Ideology vs. Free Thought?

By definition, anything that is a set of ideas, is ideological; so pretty much everything is ideological.

The standard to which all ideologies are judged though, is usually through empiricism (evidence) and scientific-reasoning/critical-thinking (which are ideologies themselves); so when something is labelled ideological, it's mainly judged that it doesn't adhere to these scientific ideologies (which isn't a bad thing, as nobody can seriously contest these basic scientific ideologies, as they are so well proven).

So, my connotation of ideological, would be that something doesn't follow the above scientific/critical evidence-based principals (often is promoted despite them), or where such principals/skepticism are only selectively used against competing ideologies, never against the promoted one (only to promote it not criticize it).

Ya immersing yourself in challenging views is good at uncovering some of your own biases and spurs thought/learning, which is why I find a lot of the debates here interesting to participate in, as it's lead me to read up on a lot of things I wouldn't otherwise have had an interest in.
It's nice when those discussions stay well grounded in debating competing facts, rather than asserting the validity of one system of ideals over another (or entering trenches), or selectively applying skepticism to only competing ideas.

As good as it is to stay relatively open minded to different ideas, it's pretty essential to apply a heavy dose of skepticism to all viewpoints, and have viewpoints prove themselves on their own merits (or fall on their demerits); important to acknowledge problems too.
This would include determining the reputation and credibility of sources of information before accepting the material; this bit, as I mentioned earlier (spinning off this side discussion), seems to lead to a lot of selective application of skepticism

MOD NOTE:

With permission from the OP, I've pulled these posts out of the recommended book thread - this topic is worthy of discussion in and of itself.

Ya it's a good topic for a thread; the one issue I have, which I didn't explicitly touch on in my previous posts, is the idea that seems to imply everyone may be ideological, and that being a free thinker may not be possible due to unavoidable internal biases/assumptions.
Paraphrasing somewhat there, in a way I know may not accurately reflect what people meant in their posts, so please excuse if inaccurate; it's just the hint of an angle I felt may have been alluded to in these posts


There are a few issues with this, such as what you define as ideological (what my previous posts were about), and whether or not inaccurate assumptions/biases you hold can be judged as ideological, if you are open to challenging these assumptions/biases.
In my view, you could be on the extreme end of Libertarianism (even Anarchism) or Socialism, yet if you're willing to challenge your own assumptions/biases, and recognize when some of your beliefs are potentially emotionally or otherwise invested, and are able to admit that to yourself and others (i.e. are able to engage in critical thinking), you don't really have an ideological position.

Granted, you have to make a lot of assumptions and accept things on faith to get to those points of view in the first place (and it's a pretty big bias to put the burden of proof on disproving and ideology than proving it), but to me the judge of whether or not it (i.e. the person) is ideological is basically how much critical thinking is (or isn't) applied, and whether views are inflexibly held onto without skepticism, particularly if there's rejection or selective application of scientific/empirical study.


It's true though that nobody is free from hidden biases/assumptions, lots of which they aren't even aware of, and that when you accept any political (or other) set of ideas, there's always some amount of assumption/faith that it's groundwork is solid, but that doesn't disqualify the idea of free thinking in my view.
It depends on how much you apply skepticism and critical thinking to your own views and ideas, and how much you use the same plus research and evidence to judge the groundwork of your ideas.

MOD NOTE:

Valmont, there is a difference between people getting their backs up because they disagree with you and getting their backs up because you are taking what they see as potshots at them. Telling someone that they are an "angry Hegelian" or, as in previous threads, a Marxist, is not the way to encourage rational debate! Let people stake out their own positions, rather than labeling them as you see fit.

While the social aspect inherent in criticism through the scientific community is important, the most important aspect of it is (from my point of view) the ability and willingness to apply that to yourself, constantly, and be able to be forthcoming in acknowledging faults etc.; that self-critical nature (or lack of) I think is one of the core separations defining ideologues.

That kind of self-criticism also extends to determining how much credibility to put in sources and their writing/research which support your views, particularly checking past reputational issues and such which would warrant requiring a higher burden of proof for their claims/writing (this goes for scientific research, individual authors, think tanks, even entire academic institutions; if a source has reputational issues it deserves very high scrutiny).

A lot of politically-motivated ideologies tend to have a selective attitude towards this, tending to only apply such critical/skeptical standards against views/sources that oppose them, and to have a selective attitude to supporting sources which negates reputational issues, prioritizing the supporting voice over reputational concerns.

Reputational issues don't immediately disqualify a source, and their arguments can still stand on their own merits of course, but the enhanced burden of proof required of such sources usually tends to come secondary to having the supporting voice, when it comes to politically motivated ideologies.


So, getting back to the point after that mini-tangent The social side of the scientific process is still obviously important, but when lacking the individual self-criticism above (whatever the motive, be it political or simply some form of cognitive dissonance), the social side of the scientific process does not necessarily make any progress (as many discussions on Politics show, heh); things can get stalled in circular arguments, the debate can get muddied, and inflexible positions can get taken without much interest in resolving issues.

