Ideologies - An Idea Project, by Ed Whitfield

For some reason, through my teens 'isms' were always an interest to me. And for some reason, during that period, the nineties, people around me seemed to hate them. I never really understood why and put it down to the massive amount of apathy that I felt people possessed like some disease.

During my childhood in the eighties I was always interested in the likes of Green Peace, saving the whale, the environment and animal rights. After the turn of the decade when I became more knowledgeable of 'isms' etc., I felt a strange reaction from people to things that I held as important, the environmental issues I was brought up to believe mattered. I wasn't sure why or what it was that I felt, but it was a definite thing. People just didn't care.

As I became more aware of the ins and outs of 'isms' I met other people who, like me, did care. I realised that after the giving spirit of the eighties (however superficial it may have generally been) faded out it was mass apathy that filled the gap in people. They always thought of themselves. In arguments about 'causes' it was always down to looking out for number one. This astonished and frustrated me and it wasn't until I became familiar with liberalism that I understood where the apathy came from. The governments that followed the ideological maps of liberalism created a world, a society, a reality that nurtured the 'look out for number one' attitude. This, along with the fall of the Soviet Union in the late eighties, helped me understand why all of a sudden people didn't care. Why Net Aid failed so drastically when it was supposed to be a far greater success than Live Aid. Of course the fact that after Live Aid sent the money and nothing changed, amongst other similar examples, might have helped create an attitude of hopelessness also.

I learned of the failure of the hippies, the punks, the communists, whatever they were called in the eighties and I understood. I understood that the governments used these instances plus other propaganda in inducing a general attitude of apathy. And here we are now, the turn of the millennium wearing Gap Athletic one of the kings of sweat and leisure fashion therefore a ruthless label with about as much ethics as a pig taking a shit on a child. It just so happens to rhyme with apathetic. It's also funny how many of those tops even have a red and black star looking quite like an anarchist emblem.

Things changed after that. A major gripe within the no-hoper camp is the question of what exactly are you supposed to do. This question would infuriate me, but now I realise the liberal government have stemmed the flow of such ideas from passing into the new millennium.

But to get back to the anti-ism attitude, a close relative of the liberal, individual, apathetic attitude. There seemed to be a breed of people in Ireland during the nineties, and the 'naughties' (ho-fucklng-ho) that seemed to take this strange, and in their own eyes, more 'mature' stance. They looked down upon anything revolutionary as naïve. It was truly time to give up and get on with it. Time to grow up. The liberals had finally established the attitude that rebellion was an entirely teenage phenomenon. And these kids believed it! They looked down upon us silly revolutionaries as if Green Peace ships hadn't sailed proud and brave upon the seas of the eighties. As if the punks didn't create havoc in the seventies, screaming the apparent contradictions of society back in its face. As if the hippies in the sixties hadn't marched against an authoritarian tide and made some fundamental changes in a few societies. As if all of the above were just James Dean, the rebels without a clue, as nowadays people cant see for the life (death!) of them the cause. This breed of suckers looks down upon us naïve little Che Guevara wannabes and truly believe that the way it was in the nineties was the way it has always been, and that is: THIS IS THE WAY IT IS! THEY OWN THE SHOPS AND WE WORK IN THE SHOPS! And they don't seem to have the imagination to see past their little lot in life and realise that what is happening in the rest of the world isn't a Mickey Mouse revolution. The liberals made sure it was no longer cool to be a rebel. Rock 'n' Roll is dead. Long live Fred Durst.

Hmm, ironic because it is actually a Mickey Mouse revolution, meaning that there are people, whole masses of people, grown ups, men and women, desperately revolting against Mickey Mouse himself, and all that he stands for. Convenience. Consumerism. Capitalism. McDonalds. Coca Cola. Nike. All of what these brands stand for. Exploitation. Enslavement. The Empire of the United States of America. And it is real.

The reason these idiots don't see this is because they are too busy watching the Simpsons, too busy working in coffee shops so, on weekends they get to spend their money in coffee shops, and on drink, clothes, things, glitter, shiny, ooh! A huge wall of wool, the sparkly shimmering type, full of stuff has been pulled over the eyes of the 'people' and now they don't care anymore. 'Isms' are so passé, dead end clichés that will only ever lead you to failure. We, the people of the twenty-first century are far too concerned with Hollywood superstars, far too pumped full of teen idols to ever have enough time to occupy ourselves with what is actually going on around us. Until, of course, the government decides to ban us from smoking. In which case we all become little Ches.

But it is too late now, when all Big Brother means to us is an incredibly boring TV show we just cannot keep our eyes off of. It is too late now that we all completely miss the irony in naming the ultimate of spy equipment 'Windows'. The mother of surveillance, the father of control, the ALL SEEING EYE for crying out loud! Yes folks, the Internet and the home computer, 'Windows' into our lives. It just seemed to slip past us all.

Now, what exactly are ideologies? And is there a need for them or was there a grain of truth in the attitude that 'isms' will get us nowhere?

Ideologies can be described as the banner a certain political party might march under, Social Democracy, Liberalism, Socialism etc. Ideologies more or less map out how a party may wish to run a nation once they come to power, the political beliefs they hold. Of course many ideologies are far too idealistic and must be watered down. An ideology can be too 'left' or too 'right' wing and in the stable countries of Europe and America you will gain power by showing that you are not fanatical, that you are more to the centre of the political spectrum. This is why Labour governments are the same as National governments are the same as Conservative governments. Although down in South America you still have the threat of extreme left wing governments, and the likes, coming to power. But don't worry, the USA has all of that under control.

