As someone who’s full of ideas, but tries (sometimes fails) not to adhere to a certain ideology, I’m really excited to be part of this community. For the past eight months, I’ve been interviewing people from all over the world. At first, I thought that meant being a “global citizen” because problems like climate change, poverty, inequality, famine, war, and the popularity of Reggaeton are global problems that take a global mindset to solve.
But upon further reflection, I realised the term “global citizen” has become an ideology in itself. Now, I’m just trying to be part of a balance of stories. Stories that don’t push one ideology over another. Stories that show we’re a diverse species of primates just trying to figure ourselves out.
Also, you write “I am very aware that our words have become politicized, that they come with biases and baggage. But they don’t need to. They can just be words. Words we use to explain things.” I agree, but do you think this is possible? These words are ideographs, which operate enthymematically. They almost always counts on its consumers to provide the necessary information to understand the argument. They are the building blocks of ideologies. To separate these words from all the contexts and ideology seems really difficult. A great paper about this is The Truth About Ideographs: Progress Toward Understanding and Critique by Josh Boyd
Welcome!!!!! I never thought of a global citizen as being an ideology, but I can see why that might be the case. Words definitely have a lot of baggage, but that's where I think taking the extra minute to describe what I mean by a word can be helpful. Rather than just letting the word fall and hoping they think of it the same way I do!
You had me at the title Elle. And the rest turned me into a paid Substack subscriber for the first time. I'm looking forward to the next 12 months as you meander through each ideology. What a treat.
Chris? I am so honored! I am a huge Insight Timer user—we have got to collab in some way. Maybe when I'm studying Aldous Huxley's Island in August? (Which is all about incorporating elements of buddhism and ideals of personal wellbeing into the government.)
Thank you so much for being here! I could not be more thrilled to engage in some of these discussions with you!
Killer post as always. The guiding quote of my thinking life has been Andre Gide's, "Believe those who seek truth, doubt those who find it." I don't always respect it--the mythical gods know I am opinionated--but to come at a discussion from a legitimate space of curiosity versus conviction seems to be as good a starting point for a conversation as any.
The one caveat I'll suggest here--and it's something that I think currently plagues a lot of social discourse in the US of A--is that in a socioeconomic culture that defines comfort as the preferred goal, it is VERY hard to get into the nitty gritty with people as soon as the conversation causes discomfort. To make a simplistic argument, because I live in France, Americans (myself included) need to accept the reality of smelly cheeses in the fridge. Sometimes our senses will be offended for good reason. And that's okay.
Oh I love that quote. I also love the idea of curiosity vs. conviction! Maybe it's my just my personality type but when it comes to discourse on the internet, I've rarely seen discomfort go well. In fact, I would argue that most of our online discourse is going for discomfort and it's not working. It's just making everyone ground in their heels and stick to their sides.
Maybe it's possible to inject a little discomfort into an in-person conversation where you can be more nuanced, but online I kind of think everyone needs to feel comfortable in order to brainstorm together. Once one person is offended, the conversation is over. I'm fine with smelly cheese in the fridge, but once one person starts being smelly in an online conversation the whole thing turns sour!
But again, maybe it's just me. All it takes is one person saying mean things about me on Twitter for me to delete the whole thing 🤣 Others are able to stick around a lot longer....
Yeah this is certainly in part a personality thing, but I do think so much of the discourse you're referring to isn't really about discomfort so much as disdain for other people's opinions and sacrosanct line-in-the-sand thinking. Discomfort, in my mind, requires that both parties enter into a space where their ideologies / politics are left at the door. To your point, very few people do that online. And as for someone saying shitty things to you on Twitter, well fuck Twitter. Have you seen who runs that monstrosity these days? Some guy called Muskrat or Yvonne Tusk, I couldn't tell ya, but apparently thinks he thinks he can own the moon or something even though his space ships keep exploding. Sounds like something out of a fiction novel.
May 24, 2023·edited May 24, 2023Liked by Elle Griffin
Along with George Washington and John Adams, I believe political parties are the root of all evil in government. They lock people into rigid ideologies that don’t allow for individual thought and opinions, or compromise. I think politicians should be regular citizens who serve a single term and then go back to private life. Everyone an independent candidate. Government was supposed to serve us, not rule us.
I believe it was the original intention of the Founding Fathers. George Washington refused to declare a party because he wanted to be President of all the people.
This sentence is so refreshing and has my *vote*: "I always say that I have a lot of ideas but no ideologies."
