The following is from Ian Welsh, one of my favorite bloggers. It's an
invitation to do a lot more reading, but also a good outline of the kind
of thinking that leads to real, even revolutionary change. Check it
out.
I will be starting a new series on technology and its effect
on society. Before I do so I want to take readers through some of my
previous writing on ideology and character, and how they help form the
societies we live in. Taking the time to read these articles (a short
book’s worth), should vastly improve your understanding of the world and
the articles to come. It should be worth your time even if you read
the articles when they were published, as at the time they lacked both
context and commentary, and were not collated to be read together so
that the connections were obvious.
Baseline Predictions for the Next 60 Years
While not an article about ideology, this is an article about where our current ideology and character are going to take us: to the brink of disaster and possibly beyond, while continuing to impoverish and disempower larger and larger segments of the human race. This might be a slightly optimistic piece: there’s some reason to believe our actions in the world’s oceans could destroy the oxygen cycle, and if so, events will be much, much worse.
What an Ideology Is, and Why We Need a New One
Too many people think ideologies are some airy-fairy nonsense and that they are pragmatic men and women operating on common sense and facts. Such people are amongst the greatest of all fools: our entire society is based on interlocking ideologies; the primary of which are neo-liberalism, capitalism, human rights and socialism. It is not obvious, nor was it obvious to most societies that have ever existed, for example, that food should be distributed based on money; nor that ideas could be property. How we organize things; our particular ideas about markets, their role and who should lead us, are ideological. If we want to change society, we need to be able to control markets so they aren’t producing a world that makes us sick, unhappy, and, in increasing numbers, dead.
How to Create a Viable Ideology
We may look at current trends and realize that if we don’t reverse them, and reverse them fast, billions will suffer or die; but creating an ideology which can reverse them requires us to understand what makes an ideology viable and powerful. An ideology which does not create believers willing to die; and to kill, on its behalf, will lose to those that do. An ideology which cannot prevent people from selling out; from betraying, will definitely lose in the current world, where there is so much money available at the top to simply buy out (for billions) those who create something new, so that something new can be turned into nothing but a monetization scheme.
Our Theory of Human Nature Predicts Our Policies
The ideas of an ideology determine how our society is run, and of those ideas, none is more important than what we think human nature is.
A Theory of Human Nature Suited to Prosperity and Freedom
If we are trying to create a prosperous, free world, our policies must be based in a theory of human nature that is both true enough and which leads to policies which create widespread affluence and human freedom.
Character Is Destiny
Ideology and character are intertwined. Character determines what we do and what we don’t do, and how we do it. The character of large numbers of people determines the destinies of nations and of the world itself. If we want to make the world better (or worse), we must change our own character. Those who fail to understand how character arises will never change the world except accidentally.
How Everyday Life Creates Our Character
and, as noted, our destiny. I always laugh at radicals who want more schooling, because schooling is where people learn to sit down, shut up, give the approved answers and do what they’re told. Working life, as an adult, continues this process of learned powerlessness and acquiescence and even in our consumptive and political lives we continue the trend: choosing from choices offered to us, rather than producing what we actually need.
How Everyday Life Creates Sociopathic Corporate Leaders
Those who lead our corporations control most of our lives, even more than the government, because they set the terms by which we live, die, and can afford the good things in life. Our daily life is prescribed by them, from how we work to what we eat, to what we entertain ourselves with. We need, therefore, to understand the character traits our leaders are chosen for, and how that choosing works. If we can’t learn to create and choose better leaders, we will never have a better world.
The Difference Between Ethics and Morals
If we want an ideology that tells us how to create a better world, and people with the character to create that world, we must understand what sort of people they should be. Key to doing this is the understanding of how they treat other people: the people they know, and more importantly, the people they don’t.
The Fundamental Feedback Loop for a Better World
The shortest article on this list, this is also one of the most important and speaks directly to how money directs behaviour and to matters of choosing our leaders.
Living in a Rich Society
It’s been so long since parts of the West were truly prosperous that people forget what it’s like, and forget that it creates a different type of person than a scarcity society.
Late 19th and Early 20th Century Intellectual Roots
Lived experience creates character, character feeds into ideology. It’s worth looking at how various themes of the Victorian era were created by those who lived through that time and the time that came before.
What Confucius Teaches Those Who Want a Better World
Amongst those who have created powerful ideologies Confucius is in the first rank, Confucianism having been the most important ideology of the most populous and advanced region of the world for most of the last two thousand or more years. Confucius was very aware of what he was trying to do, had a theory of human nature, and a theory of character and we would be fools not to learn from him.
Concluding Remarks
I hope that those who are interested in creating a better world will read the articles linked above. What I’ve written amounts to a short book, and the ideas are interrelated. If you have read a few of my posts, or even read all, but not thought on them or read them with each other in mind, you cannot have the full picture of how these ideas work together, and why the different parts are necessary.
