The postmodern world has made us lonely and more susceptible to ideological thinking. Furthermore, ideological thinking and its effects are unnoticed as a result of ideologies becoming invisible to itself.

With coming of the modern world, our attitude shifted to a belief in progress, development over time, and most importantly, a sense of control over progression. Things such as objective reality where there is a cause and a measurable effect as a result. Even if one did not personally observe these relations, others such as experts could be trusted to discover it and publish it. To aid in this progress, standardization of concepts such as space or time across the world, and agreement on those standards by different people around the world developed. Essentially, the attitude was that we inhabited the same world. Over time however, this attitude changed as progress, fueled by a rise in globalization and capitalism, accelerated beyond our control. Our attitude shifted from certainty to uncertainty.

Postmodernity

Capitalism was vital for the development from modernity to postmodernity, indeed it was responsible for the modern world in the first place as well. In this instance however, the capitalist force for new markets abroad and looser government controls led to accelerated globalization and an interconnectedness that detached local lives and brought them in contact with the global world. In this process, capitalism gave way for the modern attitudes of individuality and control over one’s life in each locality, and further gave them the tools to exercise this attitude through the capitalist system. As more and more localities are brought into globality as a result of capitalist expansion, and their individual control expands in some sense, but the concept of cause and effect relations making up the certainty of the modern world paradoxically unravels.

It was not a linear development from control to a lack thereof per se, but rather the acceleration of control to so many different actors which only worked to collectively diminish their control as a result of each person being subject everyone else’s decisions. Control over certain aspects of life has risen, but at the cost of others.

This dynamic of imbalanced control over different domains alongside the ever-accelerating globalization leads to the breakdown of the shared world built by the modern world. With the advent of the internet especially, one has the freedom to output whatever information they would like to, and the choice to consume the information they want to be exposed to as well. But as that choice accelerates with billions of people around the world outputting information as well as absorbing it, the overwhelming amount of content leads to a fragmentation of the world between the individual and others.

Thinking

Here Hannah Arendt’s idea of loneliness is useful for analyzing what this does to our psyche. Loneliness is felt when one lacks “standards of thought” and “reality of experience.” Standards of thought is means by which truth and falsehood is distinguished. “Reality of experience” is the ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy through experience. When one is unsure of what is true, and unable to perceive their own experiences as reality, they feel lonely as there is a disconnect from others on the most basic things such as truth and reality. Without these faculties and a society which they can trust, they turn to ideology.

Ideological thinking arises from, and deepens loneliness despite its apperance to fulfill this lack. Ideology by its definition is an internally logical system of ideas. These ideas provide the framework for interpreting the chaos of an uncertain world. Ideological thinking, through its internal logic, provides the standard of thought to judge trueness. The reality of experience is abandoned for a “realer” reality that can only be perceived through ideological thinking. Experience no longer becomes a valid medium to judge reality through unless it is experience which is filtered through the ideology’s internal logic and perceived to be in line with the reality expected, not reality experienced. But a critical factor missing in the equation of ideological thinking is connection with others. Ideological thinking does not help one connect with others, it deepens disconnect through even further isolation from others’ experience of reality.

Recognition

It is a mistake to say that the current world is a post-ideology world as some might claim. This age is more ideological than ever and with it becomes an ever increasing disconnect between people and an ever more fracturing of world experienced. But the difference is that ideology is now more much subtle in its presentation. It is no longer sees even itself as an ideology, but simply the nature state of the world. An ideology unable to recognize itself as an ideology is the most dangerous because it becomes difficult to argue against one’s reality rather than simply an idea that they hold.

The mechanisms behind how ideologies forgot themselves as ideologies is still unclear to me, but I suspect it has to do with the failure of the two biggest clear ideological threats to liberalism in the 20th century. Both fascism and communism failed to overcome the liberal world order and without an Other to distinguish itself from, it lost its own identity as an ideology, and understood itself to be the natural order of things

Last modified on 2022-12-13