As soon as labels (party names) are applied, thinking stops. Granted, a lot of power in labels--that I do not deny--but I'd like a space to think things out and revisit and challenge and to turn upside down, our current status quo, to optimize it. Oh wait! We DO have that place! It is The Elysian! :) @ellegriffin.substack.com
I've come to feel a live and let live attitude is the most honoring thing I can do. However, It's not popular with people who are certain they know what is best for others
It is a conundrum. I have seen so-called socialism destroyed by totalitarianism and so-called democracy destroyed by commericalism. I see the West deteriorating because people are treated as puppets manipulated by pupeteers who sell products for profit. The notion in this society of success comes more from greed than unity.
When I worked as a journalist in the old regimes I met people who wanted a new form of socialism, they did not want capitalism and found socialism even with all its flaws, flawed as it was utilised then, to be better for women - more equality means better sex. And people did so much outside of work, they didn't judge each other by their jobs but by the exchange of ideas, their sharing of interests, their outside work activities.
Like you I try to leave the partyism, the lines that divide - which are all pretty centrist anyway, and read, and debate with myself if no one else. And like you, I am willing to change. I've been reading Rousseau and Voltaire lately and trying to figure where it went wrong. How can we have change without violence and more pain? And yet how can we allow the violence and pain that is a result of disparity to continue?
As writers we might not have the answers but we need to go on the quest to find answers and when we show the quest we give people the chance to make their own choices. I will try to follow your book list but I am coming in late. I love the ideas, and live by the notion that respectful disagreement is so much more honourable than complicit pretence. We can learn from the debate and exchange. And we owe it to writers to read, to learn, to think.
There is certainly commercialism, there is certainly greed, there is certainly a degradation of some things. But I still believe we live in the best version of the world thus far (and that things weren't better for Rousseau and Voltaire), so I am at least starting from there. Now it's how do we make things better from here, and I'm with you on that quest for answers. We don't need to respond with complicit pretense, but I think we can also one up respectful disagreement!
I don't understand it to be the best version. I live in New Zealand where pre colonial Māori indigenous societies, like many indigenous societies, paid more heed to the environment, living alongside the environment, and where values like manaakitanga - caring for other people were important. Children weren't harmed either. It wasn't ideal but it provides a better example I think than what we have now. I wouldn't want to be poor or homeless in my society not here or in the US or in the UK. If poverty looks the same do we really have the best system? Until life is better for those at the bottom of this awful ladder, I won't think so. Equal outcome means providing the basics - shelter, food, a basic way of surviving for all. That should be the starting point for any society.
Hmmmm yeah, that's a good point. Maybe it was better to be poor among an indigenous community than it would be to be poor today. And maybe that was because there were stronger communal ties, stronger connection with the environment, etc. I'm sure there's a lot we can learn from indigenous communities. That's amazing you've been able to witness that in your local community! And I definitely agree we need to make life better for the bottom (that's the top priority really). I was definitely thinking more overall/as a whole with that statement.
Hear, hear! The two major political parties in the US have huge incentives to create divisions and they spend billions to do it well. But, there is actually an amazing amount of common ground around the outcomes that we want as a society. At the same time, I understand that battle lines are being drawn in a high-stakes game and political engagement is necessary to affect change. No easy solve, but it could certainly be better. The current debt ceiling debates make this very clear.
"There is actually an amazing amount of common ground around the outcomes that we want as a society." <- YES!!!!!! We're not so divided as we're made out to be. You're right, battle lines are being drawn because of the way our political system operates, but it's not the way to collaboration. We can figure out something better....
It really is very important to look at things from multiple perspectives, because it generally is completely impossible to understand something by looking at it from one angle. In The Matter With Things, Iain McGilchrist brings up the analogy of the Zen garden, where no matter what spot you stand on, you can't see all the features at the same time, and all this big lofty stuff about utopia works like that too.
It's almost 2000 pages long and I haven't finished it (I stopped at one of the last chapters, which is on the sacred, as I don't think I care about a philosopher writing on the sacred. I may come back to it though), but what I read (almost 90%) was worth it. I think it would be very useful for someone who believes materialism and its concomitant vision of the clockwork universe is the truth (don't know if these are your metaphysics), as it would definitely break that.
There's a great chapter exploring all the ways in which organisms are not machines, since quite a lot of biologists do conceptualize organisms as an elaborate clockwork.