I've done a lot of reading on economics over the last half year, and the entire economics profession is a great example of this; much of it is very well grounded and very worthwhile, but there are key parts underpinning modern mainstream economic theory that are simply inaccurate/wrong, and which is resisting reform for many politically (and academic-career) motivated reasons, and it's taking decades to get over this.

Interestingly, the same thing can happen in the natural sciences as well, such as string theory in physics right now; there is absolutely no evidence backing string theory, and it is so complicated and undeveloped that it is highly unlikely there will be any way of testing or trying to disprove it within our lifetimes, but it is sucking up a disproportionate amount of theoretical physics research because a lot of people have invested so much of their academic careers (and lives) in researching it, and are still holding onto it at the expense of researching other potentially more fruitful theories.

Even one of the most fundamental and successful natural sciences is mired in that kind of politics, with the open question of whether or not string theory qualifies as science anymore, seeing as it's simply not falsifiable (and does not look like it will be anytime soon).


So anyway, what this shows is that while the social side of the scientific process is important, it is also mired in politics, and the core underpinning of it all starts with a willingness for open individual self-criticism; in order to make any progress in science (and most debates), the most important part is being able to self-criticize and openly acknowledge problems (and it's precisely the lack of that which tends to highlight ideologues).

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You seem to claim your and the Libertarian movements position as one of unimpeachable rationality, despite your repeated generalizations of other peoples views to such a high degree, and when there are massive reputational concerns throughout the Libertarian movement; doesn't matter how widely read someone is, what they have a Ph.D in, or how well versed in logical fallacies they are, if they (knowingly or unknowingly) routinely apply fallacious reasoning themselves.

You seem to, a priori, discard everything that can be remotely associated with Marxism or socialism in general, as if those philosophies (in whole) underlie the core motivations behind every policy you associate with them; that's fallacious in itself, and is a big (and often repeated) misrepresentation of peoples views.

That's far from the highly rational/logical position you claim to hold; there seems to be a lack of self-criticism there, towards your own views and to Libertarianism itself (particularly sources supporting it), like what I elaborated on earlier in my previous posts.
Critical standards applied to other peoples arguments/views, don't seem to be applied to yourself or your own views.

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MOD NOTE:

Because the issue of linking people's political positions to theorists that they do not affiliate with seems likely to spill over into more squabbling, I'd like to highlight the discussion on this thread:

Scofflaw wrote: »

Your problem - or the problem other posters are having with you - isn't complicated. By and large, the problem is one of self-identification. I don't object to someone pointing out that I'm a Green, or a social democrat, because I self-identify as both of those things.

But I could well find you telling me that such and such an idea of mine is 'Marxist' or 'Hegelian' annoying, even if the ideas in question have been expressed by those thinkers. I would also object if you told me my ideas were derived from Monbiot.

It's irrelevant to me whether those ideas have been expressed before and by whom unless I have picked them up from those thinkers and am aware of that fact - otherwise, it's just going to annoy me, because you are implicitly assigning to me a whole raft of other ideological ideas derived from those sources, as well as an admiration for those sources.

That's why the posters concerned claim to be free of ideology - because they are. Their espousal of an idea you identify as Hegelian isn't part of a Hegelian ideological stance, but simply an isolated idea that they approve of. You have no right to expect them to espouse other facets of that ideological opinion, and your belief that they're contradicting themselves by not doing so, or by espousing ideas from another ideological stance, says that the confusion is on your part. You're trying to label people neatly by ideological stance, and since the people concerned genuinely don't have an ideological stance but a grab-bag of ideas - often contradictory - it annoys them, and rightly so.

So there's no point, either, in refuting what the thinker you associate the idea with said about the idea, because the poster in question is not espousing their position but their own - spending your time attacking what Marx said about control of the means of production is of no relevance to someone who happens to think more worker co-ops are a nice idea but didn't derive the idea from Marx. I like the idea myself, but don't derive it from Marxist ideas about control of production - I like it because I believe people should be self-guiding and responsible, and it would annoy the hell out of me for someone to call my view 'Marxist' or to ascribe to me a Marxist ideological stance simply because at a very shallow level an idea I like happens to parallel one of Marx's ideological principles.

Further, there's no particular point pointing out how their espousal of idea A conflicts with their espousal of idea B. The whole point of ideologies is to provide a set of non-conflicting and ideally mutually reinforcing ideas based on a principle - but without an ideological stance to maintain, there is simply no requirement for people to have consistent or non-conflicting ideas.

The remedy is simple enough from a modding point of view - you should refrain from telling people they're Hegelians or Marxists based on the idea they espouse unless they self-identify as those things, because it's inaccurate and annoying.

Take people's ideas as presented by them, don't ascribe them to someone else unless they do, don't waste everyone's time attacking positions you ascribe to people on the basis of your attribution of their ideas.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Please be mindful of this when posting.