Are you an ideologue?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

"Ideologue" is a generally negative term suggesting something well beyond having ones actions informed by an ideology. An ideologue is someone who follows the dictates or implications of an ideology in preference to fact, sense or decency. It is the secular--and sometimes not so secular--equivalent of religious fanaticism.

"One person one vote" is an ideology. Opposition to torture and censorship are idealogical.

Taking things like that seriously doesn't necessarily make one an ideologue.

When Stalin dictated how genetics works based on his interpretation of Marx and ruthlessly suppressed inconvenient experimental data, that was the ideologue act par excellence. The French Revolution overthrowing the calendar was prime ideologue stuff... the purpose of a calendar is for people to be able to agree which day it is and the sudden institution of a 'scientific' calendar (at a time when people had a lot of more pressing stuff to worry about) did not make society work any better. It was a primitive, religious sort of act.

Everyone picks their poison. I am a First Amendment absolutist. I think that works, but I readily admit that I have less and less interest in arguing with people about it. I feel that the principles involved make First Amendment discussions very different from "Is the I-66 connector spur a good use of highway funds." Short of extraordinary negative outcomes like human extintion or universal poverty, violence and disease I don't really care what inconveniences flow from intellectual and expressive freedom, just as I don't much care about the 'ticking bomb' scenarios in torture discussions. There are times you say, "No means no."

Any time you disagree with someone motivated by principle it is easy to brand them an ideologue, and sometimes it is true.

But it is primarily just a rhetorical device to denigrate the opposition. It is easy to dismiss another person's principles as rigid ideaology... as easy as it is to proclaim ones own impractical pet notions as common sense.

Ironically, even bipartisan and post-idealogical are ideologies and one can be a bipartisan ideologue. If a person opts for an inferior course of action out of abstract devotion to bipartisanship as a good or reflexively rejects ideas because they are associated with an ideology he is being a radical-moderate. (David Broder is a radical moderate.)

The Goldilocks assumption that compromise is intrinsically "just right" can lead to the worst possible outcomes. Should we spend 600 Billion to reach the Moon or not? The worst plan would be to spend 300 billion to reach halfway to the moon. 300 Billion spent with nothing to show for it.

Sometimes the most sensible, pragmatic thing is also fairly radical because there are tipping points and critical thresh-holds. (A 2 trillion dollar stimulus plan is probably less risky and more fiscally responsible than a 1 trillion dollar plan because the values of different outcomes are extreme. But don't expect many in congress or the white house to grasp that because we are sometimes mired in the futile swamp of the moderate-ideologue.)

[ddeclue]

1. K&R nt

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. (OP edited to make headline more confrontational, in proper DU style.)

[Forkboy]

3. I would consider myself one.

At times I fall into the "radical-moderate" trap of reflexively rejecting right wing ideas, but I'm not convinced that's a bad thing yet.

I can't imagine living a life with no ideals at all. Sure, like anything, it can be taken too far, but to have none seems inhuman....but enough about Cheney.

I'll always remember an exchange with my father about 20 years ago. I was always pretty left wing, cocky, and willing to share an opinion (a DUer just waiting to be born!), and naturally it's gotten me into more than a few scraps. After one brawl (started over the first Iraq War) I was visiting my father, and I had a bandage on my ear (a piece got lost somehow lol), bloody knuckles and a gash over my eye. So my father got really upset at me, and seemed focused not on whether what I had said that led to the fight was correct, but more that I shouldn't have said it at all. He finally said, "You have too many ideals for your own good."

I looked right at him and said, "Maybe you don't have enough anymore."

That was the last time he got on me for being idealistic, and he still says my response sums me up perfectly. For good or ill, I guess. :)

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

11. That probably means you aren't

It amy be one of those things only the innocent fess up to.

[Terran]

4. Pretty much, yes.

28 years of Republicans will do that to you. They've been wrong about *everything*, that's more or less the basis of my ideology.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

5. Sure and after the last couple of decades it seems that I was proven right (especially

the last 8 years).

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. I'm with you on that. (Who said "I try to be cynical but I can't keep pace with reality"?)

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

7. And I don't say that to be cocky even though it may read like that.

I wish I would have been wrong about a lot of things. I think we'd all be happier.

Now you got me looking all over the interwebs for that quote but I can't find anything.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

8. from the google: Lily Tomlin once said "No matter how cynical you get, you can't keep up."

I doubt she was the first to say it. (I had been thinking Gore Vidal, but it's probably been said throughout history.)

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

9. It wouldn't surprise me if it came from Vidal. That is on cynical bastard and I love him for it. nt

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

10. "The last time I voted was 1968 when I voted for the Peace candidate, Richard Nixon." -- Gore Vidal

[sohndrsmith]

12. I don't think that fits me whatsoever. I think in shades of grey,

or maybe more accurately, I don't assume that something is right because it's always been that way or that most people think it is so.

I vehemently oppose judging others based on insufficient or inaccurate or unreasonable information, as I've been on the wrong end of this myself and it is always wrong. It taught me that many things have particular components that we don't expect, and when we judge based on our own assumptions it can be hurtful - it can profoundly affect lives, in fact.

I don't believe that all "______"s are "_____" especially when such statements are intended to insult, demean, diminish or berate. It's just inaccurate, if nothing else...

So I guess I'm not an ideologue : )