May 22, 2023·edited May 22, 2023Liked by Elle Griffin
Very well said, Elle! My own professional path has taken me into roles in government and the public sector, where I’ve worked on both sides of the ideological spectrum in mainstream American politics. This spectrum is presented as a vast unbridgeable gulf in popular media. Undoubtedly that is rooted in some grains of truth. But it misses two very crucial points: 1) the range of ideas about how to live a good life and structure a cohesive society are far more vast than the suite of options offered by the mainstream parties (in the United States); and 2) ideologies, as I’ve experienced them, are a combination of tribal signaling and mental models that are decent enough as shorthand methods of cooperating or defecting in circumstances of political debate, but they are inherently limiting and restrain, rather than expand, their adherents ability to analyze problems and work cooperatively, or even alone, to build a better world.
Very well said. I think you're right about all of these things being shorthand tribal signaling. But all that does is pit us against one another, forcing people to take sides. And that's probably the worst thing we can do!
That's amazing you've worked on both sides of American politics, I'll be curious to learn more about your perspectives as we dig into some of this source material!
So I've been following this series with great interest, and trying to understand it through the lens of my fictional town that I've been writing about in my murder mystery novel. (My novel is like your political ideas example, multi-layered, with bits borrowed from a variety of sources). Currently my fictional town is a crap-bucket, but through applying what I learn from you and the Elysian League, my aim is to gradually make the town a better place to live through poverty reduction, responsible and wide-spread economic growth, and cleaning up all of the things that have brought the town's standard of living down. Application of all the ideas discussed here to Sitka Cove will help me to grasp those concepts better.
I've gotten my hands on copies of a few of the books you've listed in your self-made curriculum (which was a fascinating and inspiring idea, btw!), and I can't wait to dive in to Ursula LeGuin, Kim Stanley Robinson and all the others. This whole concept you've come up with, and nurtured here is what I'd hoped college was like, and what I hoped the internet would be like.
You're much more invigorating, honest and enjoyable to hang out with!
Oooooh, I love the sound of your town!!!! Why not make it a better place to live, and think through some of the ways we can do it!!! (Lord knows there are too many books set in Gotham City 🤣)
And I'm so excited that you are enjoying my curriculum!!!!! Kim Stanley Robinson will be joining us for a discussion as we get closer to November, and I could not be more thrilled to learn from his perspectives!!!! I really feel like I'm geeking out here so it makes me so happy that you are geeking out with me haha 🤓 THIS IS what I'd hoped college would be like!!!!
So glad you're here, and thank you so much for all the incredible feedback. I'm so grateful to have a likeminded soul here!
Sitka Cove will be my thought experiment, and I couldn't be more excited to learn all I can on the different ways to improve life there. It's a town founded on the logging industry back at the turn of the century-ish, with a new mine within driving distance. The mine is owned by an industrialist who has visions of integrated industry, and their own increasing power within the town. But (keep in mind this is a murder mystery novel), the quest for power is often fed by greed and secrets, and so there are lots of those too. Where does the growth of this potential Utopia come in? There is a town councilor who has visions and dreams of making Sitka Cove as close to Utopia as it can be.
So I can say that all this learning I'm doing at your elbow (so to speak) is research for my novel, right? Although it might slow down publication a bit...
Well said. I’ve actively refused to identify with an ideology for as long as I can remember. All my favorite people are people who do the same; who just see things clearly. Honestly, I think identifying with an ideology is how you get into a lot of trouble, even if the ideology is really good. Ideologies are only ever sound in theory--in real life, pluralism is always more effective and more harmonious. This applies to everything from politics to spirituality. I’ve never come across any evidence to the contrary.
The problem with ideologies and even political parties (especially in countries with a two-party system like the US or the UK) is that people assume you agree with most if not all their ideas. Republican? Immediately you're pro guns, anti abortion. In one fell swoop. This is obliviously silly and not nuanced at all. So I totally agree with your POV that you can take ideas from every ideology to create something that suits the context of a particular country. And for that, you need to study every idea without biases.
Right! There is nothing worse than when I write an essay and people immediately assume my entire belief system. You're right, it's not nuanced at all. And I expect most of us are entirely nuanced!
As someone who’s full of ideas, but tries (sometimes fails) not to adhere to a certain ideology, I’m really excited to be part of this community. For the past eight months, I’ve been interviewing people from all over the world. At first, I thought that meant being a “global citizen” because problems like climate change, poverty, inequality, famine, war, and the popularity of Reggaeton are global problems that take a global mindset to solve.
