the "ism" - our own personal neurosis

The preamble: I have this awful habit of starting books and not finishing them. I don't really read literature or fiction so this habit of mine can be pretty maddening sometimes. That's my disclaimer in saying that I will say, from time to time, that I read a particular book but I want to be clear that I may not have actually finished it. With all that being said:

The case: I read this book called "Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality" by a guy named Donald Miller. At some point in this book Don points out two very interesting ideas which provoke two very unsavory questions.

1. Human selfishness (or ego-centrism) is the root of all iniquity. It is this unchecked self-love that sits at the core of all human suffering and evil.

2. This human selfishness, the core of evil and suffering, is what produces ideologies which individuals integrate into their identities. These ideologies are indicative of the mental derangement existing in all of us.

As mentioned in the sidebar, ideologies are an "integrated belief system" that defines values, moderates behavior, and helps formulate the identity of the believer. If you thought about it for a while you might begin to consider an ideology as a pair of colored sunglasses. These glasses block certain effects of the Sun that are inconvenient and inconducive to our desires, but in turn ends up distorting the vision of reality. The shape and form of the world doesn’t much change under ideology, but it becomes tinted, shaded, and colored. Some aspects are harder to see, and are flushed out by the overwhelming tint of the ideology. Some aspects become impossible to see or distinguish. Ideology filters out those aspects of reality that are inconvenient or potentially “harmful” to the agenda of one’s self – but at the expense of truth.

An ideology can come in many forms but shows up most especially in political, social, and religious manifestations. These forms – often made taboo in sensitive environments (such as the workplace) due to the disruptive and potentially explosive nature of discussions based around them – are values-oriented and form a symbiotic-circle with one another. What I mean by that is this: a person's values will lead one to a particular ideology and will fuel the ideology until, at a particular turning point, the ideology begins to turn on the believer and takes an active role defining values, creating conformity and acting as an intrapersonal enforcement mechanism. Once an ideology begins to set the values-structure of a person, the ideology becomes part of the person’s identity and cannot become un-rooted without challenging (in the very least) or re-creating (in the most extreme and eventual cases) that person’s identity.

Most ideological systems are easily identified with the "ism". An "ism" is defined as a "system, doctrine, or theory" that is built around the joined ideology. You see it everywhere. Conservatism, communism, patriotism, Calvinism, racism, Catholicism, pacifism, terrorism, atheism, etc. Ideologies are the frameworks of beliefs and the gatekeepers of values. Of course, not all ideologies have an "ism" (such as "Christianity") and not all "isms" are ideological in nature (such as "autism"). But these ideologies and their isms are dangerous to anyone dedicated to truth.

Ideologies are dangerous because they do have a tendency to become dogmatic – allowing for no critical self-examination. In a sense they’re something of a developing neurosis where they begin to take over the mind’s ability to perceive reality objectively and, once securely in place, will begin to identify (or fabricate) deviant or enemy thought processes outside of the structure. Once the ideology has identified sufficient threats, it then spends all critical energies outward and builds a shield against any challenges to itself. Ascribing to any particular ideology makes it incredibly difficult to be intellectually honest about the reality in which we all live. Because it is inherently self-centric, ideology has a particularly misanthropic aspect to it, preferring to define and label – a divisive process creating a very “us and them” mindset. Even ideologies that have their roots in benign or philanthropic activities (such as pacifism or the abolitionism of the nineteenth century) can over time become incredibly divisive, mean-spirited, antagonistic and dogmatic.

The questions: What ideology or ism have you ascribed to? When did it happen? How have you changed since then? If provided with sufficient proof or evidence that this ideology was damaging you and hindering your search for the truth, would you feel comfortable abandoning the values structure that you've derived from your ideology? Could you cast it off easily? Or would you have to reshape your entire worldview and identity?

No easy answers... just hard questions.