Ideas are often destroyed in practice by those who do not understand the reasons for the various parts and prescriptions and who feel they can pick and choose without that understanding. Character and ideology and ethics and every day life are all intertwined: you cannot pick one and say “this is supreme”: they create each other.
The Role of Character and Ideology in Prosperity
by Ian Welsh
Baseline Predictions for the Next 60 Years
While not an article about ideology, this is an article about where our current ideology and character are going to take us: to the brink of disaster and possibly beyond, while continuing to impoverish and disempower larger and larger segments of the human race. This might be a slightly optimistic piece: there’s some reason to believe our actions in the world’s oceans could destroy the oxygen cycle, and if so, events will be much, much worse.
What an Ideology Is, and Why We Need a New One
Too many people think ideologies are some airy-fairy nonsense and that they are pragmatic men and women operating on common sense and facts. Such people are amongst the greatest of all fools: our entire society is based on interlocking ideologies; the primary of which are neo-liberalism, capitalism, human rights and socialism. It is not obvious, nor was it obvious to most societies that have ever existed, for example, that food should be distributed based on money; nor that ideas could be property. How we organize things; our particular ideas about markets, their role and who should lead us, are ideological. If we want to change society, we need to be able to control markets so they aren’t producing a world that makes us sick, unhappy, and, in increasing numbers, dead.
How to Create a Viable Ideology
We may look at current trends and realize that if we don’t reverse them, and reverse them fast, billions will suffer or die; but creating an ideology which can reverse them requires us to understand what makes an ideology viable and powerful. An ideology which does not create believers willing to die; and to kill, on its behalf, will lose to those that do. An ideology which cannot prevent people from selling out; from betraying, will definitely lose in the current world, where there is so much money available at the top to simply buy out (for billions) those who create something new, so that something new can be turned into nothing but a monetization scheme.
Our Theory of Human Nature Predicts Our Policies
The ideas of an ideology determine how our society is run, and of those ideas, none is more important than what we think human nature is.
A Theory of Human Nature Suited to Prosperity and Freedom
If we are trying to create a prosperous, free world, our policies must be based in a theory of human nature that is both true enough and which leads to policies which create widespread affluence and human freedom.
Character Is Destiny
Ideology and character are intertwined. Character determines what we do and what we don’t do, and how we do it. The character of large numbers of people determines the destinies of nations and of the world itself. If we want to make the world better (or worse), we must change our own character. Those who fail to understand how character arises will never change the world except accidentally.
How Everyday Life Creates Our Character
and, as noted, our destiny. I always laugh at radicals who want more schooling, because schooling is where people learn to sit down, shut up, give the approved answers and do what they’re told. Working life, as an adult, continues this process of learned powerlessness and acquiescence and even in our consumptive and political lives we continue the trend: choosing from choices offered to us, rather than producing what we actually need.
How Everyday Life Creates Sociopathic Corporate Leaders
Those who lead our corporations control most of our lives, even more than the government, because they set the terms by which we live, die, and can afford the good things in life. Our daily life is prescribed by them, from how we work to what we eat, to what we entertain ourselves with. We need, therefore, to understand the character traits our leaders are chosen for, and how that choosing works. If we can’t learn to create and choose better leaders, we will never have a better world.
The Difference Between Ethics and Morals
If we want an ideology that tells us how to create a better world, and people with the character to create that world, we must understand what sort of people they should be. Key to doing this is the understanding of how they treat other people: the people they know, and more importantly, the people they don’t.
The Fundamental Feedback Loop for a Better World
The shortest article on this list, this is also one of the most important and speaks directly to how money directs behaviour and to matters of choosing our leaders.
Living in a Rich Society
It’s been so long since parts of the West were truly prosperous that people forget what it’s like, and forget that it creates a different type of person than a scarcity society.
Late 19th and Early 20th Century Intellectual Roots
Lived experience creates character, character feeds into ideology. It’s worth looking at how various themes of the Victorian era were created by those who lived through that time and the time that came before.
What Confucius Teaches Those Who Want a Better World
Amongst those who have created powerful ideologies Confucius is in the first rank, Confucianism having been the most important ideology of the most populous and advanced region of the world for most of the last two thousand or more years. Confucius was very aware of what he was trying to do, had a theory of human nature, and a theory of character and we would be fools not to learn from him.
Concluding Remarks
I hope that those who are interested in creating a better world will read the articles linked above. What I’ve written amounts to a short book, and the ideas are interrelated. If you have read a few of my posts, or even read all, but not thought on them or read them with each other in mind, you cannot have the full picture of how these ideas work together, and why the different parts are necessary.
Ideas are often destroyed in practice by those who do not understand the reasons for the various parts and prescriptions and who feel they can pick and choose without that understanding. Character and ideology and ethics and every day life are all intertwined: you cannot pick one and say “this is supreme”: they create each other.
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