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?

A sticky message

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, into violence against others. Talks of extremist imams and other terrorists have managed to make many young men act. In 'our' society both wealth and happiness have been increasing for several decades. As the attackers of Charlie Hebdo are from this society, how can it be that they preferred another way of living above the western capitalism? Not only they rejected the western ideology, they 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 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.

1. Myth

In his film The Pervert's Guide to Ideology, 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. According to Bruner (1959) this makes it easier to cope with these internal struggles: It is now [...] the picture that needs this line here, and not the painter's whim. Furthermore, this 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 controlling myths of society. So both 'type' of man are satisfied. 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.

2. The empty vessel

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 the stories they tell 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.

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.

3. Cynical reasoning

Beatrice de Graaf (NRC Handelsblad, 10 Jan. 2015) points out the ambivalent role of social media in narrating ideologies:

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 stylistic devices are omnipresent, yet instead of using them to 'sell' an ideology, ideologies have become a stylistic device in themselves to sell a product. For example, as Zizek points out: Starbucks promises that 1% of their profits goes to charity. In our empirical society we are aware of our poluting footprint on earth. But Starbucks enables us to ransom our sense of guilt by buying a cup of their coffee. We are very much aware that it is nonsense what we are doing, yet we still choose to do it. Providing us with 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. 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. Probably 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.

Conculsion

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). 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 obvious that our modus operandi is cynicism. But how does this help us to 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)