User:Ruben/RWRM/6 - Ideology

How can it be that some ideologies sway people into action, while 'our' ideology seems to make people more passive?

Where's the story in our ideology?

People are story telling creatures. Not only years of history have proven that. The recent events in France, with Charlie Hebdo, have shown us that story telling can sway people into action, and into violence against others. It seems that talks of extremist imams have managed to make many young men act. As the attackers of Charlie Hebdo were from 'our' western society, how can it be that they preferred another way of living above the western capitalism, in which both wealth and happiness have been increasing for several decades? Not only they rejected this western ideology, they stepped up and actively try to undermine it.

People who do participate in the ruling western ideology though, seem to have become more passive than ever: they do less voluntary work and (relatively) less money goes to charity each year.

How can it be that the current ruling ideology seems to have trouble to get people out of their chair and have them participate to improve their society? And how can it be that another ideology manages to persuade men to join their cause? Obviously this is a complex question with many (tricky) facets, yet to me it seems important to look at the role of story telling in motivating people.

 

In his film The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (2012), Slavoy Žižek states that ideology is based on fantasies. They cover up inconsistencies of the ideology. When things are blurred and we don't know how they work, Fantasy provides the answer. There is a certain branch of fantasy though, that seems especially important when discussing ideology: myth.

Man for the most part conceives of what is remote, unknown, or difficult to understand in terms of what is near, well known, and self-evident. The world may appear as a social structure, family, state, a work of art, a building, a city. These and similar conceptions play an important part in mythology. This also works the other way around: for ages, men perceive that which he makes as a reflection of something higher and bigger. Ie. "places of worship [...] are build according to the model of the [...] "heavenly city", and music should be an echo of the "harmony of the spheres."" (Topitsch, 1959)

By explaining why the world is as is is, myths teach man how to deal with the world. So for ages the human has used myths not only to understand the world, but also to understand its own internal struggles. By balancing between fiction and reality, myths therefore allow man to turn inner struggles into outside events. Jerome Bruner (1959) argues that this externalisation makes it easier to cope with internal struggles: It is now [...] the picture that needs this line here, and not the painter's whim. Furthermore, externalisation forms the basis for communication as the vagueness [of the interior world] is eliminated.

As myths form a way to discuss internal struggles, they can also function as a criterion for the self-critic. They can help to shape the humans' ideals. From the early myths Bruner differentiates two types of plot: the ideology of innocence (ie. happy childhood, man as child of God) and that of cleverness (ie. Odysseus, or the Homo Universalis). In every age both archetypes are present in the myths of a society. Yet it is the manner in which man has striven for competence and longed for innocence [that] has reflected the controlling myths of the community. Societies create (and re-appropriate) myths and then live by it.

 

What makes myths so powerful is that they fulfil the desire of human to understand the world they live in, and by that allowing him to understand himself. While bringing this relief, the stories conveyed need only to be vaguely related to the central message of their associated ideology. As long as myths do not contradict ideology, they seem to be fine.

If we look at history, we often see that ideologies use empty vessels with transcendental aspects to sway people. For example, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (Ode To Joy) was appropriated by the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, the extreme right in South Africa, and extreme left “Presidente Gonzalo” in Peru. Nowadays it is the unofficial anthem of the European Union. Although the ideologies of all these parties differ greatly, they used Ode To Joy because it is an empty container which gave us a gut feeling:

We experience something pathetic and we say, “Oh, my God. I am so moved. There is something so deep.” But you never know what this depth is. (Žižek, 2012)

In our experience, this indescribable pleasure now becomes part of the ideology. Furthermore, the promise of a better world, which this pleasure seems to contain, becomes part of the ideology itself.

 

Beatrice de Graaf (NRC Handelsblad, 10 Jan. 2015) ambivalent role of social media in the way ideologies are nowadays narrated. These media show the omnipresence of empty vessels in the form of stylistic devices, while simultaneously providing us with a deluge of stories, making it hard to follow the story of an ideology:

On the one hand they produce so many incentives, that our concentration and focus on a single, complex storyline become virtually impossible [...] On the other hand the same media send a deluge of Ted talks and mini colleges that capture us, that we 'like' and that go viral. Often because they have a plot, a climax or a message.

The irony seems to be that while stylistic devices are omnipresent, they are not used to 'sell' an ideology, instead ideologies have become a stylistic device in themselves to sell a product. For example, as Žižek (2010) points out: in our empirical society we are aware of our polluting footprint on earth and our ideology is to minimize this footprint. We know that, to accomplish this, we should consume as few as possible. In comes Starbucks, promising that 1% of their profits goes to charity. Thereby enabling us to ransom our sense of guilt by buying a cup of their coffee. We are very much aware that it is naive to fall for this trick, yet we still choose to do it. Providing us with a relief of the guilt, but leaving a bitter taste in our mouths. It turns out to be a cynical form of relief.

It might seem paradoxical that in an empirical society people fail to live up to their ideology. As everything should be based upon a 'proven' truth, one might think a clear ideal follows automatically. Yet it turns out that with an empirical worldview, it is hard to believe in either one of the mythical archetypes of the innocent and the strong man. It seems the empirical attitude makes us distinguish the false in every story. If no story has a truth anymore, what is there to live up to? The antitype of human limitations owes its conception to the antitype of the empirical world. (Topitsch, 1959) It seems that the only way out is a cynical reasoning.

 

The old Calvinistic myths of misery, redemption, gratitude, and the communistic exploitation, alienation, revolution are now accompanied by that of crisis, holy war, revival of the sharia (Graaf). They are stories that not only provide a world explanation, but also provide an incentive to act upon. One starts to wonder, what myth has our society to offer? What ideals can we live up to, if the ideals that we have are commercialised? Have they then not become an easy target for other tale tellers?

If the story of democracy is vote Rutte, buy an iPhone, or else... it becomes apparent that our modus operandi is cynicism. But what then is there to help us cope with our inner struggles? What can we live up to? If these questions stay unanswered, it seems our society becomes an easy target for people who have a tale accompanying their ideology.

It reminds me of a discussion I once had with a devoted Christian. In the end it seemed to boil down to this: for him, if there would be no God, there is no reason to life. Out of the options on the table it seemed he picked believing in a God, while I picked that there is no real reason to life. Now that later is not really a sexy story to convey, is it?

References

• Bruner, Jerome S. (1959) Myth and Identity, in Daedalus Vol. 88, No. 2
• Topitsch, Ernst (1959) World Interpretation and Self-Interpretation: Some Basic Patterns, in Daedalus Vol. 88, No. 2
• Graaf, Beatrice de (2015), Weapon of mass narration, in NRC Handelsblad 10 Jan. 2015
• Žižek, Slavoy (2012) The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (Director: Sophie Fiennes)
• Žižek, Slavoy (2010) RSA Animate - First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g