The Social Democratic government of post war Britain brought about the country's 'Golden Age'. Essentially it was a Keynesian, capitalist government. However, thanks to the Beveridge plan, there was a huge social element involved. Basically the belief was that, instead of maltreating the workforce, if you created 100% (male) employment and kept wages high so that the workforce could also double as the consumer and thus increase spending and help the market to boom. The state then remained as a social welfare safety net for those who were unable to participate in the new shift in lifestyle.

This soon created a national economy that possessed the competitive dynamics equivalent to that of a lead balloon. As inflation rose and the market became uncompetitive, the government had no money to spend on bail-outs and foreign products flooded the land, creating, by the seventies, all new low levels of unemployment.

That was Social Democracy, now it was the Liberals turn to run the country as Margaret Thatcher stepped in. Liberalism is the belief that all people should be free. They should be free to own their own autonomous plot of land to be free in. This led to attitudes and shifts in legislation leaning towards the ease for individuals to acquire land and private ownership. It was all down to the individual. No longer would the state look after you. It was now your own fault, your own laziness that had you poor and homeless. If you wanted to be rich all you had to do was go out and get rich. These were the principals that lead to the yuppies of the eighties. The individualistic and apathetic attitudes of the nineties. The privatisation of public services. And also allowed for big business to enter public domain and pick and choose whatever they wanted, leaving the majority with an even greater canyon, a more huge divide to cross if they wished to follow their individual right to pursue wealth and material gain. It brought society out of the heavy, slow methods of industrialism and into post industrialism where it is up to the dynamics of the individual, their ability to learn and 'get ahead' in today's fast paced society.

Ultimately the idea is to reduce the responsibilities of the state, creating a flexible security committee, and the world to live under anarchy, the only governing force being the economy.

Yet there is strong opposition to these capitalist forms of governments. Socialist parties are quite common and profess humane motives for reform. They wish to reform society, to change parts of it to suit the proletariat, to create a more equal world, where the state decides how to share everything equally. But earlier examples of such states only lead me to believe that the idea of ideological governments is too advanced for humans, (how can a state ultimately decide the needs of every individual?), that we are unable to control our own nature and doing so only leads to misconceived, mutant forms of an otherwise natural, organic species development. We seem to be far more suited to simple ideas such as anarchism, for these grand ideas of paving and cultivating the human psyche and society only seem to land us in trouble.

People have great trouble trying to picture an anarchist state. Hollywood (or Australia's equivalent) has made sure of that, pumping us full of chaotic images of how they picture society without them in charge would be, with films the likes of Mad Max.

But the first mistake people make is thinking of it as an anarchist state for it cannot be a state. It is not a government, not an ideology.

Where monarchy means one authority, anarchy is without authority. And to believe that this is how people should live is to believe that every one person has the right and ability to live their life the way they wish. That no one must bow to another. So why isn't that the way it is? With the exploited being the majority why aren't they out there thrashing the living shit out of the bourgeois?

This is where conservative ideologies come in with their moral high grounds and universal ethical tripe they piously spew upon the 'people' below.

However, there are two types of conservatives. The first being the rich mentioned above, who wish to maintain the status quo due to greed, and will quash any dissent with ferocity. The second type is the poor type, who keep their heads low and get on with their day to day living, for fear of breaking such a monotonous routine would only lead them to even further levels of poverty.

And so we see that conservative ideology is a double edged sword in maintaining the power of the bourgeois over the proletariat.

These are but a few examples of ideologies and what effect they have had on society through 'Golden Ages' and depressions. Complete changes in reality, they are born out of ideas and philosophies of individuals and from there they snowball into movements that may disrupt the foundations with which our feet are planted, turning our lives right way round over night. For a further example look what effect Communism had on Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century. This ideology, its manifesto written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in London, over half a century before hand, went on to transform a whole world over the course of another number of decades. Of course it was not the ideology itself but its concepts at the hands of men that did the damage.

It is the ongoing conflict, perhaps, that ideologies create that has the current population so scornful of 'isms'. And this may be a good reason to give up on them. It is also apparent that ideologies have severely suffocated the individual the post modern youth of the eighties and nineties had such fun in expressing. Every person has a unique and valid view on the world and how they may wish to live it. With this in mind it is easy to see how the ideals of 'isms' can be too much to bear for most.

However I also believe that ideologies create calling symbols within society. Every type of political current has its flags and flows, dresses and conducts. Walking through the streets a simple badge may create an instant relationship, a bond between what could have been two strangers never to have met. Symbols can call for unity, they can bring people together under a common understanding.

Of course this can be a bad thing too, how identity can alienate and exclude, how it can create dangerous ties, ignorance and prejudice. Identity is an incredibly childish habit of humanity, but it still can be put to good use in the same way ideologies can.

Another point in favour of ideologies is that studying them, instead of merely discrediting them in a moment (or lifetime) of ignorance, can bring you to a greater understanding of how a society has been constructed. Learning about the ideas behind peoples actions in creating structures within society may be an essential part in the rebuilding such structures. To look at society and to be frustrated with it is a dead end. You must learn what it is you are frustrated with, understand the reasons why and place yourself in a more enlightened position, only fuelling your arsenal of dissent leading to more efficient activism. If you can think how 'they' think then you are in a far better position to attack, so to speak.

-- Ed Whitfield, March 2004

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