It’s likely that you’ve never seen a more polarizing time for political discourse. As the cycle of struggle for political power drags on, its safe to say that the mud slinging, feelings of disdain for opposing views, hatred of certain politicians, and endless threads of Facebook arguments will seem to never end. For Republicans, you’ll likely find joy in “owning the libs” a few more times. For Democrats, you may find the moral high ground for calling out the closet racists and bigots on your Facebook feed. And for libertarians you may find a little bit of glee in randomly finding a Facebook article and commenting “Taxation is theft”.
Political discourse can be intriguing, exciting, saddening-among many other things, but perhaps the biggest contributor to a polarizing political landscape is pulling the curtains of ideology across the eyes of reason and truth. The rhetoric of the ideologically possessed is predictable, unoriginal, and full of pretentiousness. All who have been lured by the glory of utopian ideologies are likely guilty of spouting off the rhetoric of the possessed (including me) and recognizing these symptoms are a humbling reminder that no form of ideology provides every answer.
Symptoms
Some of the many signs of ideological possession that I have seen in my own thinking are looking for evidence that would purportedly support my ideology. Instead of trying to sincerely understand another point of view, I would often find myself jumping to conclusions based on my a priori assumptions. For conservatives this may take on the form of calling a supporter of abortion a baby-killing monster. For progressives this may take on the form of painting a supporter of strict immigration as a deranged support of Nazism. Or perhaps any supporter of Donald Trump as a xenophobic bigot that oppresses women and minorities. And for libertarians this may take on the form of accusing military members as mass murderers. These sorts of moral-high ground arguments do little to further the conversation and further push provocateurs towards voicing their opinions towards their enemies. There are many good faith arguments on both sides of the aisle, but the immediate flinging of insults without hearing an honest sincere explanation of their view seems to constitutes one form of ideological possession.
Another symptom seems to be the bludgeoning application of a uni-dimensional ethic or principle. For example, the wage-gap studies between men and women have often been accused of being entirely uni-dimensional. Other factors such as working hours and occupation choice are disregarded. Taking this example further, progressive-types seem to only care about the aspect of oppression that is implicit in this observation, while conservatives and libertarians are arguing that a more holistic view should be taken. For some conservative groups, there is at times an overemphasis on tradition and/or biblical authority. The uni-dimensional application of moral principles encompassed within the bible frames the entire discussion for the legislation of morality. And for libertarians it is often a uni-dimensional emphasis on the application of the non-aggression principle. This can take on the form of immediately condemning any advocate of government programs. Whether these arguments are valid or not, the libertarian form of the uni-dimensional application of non-aggression switches the argument entirely and they are often accused of not addressing the issues at hand, bringing up unrealistic solutions, and/or not presenting any reliable fixes to the problem.
Solutions
Ideology can be a useful framework for conceptualizing the philosophy of various political philosophies, and aligning with one or another is not necessarily bad, but the incessant insistence that one ideology contains the universal remedy for all of the world’s problems is naive and foolish. One tool that seems increasingly useful to avoid ideological possession is practicing the steel-man technique. Even when someone produces an argument that seems completely absurd to you, try to reexplain it in the strongest way possible to understand why they may be possibly putting forth such an argument. Listen to the person’s argument like they may have something to teach you, and most importantly ask yourself if you’re favoring ideology over a pursuit of the truth. And just maybe we’ll lessen the shrieking of ideological demons and cast out those devils that want nothing more then to drag humanity down to hell.