, just that he used it as a slur against intellectuals because 'intellectual' wasn't yet used as a term for people themselves -- and based on his posting style, I don't think Higgins wants to take an anti-intellectual stance here.

It seems clear to me from the first paragraph of Wiki:Ideology that for the common-use definition of 'ideology' you can have a personal, and entirely unique, ideology; the concept is therefore not synonymous with conformity or dogma.

The Marxist definition (where ideology is propagated down the hierarchy of social class to cause the working class to view the ruling class' best interests as their own) might exclude the possibility of a personal ideology, but it's pretty far off the common definition -- for example, pacifism and anarchism cannot be considered ideologies because they've never been propagated in this manner and wouldn't generally be useful to the ruling class. Clearly, it's a term-of-art and not what most people mean when they hear 'ideology'.

In response to a priori / a posteriori thing, I would hold that you can't define practical-in-the-abstract without specifying a goal that derives from one or more ideological axioms in either system. Experiential knowledge won't get you "ought" statements, just inductive reasoning and synthesis from sensory impressions; likewise, analytic knowledge takes facts and uses them to deduce other facts. Either form of knowledge can be used to deduce statements of the form "Action A will (likely) have effect A1, and action B will likely have effect B1, so the most practical choice to produce outcome C is B." However, neither will allow you to discern "I need outcome C" or "Outcome C is desirable" unless derived from a base ideological axiom ("Outcome C supports abstract outcome D, and is therefore desirable.") -- the axiom, of course, being that outcome D is, itself, desirable.

I invite anyone who disagrees with this to post a simple proof that deduces what action "should" be taken or what is "practical", and I'll show you where the implicit ideological axiom is.

 

[Higgins]

I'd love a cite on this.

I can't find any formal definition of Napoleon's ideology, just that he used it as a slur against intellectuals because 'intellectual' wasn't yet used as a term for people themselves -- and based on his posting style, I don't think Higgins wants to take an anti-intellectual stance here.

It seems clear to me from the first paragraph of Wiki:Ideology that for the common-use definition of 'ideology' you can have a personal, and entirely unique, ideology; the concept is therefore not synonymous with conformity or dogma.

The Marxist definition (where ideology is propagated down the hierarchy of social class to cause the working class to view the ruling class' best interests as their own) might exclude the possibility of a personal ideology, but it's pretty far off the common definition -- for example, pacifism and anarchism cannot be considered ideologies because they've never been propagated in this manner and wouldn't generally be useful to the ruling class. Clearly, it's a term-of-art and not what most people mean when they hear 'ideology'.

In response to a priori / a posteriori thing, I would hold that you can't define practical-in-the-abstract without specifying a goal that derives from one or more ideological axioms in either system. Experiential knowledge won't get you "ought" statements, just inductive reasoning and synthesis from sensory impressions; likewise, analytic knowledge takes facts and uses them to deduce other facts. Either form of knowledge can be used to deduce statements of the form "Action A will (likely) have effect A1, and action B will likely have effect B1, so the most practical choice to produce outcome C is B." However, neither will allow you to discern "I need outcome C" or "Outcome C is desirable" unless derived from a base ideological axiom ("Outcome C supports abstract outcome D, and is therefore desirable.") -- the axiom, of course, being that outcome D is, itself, desirable.

I invite anyone who disagrees with this to post a simple proof that deduces what action "should" be taken or what is "practical", and I'll show you where the implicit ideological axiom is.

It seems that you are conflating ideology with epistemology and reasoning and pretty much anything else anyone might have in their minds. If you separate out those terms that used to have non-ideological associations (terms such as "thinking", "reasoning", "rationale", "motivation","plan","good idea", "bad idea", "notion","image", "expectation", "longing", "desire" and so on), that is remove all that was formerly supposed to be going on in one's head...then ideology reduces to a managable size and correponds roughly to the iconographic motivational efforts of a state or a religion or a political movement. I'm sure ideology does mean something, but I'm also sure that it is not the same as everything involved in reasoning and assessing.

 

[AMCrenshaw]

And I submit you always had an ideology. Perspective (and experience) brings clarity in this regard.

Or did an ideology have me? At any rate, it's hard for me to believe that children, for example, have and always will have ideologies.

No one opines on political issues without intent.

I agree, but not everyone's intentions are to change others' opinions-- I find political discussion more so entertaining than I think of it as an opportunity to persuade the general you to my way of thinking.


[Will (making a choice/deciding for oneself what "should" happen then doing it) =* ideology

perspective (having the ability to view the world-- or view something of it) = ideology

specific desire = ideology]

?




AMC


* equals, points to, is evidence of...

 

[robeiae]

I have very little hope that I will change anyone's opinion. Really.

But then again, maybe the horse will learn to sing...

 

[Zoombie]

You've changed my opinion a few times, Rob!

 

[robeiae]

You've changed my opinion a few times, Rob!

That doesn't bode well for you...

 

[Deleted member 42]

Rob, Haskins, Robert Toy--and probably others I'm forgetting to name--have encouraged me to see things differently several times.

And that's one of the reasons I'm not actively campaigning to shut this forum--even though it's more work for the Mods and arbiters than, I think, any other single forum.

There are a lot of good people of good will here, writing and thinking hard.

 

[robeiae]

There are a lot of good people of good will here, writing and thinking hard.

Speaking for Haskins and Toy, I object to that charcterization!



Man, I kill myself sometimes...

 

[Robert Toy]

So you are getting the wire transfers