If Socrates can do without one, anyone can

Hi JustSomeGuy, welcome.

Ideology can sometimes be viewed as an unsavoury misrepresentation of reality and given the ambiguity, I will assume it to mean a system of beliefs that reflects a parallel between you and the external world. For me, ideology contains an imaginary legitimacy that conceptually represents an otherwise vague relationship between you and the external that positions the ideology almost outside of human agency, as though it exists not because we created it for some historical or material reason but rather it exists as an absolute fact. It is consciousness given to you and legitimised by a body of ideas that authenticates the overall system and thus make it immutable. That is why it is very powerful, particularly politically as a process of mobilisation. Foucault points out rather correctly that this 'power' (what he called discourse) is not only efficient but also productive and positive, that it affords pleasure just as much as it can contrast with oppression, Othering and the exercise of domination. It motivates a communal character and social cohesion. Basically, it makes us feel good knowing that we not only don't need to think for ourselves but that we are also a part of something bigger than ourselves; it forms a community of people who don't think for themselves.

It is really a shared identity where "relations become concepts" and properties are essentially fixed but it is also an exposure of our vulnerability, the doubt that we have in ourselves and the exhaustion of being independent. Why O why didn't I just take the blue pill? It's not easy being an autonomous agent because to find the same wholeness in yourself, you need to face the fear of isolation and separateness; our developmental training as children teaches us to be afraid of cutting the umbilical cord, that it is 'wrong' to disobey and that something outside of us - like our parents - are powerful, all-knowing and that we must doubt ourselves. This is transferred to the community or society, even further still to politics or religion. What we are really doing is simply re-arranging our prejudices and it is this that guides our interpretations.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Knowledge and learning may cause you this 'grief' and the perpetual fear that enables those moments of existential crises and even depression or anxiety, but you get through it eventually as you start to articulate your own language and acknowledge your own ideas. You get stronger and stronger as you get more and more objective, but this is about being steady in this process towards autonomy and that is not to say isolation from people or society but as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, that balance between the two where you socialise, learn and interact but go home to reflective practice, to the quiet of reading and the solitude of learning.

Just don't give up.

If 'ideology' is an organized set of beliefs, principles, and habits, then I think most people benefit from having a positive ideology. (There are negative ideologies--like nihilism, for example.) Many people rely on religion for the basic shape of their 'ideology', or they mine the classic philosophical approaches. Some people are eclectic, gathering together a more or less congenial assortment of philosophical planks with which to build their platform.

Depending on how thorough your Catholic upbringing was, you may or may not have a basically Christian ideology in place. It's quite difficult to root out the first moral teachings one receives, and it probably isn't a good idea, anyway, without having some kind of transformative experience which reshapes the way you look at the world. Certainly, our childhood moral instruction should be subject to criticism, and intelligently edited.

You are certainly not alone in feeling like you are at loose ends. Feeling that way seems to be endemic. You, however, have the tools to solve the problem.

How does one operationalize the belief that "...nothing is certain. Absolutely nothing"? Has gravity failed you recently? How about time -- did it stop? The physical world does have some certainty, seems like, and ignoring those certainties can invoke another certainty -- death, the last certainty. That said, life can still be very disappointing, and there is considerable uncertainty as to the
who, when, where, what, how, and why" disappointing experiences will be arranged for us.

Any good ideology has to account for life being unsatisfactory a fair share of the time, but at the same time "letting the good times roll".

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. — TimeLine

The light at the end of the tunnel may be an express train bearing down on you.

The light at the end of the tunnel may be an express train bearing down on you. — Bitter Crank

The train is imaginary. It is a ghost train.

Gravity and time aren't certain in the sense that reality itself isn't certain. We do not and cannot possibly know if any of this is real. Descartes was right in his assertion that the only thing I can be truly certain of is that I exist. Literally everything else requires varying degrees of faith or assumption. The same goes for death, even. Those of us who don't believe in an afterlife may live our lives as though death is a certainty, but it's not. We think we understand the world, we think we can trust our own observations, our own knowledge, our own experience, but the truth is that we can't. I know I'm an extreme skeptic, but that's just the way I've come to view things and I can't really help it.

aporiap fittingly mentioned Socrates. "The only thing I know is that I know nothing." This, to me, goes hand in hand with Descartes' "cogito ergo sum", and to be honest these two principles are the closest thing to ideology I have. Maybe that's my real issue. I know there are philosophers who argued that it is necessary to take some things on faith, like your examples of gravity and time, things that we know we can rely on 99%, things that are as close to "truth" or "fact" as we can possibly get. Maybe I should go back and review some of that stuff. It's coming up on a decade since I graduated, so aside from what I've chosen to read on my own since then, I've forgotten a lot of the specifics. I don't know if I can bring myself to accept things as certain when I know they aren't really, though. I don't think I can lie to myself like that.