But upon further reflection, I realised the term “global citizen” has become an ideology in itself. Now, I’m just trying to be part of a balance of stories. Stories that don’t push one ideology over another. Stories that show we’re a diverse species of primates just trying to figure ourselves out.
Also, you write “I am very aware that our words have become politicized, that they come with biases and baggage. But they don’t need to. They can just be words. Words we use to explain things.” I agree, but do you think this is possible? These words are ideographs, which operate enthymematically. They almost always counts on its consumers to provide the necessary information to understand the argument. They are the building blocks of ideologies. To separate these words from all the contexts and ideology seems really difficult. A great paper about this is The Truth About Ideographs: Progress Toward Understanding and Critique by Josh Boyd
Welcome!!!!! I never thought of a global citizen as being an ideology, but I can see why that might be the case. Words definitely have a lot of baggage, but that's where I think taking the extra minute to describe what I mean by a word can be helpful. Rather than just letting the word fall and hoping they think of it the same way I do!
You had me at the title Elle. And the rest turned me into a paid Substack subscriber for the first time. I'm looking forward to the next 12 months as you meander through each ideology. What a treat.
Chris? I am so honored! I am a huge Insight Timer user—we have got to collab in some way. Maybe when I'm studying Aldous Huxley's Island in August? (Which is all about incorporating elements of buddhism and ideals of personal wellbeing into the government.)
Thank you so much for being here! I could not be more thrilled to engage in some of these discussions with you!
Killer post as always. The guiding quote of my thinking life has been Andre Gide's, "Believe those who seek truth, doubt those who find it." I don't always respect it--the mythical gods know I am opinionated--but to come at a discussion from a legitimate space of curiosity versus conviction seems to be as good a starting point for a conversation as any.
The one caveat I'll suggest here--and it's something that I think currently plagues a lot of social discourse in the US of A--is that in a socioeconomic culture that defines comfort as the preferred goal, it is VERY hard to get into the nitty gritty with people as soon as the conversation causes discomfort. To make a simplistic argument, because I live in France, Americans (myself included) need to accept the reality of smelly cheeses in the fridge. Sometimes our senses will be offended for good reason. And that's okay.
Oh I love that quote. I also love the idea of curiosity vs. conviction! Maybe it's my just my personality type but when it comes to discourse on the internet, I've rarely seen discomfort go well. In fact, I would argue that most of our online discourse is going for discomfort and it's not working. It's just making everyone ground in their heels and stick to their sides.
Maybe it's possible to inject a little discomfort into an in-person conversation where you can be more nuanced, but online I kind of think everyone needs to feel comfortable in order to brainstorm together. Once one person is offended, the conversation is over. I'm fine with smelly cheese in the fridge, but once one person starts being smelly in an online conversation the whole thing turns sour!
But again, maybe it's just me. All it takes is one person saying mean things about me on Twitter for me to delete the whole thing 🤣 Others are able to stick around a lot longer....
Yeah this is certainly in part a personality thing, but I do think so much of the discourse you're referring to isn't really about discomfort so much as disdain for other people's opinions and sacrosanct line-in-the-sand thinking. Discomfort, in my mind, requires that both parties enter into a space where their ideologies / politics are left at the door. To your point, very few people do that online. And as for someone saying shitty things to you on Twitter, well fuck Twitter. Have you seen who runs that monstrosity these days? Some guy called Muskrat or Yvonne Tusk, I couldn't tell ya, but apparently thinks he thinks he can own the moon or something even though his space ships keep exploding. Sounds like something out of a fiction novel.
Ok well in that case, discomfort isn't discomfort. It's just having a conversation to decide what you think. I feel comfortable doing that 🤣
But yes, most of the times that's not how people act online 🤦🏼♀️
Along with George Washington and John Adams, I believe political parties are the root of all evil in government. They lock people into rigid ideologies that don’t allow for individual thought and opinions, or compromise. I think politicians should be regular citizens who serve a single term and then go back to private life. Everyone an independent candidate. Government was supposed to serve us, not rule us.
I love this idea.
I believe it was the original intention of the Founding Fathers. George Washington refused to declare a party because he wanted to be President of all the people.
It just makes so much sense!
This post convinced me to sign up for a year.
WELL THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!! 🥰🥰🥰
This sentence is so refreshing and has my *vote*: "I always say that I have a lot of ideas but no ideologies."
