Would non-ideological thinking in politics be good or bad for the US and the world?

[Tammuz]

Please read these two interrelated blogposts:

Radical Political Views Correlates with Poor Metacognition

Against Ideology

The core message, I think, is opposition to ideology. To refuse to carry water for your political tribe because they are your political tribe, and thinking everyone else is evil. Or to refuse to deny facts (for example, climate change, as given as an example) because it is ideologically uncomfortable. Imagine if the sort of thinking that is espoused in these blogposts became more widespread in the US, and the world. Do you think that would be a good thing or a bad thing?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Please read these two interrelated blogposts:

Radical Political Views Correlates with Poor Metacognition

Against Ideology

The core message, I think, is opposition to ideology. To refuse to carry water for your political tribe because they are your political tribe, and thinking everyone else is evil. Or to refuse to deny facts (for example, climate change, as given as an example) because it is ideologically uncomfortable. Imagine if the sort of thinking that is espoused in these blogposts became more widespread in the US, and the world. Do you think that would be a good thing or a bad thing?

Personally I think it would be a great thing.

It is our emotional attachments that keep us blind and permit us to make bad decisions. I'm not saying we should somehow now become anti-emotional robotic ideologues either, merely that we should be able to recognize when we are reacting and behaving emotionally. Emotions are for feeling good, they're not for making decisions.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Is non-ideological thinking even possible? I'm doubtful.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

There's two ways you can interpret "non ideological thinking". One is "carrying water for your tribe", which is less about ideology than about party. It really is. If you support everything your party does because it is your party, you aren't thinking, you've chosen a side.

The other is thinking about the ideas themselves, and non-ideological thinking is not even possible. Everyone has an ideology, unique to themselves, even if it overlaps greatly with that of other people with their own ideologies. Whether similar to others or deviant from others, everyone has an ideology, because that simply means "what you believe".

Some people try to get around this by saying "I'm just a pragmatist", but that brings forth the question of "pragmatic towards what end?" If you believe in low unemployment, there is a pragmatic way to reach that goal, and if you believe in high unemployment there is a pragmatic way to reach that goal. If your preferred inflation rate is -2%, 0%, 3%, or 10000000000%, there is a pragmatic way to reach any one of those goals. So everyone, even those "pragmatists" have an ideology.