To be clear, I'm not constantly worrying that gravity will fail and I'll float up into space, or that time will speed up or slow down. The things that concern me are the big questions, like I mentioned in my first post.

I guess to bring things back to the original topic:

Any good ideology has to account for life being unsatisfactory a fair share of the time, but at the same time "letting the good times roll". — Bitter Crank

Stoicism seems to fit this description well, based on what I know as someone who just started learning about it.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Knowledge and learning may cause you this 'grief' and the perpetual fear that enables those moments of existential crises and even depression or anxiety, but you get through it eventually as you start to articulate your own language and acknowledge your own ideas. You get stronger and stronger as you get more and more objective, but this is about being steady in this process towards autonomy and that is not to say isolation from people or society but as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, that balance between the two where you socialise, learn and interact but go home to reflective practice, to the quiet of reading and the solitude of learning.

Just don't give up. — TimeLine

I really appreciate your advice and encouragement. This renews my hope and my enthusiasm for life and philosophy, for the time being. I think you're exactly right, I need to continue working on discovering and fleshing out my own ideas instead of relying on others to inform my thoughts. Obviously consulting the thoughts and ideas of others is a wonderful tool when seeking to understand our own, but I need to remember that it is just a tool, and nobody else can give me the answers.

Thanks to you guys for making my first experience here a good one. I think I'm going to enjoy this place.

I really appreciate your advice and encouragement. This renews my hope and my enthusiasm for life and philosophy, for the time being. — JustSomeGuy

(Y) I'm sure we're going to enjoy having you here too. Philosophy is really just a way to conceptualise our own ideas and by engaging with others that may question whether we are on the right trajectory or not is useful - even if it makes us uncomfortable and agitated - because we then learn how to explain ourselves.

Those of us who don't believe in an afterlife may live our lives as though death is a certainty, but it's not. We think we understand the world, we think we can trust our own observations, our own knowledge, our own experience, but the truth is that we can't. — JustSomeGuy

Do we? What does it mean to live our lives as if death were a certainty, how would someone who didn't think it was a certainty live any differently? Do you see the entire following of any given religion (with an afterlife) having a much better life than the entire mass of atheists, or do you rather see that the followers of religion are divided into the same range of satisfied and unsatisfied people as anyone else. I think you're presuming the arch-skeptic and the faithful believer will live such different lives, but they don't, they're both basically concerned with paying the mortgage, falling in love, getting on with enough other people to feel good, whether they think there's and afterlife is usually just gloss (and more often than not their belief in this regard is chosen to achieve one of the aforementioned).

That's why you don't believe Gravity will suddenly fail and you'll float away, because you actually need a faith in gravity to live your day-today life. You don't need a faith in the afterlife so you can afford to play around with it, like a new hat, see what other people think of you in ti, but it's nothing to do with the real issues in life - love, the respect of your community, meeting your basic needs.

Next time you have a crisis of existential doubt, just go for a run in the park, do some charity work, build a wall, then read the books once you're felling better, It'll be a lot easier to understand what they're really saying when you're not looking for the answer to life in them, I guarantee you it isn't there.

Stoicism seems to fit this description well, based on what I know as someone who just started learning about it. — JustSomeGuy

Ciceronianus the White is our resident stoic. He's a long-time member, going back to this forum's previous incarnation. You might want to PM him for some private stoic-talk, or ask him to join the discussion. How to find him? Click on MEMBERS at the top of the page and then select "names" for listing the members. The 'C's are not too deep down, so it won't take you long to find him.

But I always eventually go back to questioning it all and feeling very down and uncertain and nihilistic about everything for a time. It's possible that this just has to do with my personality, and this is just a natural cycle I go through and will continue to go through. — JustSomeGuy

Yes, that is a possibility. There are a few people I know who don't go through cycles of hope and despair (in more or less diluted strength) but most people seem to. I certainly did for decades. All that sturm and drang has finally evened out and the world looks reasonably hopeful (and real) pretty much all of the time. Maybe it's just me getting old and senile.

But the thing is, and a lot of philosopher-types find this annoyingly inconvenient, our limbic systems (emotions, affect, all that) have a lot to do with the kind of thoughts that seem reasonable to our pre-frontal cortexes. When our limbic system is in the dirge phase, the world looks, feels, smells, sounds, tastes... like a rather depressing, stale, cheap motel. On the other hand, when the band strikes up a lively march, the world seems pretty good again--hopeful, promising, upbeat. A fine place to stay!