As soon as labels (party names) are applied, thinking stops. Granted, a lot of power in labels--that I do not deny--but I'd like a space to think things out and revisit and challenge and to turn upside down, our current status quo, to optimize it. Oh wait! We DO have that place! It is The Elysian! :) @ellegriffin.substack.com
Ha!!!! You're the best. I am more than happy to create it!!!!!!! Thank you for meeting me here!
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function"
even better is multiple rather than two.
Well I am so grateful it makes me intelligent and not, well the opposite. 🤓
I've come to feel a live and let live attitude is the most honoring thing I can do. However, It's not popular with people who are certain they know what is best for others
It is a conundrum. I have seen so-called socialism destroyed by totalitarianism and so-called democracy destroyed by commericalism. I see the West deteriorating because people are treated as puppets manipulated by pupeteers who sell products for profit. The notion in this society of success comes more from greed than unity.
When I worked as a journalist in the old regimes I met people who wanted a new form of socialism, they did not want capitalism and found socialism even with all its flaws, flawed as it was utilised then, to be better for women - more equality means better sex. And people did so much outside of work, they didn't judge each other by their jobs but by the exchange of ideas, their sharing of interests, their outside work activities.
Like you I try to leave the partyism, the lines that divide - which are all pretty centrist anyway, and read, and debate with myself if no one else. And like you, I am willing to change. I've been reading Rousseau and Voltaire lately and trying to figure where it went wrong. How can we have change without violence and more pain? And yet how can we allow the violence and pain that is a result of disparity to continue?
As writers we might not have the answers but we need to go on the quest to find answers and when we show the quest we give people the chance to make their own choices. I will try to follow your book list but I am coming in late. I love the ideas, and live by the notion that respectful disagreement is so much more honourable than complicit pretence. We can learn from the debate and exchange. And we owe it to writers to read, to learn, to think.
Thank you!
Well said Saige.
Thank you Finlay.
There is certainly commercialism, there is certainly greed, there is certainly a degradation of some things. But I still believe we live in the best version of the world thus far (and that things weren't better for Rousseau and Voltaire), so I am at least starting from there. Now it's how do we make things better from here, and I'm with you on that quest for answers. We don't need to respond with complicit pretense, but I think we can also one up respectful disagreement!
I don't understand it to be the best version. I live in New Zealand where pre colonial Māori indigenous societies, like many indigenous societies, paid more heed to the environment, living alongside the environment, and where values like manaakitanga - caring for other people were important. Children weren't harmed either. It wasn't ideal but it provides a better example I think than what we have now. I wouldn't want to be poor or homeless in my society not here or in the US or in the UK. If poverty looks the same do we really have the best system? Until life is better for those at the bottom of this awful ladder, I won't think so. Equal outcome means providing the basics - shelter, food, a basic way of surviving for all. That should be the starting point for any society.
Hmmmm yeah, that's a good point. Maybe it was better to be poor among an indigenous community than it would be to be poor today. And maybe that was because there were stronger communal ties, stronger connection with the environment, etc. I'm sure there's a lot we can learn from indigenous communities. That's amazing you've been able to witness that in your local community! And I definitely agree we need to make life better for the bottom (that's the top priority really). I was definitely thinking more overall/as a whole with that statement.
Hear, hear! The two major political parties in the US have huge incentives to create divisions and they spend billions to do it well. But, there is actually an amazing amount of common ground around the outcomes that we want as a society. At the same time, I understand that battle lines are being drawn in a high-stakes game and political engagement is necessary to affect change. No easy solve, but it could certainly be better. The current debt ceiling debates make this very clear.
"There is actually an amazing amount of common ground around the outcomes that we want as a society." <- YES!!!!!! We're not so divided as we're made out to be. You're right, battle lines are being drawn because of the way our political system operates, but it's not the way to collaboration. We can figure out something better....
It really is very important to look at things from multiple perspectives, because it generally is completely impossible to understand something by looking at it from one angle. In The Matter With Things, Iain McGilchrist brings up the analogy of the Zen garden, where no matter what spot you stand on, you can't see all the features at the same time, and all this big lofty stuff about utopia works like that too.
Oh I love that metaphor (and zen gardens). Do you recommend the book?
It's almost 2000 pages long and I haven't finished it (I stopped at one of the last chapters, which is on the sacred, as I don't think I care about a philosopher writing on the sacred. I may come back to it though), but what I read (almost 90%) was worth it. I think it would be very useful for someone who believes materialism and its concomitant vision of the clockwork universe is the truth (don't know if these are your metaphysics), as it would definitely break that.
