In my last post, I wrote about the successes achieved by people who used analytical methods to forge their beliefs and make critical decisions in a wide variety of fields. In this post, I discuss the disastrous results that have consistently occurred when mankind has used ideological approaches to belief formation instead of the more effective analytical methods.
In my book, Path to Power, Road to Ruin: The Dangers of Political Ideologies, I identify six different classes of consequences that flow from mankind’s continuing commitment to ideologically based beliefs. They are briefly summarized below:
The first major and most serious consequence is that ideologies have triggered and rationalized dozens of incidents of mass murder where from one hundred thousand up to tens of millions people have been killed at one time and place. These deadly outcomes were specifically driven by religious, imperialist, nationalist, and racist ideologies and have accounted for the deaths of a quarter of a billion people and much human suffering throughout history. This is explained in more detail in both Chapter 1 and Appendix 1 of my book.
The second major consequence has happened when competing religious ideologies have triggered and prolonged long, running violent conflicts that have kept societies in conflict and unable to reconcile for long periods of time. Several examples are pertinent:
- Israel and the Arab World have been engaged in an ongoing eighty-year conflict, including four wars, the first beginning in 1948 when the state of Israel was formed, and the last just starting to wind down now. In spite of all this fighting, the struggle between the Jews and Muslim Arabs continues unabated.
- Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan have also been locked in an eight-decade long battle, again including four wars, that began in 1947 when India was partitioned into separate Hindu and Muslim countries. The conflict continues up to present day without any permanent resolution.
- Protestant England and Catholic Ireland were, until recently, engaged in a four hundred-year conflict, that began in the sixteenth century when Cromwell invaded and conquered Ireland and only recently was resolved with a peace accord.
- The centuries long struggle between Shia and Sunni Muslims over Islamic doctrinal differences has led to Muslims lining up on opposite sides of many conflicts and several wars in the Middle East throughout history.
The third major consequence has occurred where societies use religious and racial ideology to establish and preserve rigid societal hierarchies that justified the brutal repression of those on the bottom rungs of society. Examples include the Caste System in India, the Jim Crow laws in the American South, the Feudal System in medieval Europe, and the North Koreans system for ranking people in that nation’s communist society, all of which are described in more detail in Path to Power, Road to Ruin.
The fourth major consequence happens when ideologies polarize societies, as competing belief systems vie for dominance and refuse to compromise with the other side. In the US, people have become seriously divided over issues of politics, religion, race, and identity, and are unable to constructively engage in discussions about these subjects with the other side. This stalemate is destroying the effective functioning of our society.
The fifth consequence of ideologies is that every time in the last 100 years that humanity has had an opportunity, to move to a more conflict-free world, disruptive ideologies have intervened to block progress:
- After World War 1, when 15MM people died, the major countries of the world united in the push for a League of Nations, with the dream of creating a world without war. Those hopes were crushed by the rise of two disruptive belief systems, i.e. communism and fascism, that started new conflicts worldwide;
- After World War 2, when 60MM people were killed, the United Nations was established in the hope mankind could develop a more harmonious world order, but that vision was undermined by the decades-long power struggle between communism and capitalism.
- After the Fall of Communism in the late 1980’s, the lack of ideological competition for the U.S. and the hope that we could become a truly global world, with stable and peaceful relations, was crushed by the rise of Muslim extremism and two disruptive ideologically-driven powers, China and Russia, that are intent on world domination.
The sixth and final class of consequences flow from ideologies’ tendency to block people’s ability to think rationally and objectively. Ideologists do this by providing prepackaged solutions to life problems that they treat as absolute and non-negotiable. These solutions are designed to be blindly accepted without thought and analysis or proper consideration of evidence. No alternative forms of thought are allowed and critical thinking is actively discouraged. So, once people buy into ideologists ‘approaches, there is nothing left to do.
The central questions that logically flow from this discussion of the six ideological consequences is: what drives these horrible outcomes? And why are ideologies and ideological thinking so problematic? That will be the subject of my next post.