There are an awful lot good ideas out there. Some of them get to be kicked around enough that they develop into fully fledged ideologies.
The funny thing about ideas-turned-ideologies is that suddenly a lot of people get behind them and start talking about them... as if they actually exist.
Not only that, but in no time at all people are actually willing to fight for their ideologies; even go to war over them.
And yet?
The uncomfortable pink elephant in the run is the "small detail" that so many closely held beliefs and ideologies aren't actually applicable in the real world.
And some ironies soon develop, too. I remember sitting in on a meeting of a non-profit organization in Austin, Texas... related to providing aid to refugees in a third world country. A very protected argument ensued over whether the packaging manufacturer for the bottled water being considered was "fair trade" and was using suitably biodegradable materials.
I became immensely unpopular by pointing out that Abdul in the Sudan most likely didn't give a flying flip what sort of bottle was used... he just wanted some safe drinking water... now. And that the most prudent course of action would be to send in tanker trucks and let the local population bring their own buckets and cans, rather than spend three months debating bottles.
The thing about so many ideologies is that they tend to be dreamed up a long long way from where the rubber actually meets the road. A bunch of intellectuals in an academic think tank may well be capable of coming up with some beautiful theories that would work beautifully in the isolated worlds of highly intelligent, educated and responsible individuals, far far removed from the foibles and quirks of real human beings living at the poverty level aforesaid ideologies are intended to address.
Ideologies only tend to become realities when they speak directly to the end user or end beneficiary. People who'd just as soon cheat and steal, as use some "theoretical system" that allegedly "helps."
One of the few things I admired about a Fortune 500 computer manufacturer I once worked for was that they would haul actual average street level people into the usability labs so we would watch how "real people" — not engineers and developers — used (and misused!!) computers... and design accordingly. Not surprisingly, that company is now in the top 50...
Every time I consider economic ideologies (in particular) what I most notice is that they tend to exist in a bubble that has little to do with how real people and families deal with money.
It's almost as if you end up with "a solution in search of a problem," on top of which that "solution" tries to superimpose itself on top of the wills of a bunch of "someones" who actually aren't looking for that solution, because it has little do do with their lives.
And it's not a left/right, liberal/conservative, freedom/authority issue, either... it's an issue of the people dreaming up the solutions not actually being part of — or, at least, in touch with —the population experiencing the problems.
Ideologies can be lovely thought-exercises, and even good starting points for developing answers to major societal problems... but they are very rarely real life.
Thanks for reading!
How about YOU? Do you think there's a gap between ideologies and the people they intend to serve? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
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Created at 20201022 00:22 PDT
0125/1352