There's a great chapter exploring all the ways in which organisms are not machines, since quite a lot of biologists do conceptualize organisms as an elaborate clockwork.
Oh wow, ok well then I appreciate the cliffnotes. Thank you!
Very well said, Elle! My own professional path has taken me into roles in government and the public sector, where I’ve worked on both sides of the ideological spectrum in mainstream American politics. This spectrum is presented as a vast unbridgeable gulf in popular media. Undoubtedly that is rooted in some grains of truth. But it misses two very crucial points: 1) the range of ideas about how to live a good life and structure a cohesive society are far more vast than the suite of options offered by the mainstream parties (in the United States); and 2) ideologies, as I’ve experienced them, are a combination of tribal signaling and mental models that are decent enough as shorthand methods of cooperating or defecting in circumstances of political debate, but they are inherently limiting and restrain, rather than expand, their adherents ability to analyze problems and work cooperatively, or even alone, to build a better world.
Very well said. I think you're right about all of these things being shorthand tribal signaling. But all that does is pit us against one another, forcing people to take sides. And that's probably the worst thing we can do!
That's amazing you've worked on both sides of American politics, I'll be curious to learn more about your perspectives as we dig into some of this source material!
"The Elysian League", I really like that.
So I've been following this series with great interest, and trying to understand it through the lens of my fictional town that I've been writing about in my murder mystery novel. (My novel is like your political ideas example, multi-layered, with bits borrowed from a variety of sources). Currently my fictional town is a crap-bucket, but through applying what I learn from you and the Elysian League, my aim is to gradually make the town a better place to live through poverty reduction, responsible and wide-spread economic growth, and cleaning up all of the things that have brought the town's standard of living down. Application of all the ideas discussed here to Sitka Cove will help me to grasp those concepts better.
I've gotten my hands on copies of a few of the books you've listed in your self-made curriculum (which was a fascinating and inspiring idea, btw!), and I can't wait to dive in to Ursula LeGuin, Kim Stanley Robinson and all the others. This whole concept you've come up with, and nurtured here is what I'd hoped college was like, and what I hoped the internet would be like.
You're much more invigorating, honest and enjoyable to hang out with!
Thanks for all you do here!
Oooooh, I love the sound of your town!!!! Why not make it a better place to live, and think through some of the ways we can do it!!! (Lord knows there are too many books set in Gotham City 🤣)
And I'm so excited that you are enjoying my curriculum!!!!! Kim Stanley Robinson will be joining us for a discussion as we get closer to November, and I could not be more thrilled to learn from his perspectives!!!! I really feel like I'm geeking out here so it makes me so happy that you are geeking out with me haha 🤓 THIS IS what I'd hoped college would be like!!!!
So glad you're here, and thank you so much for all the incredible feedback. I'm so grateful to have a likeminded soul here!
Sitka Cove will be my thought experiment, and I couldn't be more excited to learn all I can on the different ways to improve life there. It's a town founded on the logging industry back at the turn of the century-ish, with a new mine within driving distance. The mine is owned by an industrialist who has visions of integrated industry, and their own increasing power within the town. But (keep in mind this is a murder mystery novel), the quest for power is often fed by greed and secrets, and so there are lots of those too. Where does the growth of this potential Utopia come in? There is a town councilor who has visions and dreams of making Sitka Cove as close to Utopia as it can be.
So I can say that all this learning I'm doing at your elbow (so to speak) is research for my novel, right? Although it might slow down publication a bit...
Nicely said.
Well said. I’ve actively refused to identify with an ideology for as long as I can remember. All my favorite people are people who do the same; who just see things clearly. Honestly, I think identifying with an ideology is how you get into a lot of trouble, even if the ideology is really good. Ideologies are only ever sound in theory--in real life, pluralism is always more effective and more harmonious. This applies to everything from politics to spirituality. I’ve never come across any evidence to the contrary.
So agree. Especially this part: "pluralism is always more effective and more harmonious."
Don't we want harmonious?
The problem with ideologies and even political parties (especially in countries with a two-party system like the US or the UK) is that people assume you agree with most if not all their ideas. Republican? Immediately you're pro guns, anti abortion. In one fell swoop. This is obliviously silly and not nuanced at all. So I totally agree with your POV that you can take ideas from every ideology to create something that suits the context of a particular country. And for that, you need to study every idea without biases.
Right! There is nothing worse than when I write an essay and people immediately assume my entire belief system. You're right, it's not nuanced at all. And I expect most of us are entirely nuanced!