If we have difficulty deciding what is real, we also have difficulty parsing out whether it is our intellectual facilities or our emotional machinery that is causing the world to seem depressing or delightful. I have not found the key to figuring that out, but what most people seem to do is just keep going, whether the world looks good or not -- and eventually things seem more positive--one hopes for quite a while.

You might want to PM him for some private stoic-talk, or ask him to join the discussion. How to find him? Click on MEMBERS at the top of the page and then select "names" for listing the members. The 'C's are not too deep down, so it won't take you long to find him. — Bitter Crank

Oh man BC! Back in the stone ages, aren't we? X-) The way to do this is you go to the search box that you see at the top, and you type there 'Cicero', and then he just pops out just like this:

Yes, much simpler. Thanks.

Yes, much simpler. Thanks. — Bitter Crank

No worries :)

If Socrates can do without one, anyone can — aporiap

Not every one is like Socrates. But there is no doubt that, despite his skepticism, he and everyone around him was subordinated to the cultural norms all around them.
No one can completely divest themselves of endemic assumptions.
We simply cannot operate without taking for granted a string of givens. Out entire lexicon demands that we structure our understanding and interests through a filter of pre-given loci of meaning.
All this amounts to an invisible ideology.
Socrates held many such assumptions that do not ring to in the modern day. Other cultures, other language communities are all prey to their milieu, and even if individuals within those cultures think themselves observers of society free from its influence we are all in the thick of it.

But there is no doubt that, despite his skepticism, he and everyone around him was subordinated to the cultural norms all around them. — charleton

I think it was in reference to a doubt that we must consistently have that marks this Socratic approach against a mindless ideological submission, where the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing together with consistently questioning and examining your thoughts and opinions.

While we remain in the prison, we can still escape the cell.

He never escaped the cell of belief in the eternal psyche, for which no evidence could be possible.

He never escaped the cell of belief in the eternal psyche, for which no evidence could be possible. — charleton

There is an opportunity to reach an autonomy through the motivation or freedom of our will that enables us to cross unlock that door and while largely we merely restricted to merely rearranging our beliefs, why is it necessarily to completely abandon them? Can we not simply improve them, or at the very least have the will to become conscious of what these beliefs are and to formulate our own?

Can we not simply improve them, or at the very least have the will to become conscious of what these beliefs are and to formulate our own? — TimeLine

You cannot polish a turd.

Belief is the death of reason.

Belief is the death of reason. — charleton

Do you believe that?

no. I have that reasoned. It is an axiom I have brought into knowledge and is continually subject to revision.

So, you agree then, when I said that we can improve by becoming conscious of what these beliefs are and to formulate our own?

No. I refuse to allow myself to succumb to any belief.
I have aspirations that we can improve as a species politically and socially, but not not hold these things to be natural or self evident. It all takes work.
When you allow yourself to believe is the moment that you stop thinking. Faith destroys progress.

It is impossible to have no beliefs: an atheist still has a belief that nothing exists. Unless you do not have the cognitive capacity to retain an opinion - in your case, you believe that you will not allow yourself to succumb to any belief - than you will have a belief, it is a part of language. You see a dog, you believe in the dog. The only thing you can do is, as I said, become conscious of what beliefs are through introspection and circumspection and a belief system is a network of beliefs so you can imagine just how complex it is from behavioural, social, psychological point or view with all those influences since you were young. To have the capacity to carry out the task of accurately dissecting your intent, your motivation and will requires one to improve themselves through constant learning.

Do people need an ideology?

But I cannot commit fully to them in the sense that I completely let them inform my thoughts and feelings about the world, because I recognize that we are all just humans, nobody really knows better than anybody else. Rather, I have my own thoughts and feelings about the world, and these philosophies correspond with many of them. But there are certain things that cause me distress, anxiety, and what I would call frequent miniature existential crises. I often come back to questioning what I'm doing with my life, why different things happen, what the meaning of my life is, what the meaning of anything is, why the universe exists at all, whether there is any objective morality, whether anything we do matters in any real way, whether life is even worth living, etc.

I don't think there is an ideology that will do what you want it to, it sounds more like faith to me.

A call, a vocation, a love or other passion that is capable of moving you. I don't know if any text is capable of doing this, but creating your own narrative, one that is intergral part to how you live, I think is important.

