The title of this post is a subject I’ve been researching quite heavily for my upcoming book. This kind of analysis might seem simple at first but it’s actually quite tricky. So far, I’ve managed to find some great insights after hours of reading and researching, and I’ve come up with a number of ideas, but your perspectives may contain things I might have missed so please don’t hesitate to share them.
The involved complexity lies in this: to varying extents, our minds themselves are the products of the very ideological systems we seek to analyze and evolve.
So, how does one carry out this analysis as accurately as possible? Personally, I see at as an epistemological problem, one involving social contexts.
What do you think?
SudaneseThinker
SudaneseThinker
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Boo, no alternative ideas yet…
Give us time! It was the late evening for me.
Looking forward to it.
It is always difficult, and often impossible, to use one’s mind to understand itself.
In the case of social questions, there are some clues to be had from looking at other social animals and at non-social mammals such as polar bears.
Is it desirable to be a social mammal? Should one behave in the ways that social animals behave? Or is it better to be a hermit?
There is a simpler way. Immersion in a social context, different and distant from yours.
Living overseas outside of your society and in a foreign one for a long time can eventually enable you to look at your own as an “outsider”. Analyzing its ideological systems then becomes much easier and more accurate.
Here it goes…
“to varying extents, our minds themselves are the products of the very ideological systems we seek to analyze and evolve”
I guess this is similar to biological research, where we cannot easily understand how other animals perceive nature since we are used to perceiving nature our way.
Human beings _see_ things. Other aninmals are mostly guided by their sense of smell. They will perceive the same reality differently.
Ideology must be similar.
But our minds are free. And that means we can overcome the problem. Whereas we can never “see” the world like those animals that do not, in fact, “see”, we should be able to free our mind of most, if not all, the baggage that comes with one particular culture.
A child born blind will never develop the sense of smell of a dog or the sense of hearing of a bat.
But a child growing up in a culture different from his parents’ will develop into a fully functional animal of that culture.
So we have here, I believe, the same kind of difference but different limits as to how much we can change.
If a child without ideology can be taught any ideology, it should perhaps be possible for an adult to “switch” ideologies or perhaps understand the differences between different views better than he can ever understand the difference between being guided by a sense of sight and being guided by a sense of smell.
So how do you do that?
Obviously, it has to do with learning. Plus, it requires a good bullshit detector.
how does one carry out this analysis as accurately as possible?
interesting question, look forward to the book.
simple answer from me.
examine one’s own actions- beliefs work themselves out as actions.
silly eg but real life, belief- i disagree with lack of freedom of speech and even campaign for freedom of speech. everyone should be able to say what they want.
action- i create a blog and delete comments that are critical of me.
i think we’re all like that to an extent. i’ve found that it is sometimes hard to find out what we really believe until we’re put in a situation that tests those beliefs.
“Plus, it requires a good bullshit detector.”
LOL, I had a good laugh!
Anna, hmmm, interesting perspective. I like how you’ve focused on the way beliefs and ideologies translate into actions. So basically what you’re saying is that we look at the actions and we then reverse engineer.
and incase anyone asks, i won’t name the blogger in question.
Damn it. My response is too complicated. :\ It involves a lot of “epistemological standpoint/perspective” and other theoretical nonsense.
I will keep it to myself. >_>
drima,
“So basically what you’re saying is that we look at the actions and we then reverse engineer.”
yes, while not forgetting to give due regard to context, where applicable.
Drima,
Anna has a point. But when you look at the actions, that’s when you have to use the bullshit detector.
Is it a centuries-old tradition or just the invention of some nutter who finally flipped?
In many cases it’s the second. And while you can learn about a culture by observing the madmen it produces, you must not forget that they are not a primary source.
WARNING! Beware of “deconstructionism”, which starts by observing that all ideas and attitudes are products of a cultural context, and then goes on to say that therefore nothing can be stated for certain, EXCEPT: the deconstructionists have seen the truth and are therefore free of cultural bias, so any and all critiques they make of any cultures, which always seems to be the Western and especially American ones, is to be taken at face value.
Which is self-aggrandizing hooey, of course. BEWARE!
Anna, what you said was too simple yet too great.
to support you with a real example you can check out the debate between the great Drima and the Ponder http://www.sudanesethinker.com/2008/02/26/bashir-orders-boycott-of-anything-danish/
Ponder, criticism and threats don’t quite fall into the same category- please remember that!
and great he is, not many people can change their thinking when faced with the truth.
yah i know yet i cann’t get it?
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