{"id":24929,"date":"2017-08-28T12:26:49","date_gmt":"2017-08-28T17:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=24929"},"modified":"2017-08-28T12:26:49","modified_gmt":"2017-08-28T17:26:49","slug":"ideology-as-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=24929","title":{"rendered":"Ideology as Addiction"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"post-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/charleshughsmith.blogspot.com\/2017\/08\/ideology-as-addiction.html\">Ideology as Addiction<\/a><\/h3>\n<div id=\"post-4421932164783407805\" class=\"post-body\">\n<div><strong><i>Solutions abound, but they aren&#8217;t one size fits all ideologies.<\/i><\/strong><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><b>It isn&#8217;t just coincidental that ideology shares so many dynamics with addiction.<\/b>\u00a0Though ideology is a faith-belief dynamic rather than a chemical process, both require constant reinforcement\/renewal and both demand a painful withdrawal procedure of those who decide to free themselves of the monkey on their back.<\/div>\n<div><b>The individual addicted to an ideology needs a constant drip of confirmation that the ideological belief is both correct and ethically superior to competing belief systems.<\/b>\u00a0The ideology-addict gets a much-needed hit of confirmation by reading, watching or listening to other believers&#8217; justifications and defenses of the ideology.<\/div>\n<div><b>Ideology fills two basic human needs: certainty and purpose.<\/b>\u00a0a constant state of uncertainty places a corrosive burden on the mind, emotions and spirit; the solution is a decision or resolution that resolves the uncertainy.<\/div>\n<div>Humans need purpose to guide their life; aimlessness is debilitating and unnatural.<\/div>\n<div>Addiction provides purpose, as the life of the addict is guided by the need to satisfy the addiction.<\/div>\n<div>Ideology also provides purpose: the believer is called upon to defend and evangelize the ideology as an abstraction, and support its manifestations in the real world.<\/div>\n<div><b>Addiction is an all-or-nothing state of being.<\/b>\u00a0If an individual can abandon the addiction at will and feel no deprivation, it isn&#8217;t an addiction; if sporadic half-measures suffice, it isn&#8217;t an addiction.<\/div>\n<div><b>Ideology is also an all-or-nothing state of being.<\/b>\u00a0One doesn&#8217;t believe in capitalism or socialism, for example, in half-measure or occasionally when the whim strikes; one is convinced of the rightness of one&#8217;s ideology as a permanent state of certainty.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ideology as Addiction Solutions abound, but they aren&#8217;t one size fits all ideologies. It isn&#8217;t just coincidental that ideology shares so many dynamics with addiction.\u00a0Though ideology is a faith-belief dynamic rather than a chemical process, both require constant reinforcement\/renewal and both demand a painful withdrawal procedure of those who decide to free themselves of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4068,127,2088,6295,587],"class_list":["post-24929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-addiction","tag-charles-hugh-smith","tag-faith","tag-ideology","tag-of-two-minds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24930,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24929\/revisions\/24930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}