We live in the age of critique, big systems died when god died, and now science is revealing god's work.

i often go through this myself and question everything until my brain hurts because there is no answer for me but in terms of needing an ideology you likely already have one but you don't realize it. You live your life by some kind of code. you believe what you think is right (for example gay marriage or if you think guys should have long hair) whether or not you came to these realizations by yourself. catholic ideology is just a more accepted way to live your life and more people believe the ideology but you're thoughts on the world are you're own ideology even if you question a lot about the universe. i find that it's better to live your life by you're own head and make decisions by yourself on how to live your life. i think that many religions have something about them that is questionable and rather sinister and so if you live by that code you may find yourself unsure on a lot of things that you think you should agree with but don't.

Is it possible to be too "open minded"? Do you think people are happier and live more fulfilling lives when they have an ideology they are fully committed to? — JustSomeGuy

just live your life with your opinions and that is your ideology on the world. religion just hopes to come up with an answer for the questions we don't have answers too and a lot of the time they are rather absurd so in my opinion religion is more closure on the universes questions so that you can live without curiosity. i don't think that religion is healthy for humankind because it limits the amount of curiosily we have and so there isn't any strive to know the answers to the questions, it has at least until this point destroyed the curiosity in humans to discover and explore space for example and so keeping an open mind and living by your own ideas is more healthy for everyone.

It is impossible to have no beliefs: an atheist still has a belief that nothing exists — TimeLine

Total rubbish.
In the first place it is perfectly possible to make a clear distinction between knowledge and belief.
And in the second place atheists do NOT have a belief in God. Atheism says nothing about 'nothing existing'.

You see a dog, you believe in the dog. — TimeLine

You are just abusing language. If I see a dog I have no need of any belief, I know.

In the first place it is perfectly possible to make a clear distinction between knowledge and belief. — charleton

Make it.

Great post, I feel like my mindset has been somewhere very similar over the past year or so.

The way I've come to look at it is that following an ideology is taking the easy way out in life, it's a cop out. A true man finds his own way, creates his own morals and beliefs but has has an open mind to endless possibilities. Like you say though, this can lead to certain thoughts of nihilism. I still have problems overcoming the nihilism sometimes but I also find it intriguing that I can almost dig myself out of a nihilistic hole by finding meaning in everything, helps me focus more on being present to the moment and finding enjoyment or some sort of positive emotion from even the most simple of tasks.

It's a constant uphill battle that's for sure but for me it beats following a set of beliefs made up by somebody else, I don't think I could live with myself when i'm an old man knowing I've been following something that probably made my life easier but never explored the ability and adventure of figuring out life for my self.

In the first place it is perfectly possible to make a clear distinction between knowledge and belief.
— charleton

Make it. — Noble Dust

In short
Belief is a thing which you wish to be true or take to be true for emotional reasons or reasons of tradition, emotion and particularly because of Faith.
Knowledge is that taken to be true based on evidence and reason. All knowledge is subject to revision and is contingent on that evidence. It is demonstrably true. Knowledge is true anywhere in any culture, and not dependant on cultural preferences.

Belief is a thing which you wish to be true or take to be true for emotional reasons or reasons of tradition, emotion and particularly because of Faith.
Knowledge is that taken to be true based on evidence and reason. All knowledge is subject to revision and is contingent on that evidence. It is demonstrably true. Knowledge is true anywhere in any culture, and not dependant on cultural preferences. — charleton

You can't just make up your own definitions for terms to suite your argument.

From Merriam-Webster:

Belief
: a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing

Knowledge
: the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association

I have never seen anybody claim that they don't hold any beliefs, and it honestly surprises me that someone on a philosophy forum is the one claiming it. I don't mean to be insulting, I just don't understand how somebody could be familiar with philosophy and not understand the difference between belief and knowledge, or be aware of the fact that the vast majority of "things that you think" are in fact beliefs, not knowledge.
Do you know the sun is going to rise tomorrow? Of course not, you believe it will. And that belief is based on both knowledge and beliefs. You have knowledge that the sun has risen every morning since you've been alive, and you have beliefs about the way our planet, our solar system, and the universe in general operates, BUT you have not experienced tomorrow morning, so you cannot possess knowledge that the sun will rise tomorrow. And yet you think it will. You assume it will. This is a belief you hold.
When you actually get down to it, almost everything you think you know is, in reality, a belief.
Even when it comes to science, you are most likely a layman who believes what you have been told about science, (chemistry, biology, physics, etc.) placing your belief in the testimony of the person who has given you this information (which often comes through many sources before arriving to you, in which case you are placing your belief in each and every once of those sources).

To put it simply, you cannot--by definition--possess knowledge about anything you do not have firsthand experience of.

Many philosophers have argued further that knowledge is even more limited because you're putting faith/belief in your own senses to accurately portray the external world to you, but for the sake of this argument I'll grant that we can count what we have firsthand experience of as knowledge.