Jordan Peterson covers a few ideas about ideologies in his 12 Rules For Life that I wanted to take a closer look at today. His main point is that ideologies are an attractive proposition for those who demand simple answers from a complex world. Those under the sway of an ideology will filter their experiences through a small set of axioms and explain their world in the context of their beliefs. The ideology discourages further learning and eventually becomes a substitute for the fundamental knowledge required to acknowledge the truth of suffering in life. In short, he considers an ideology much in the way a doctor might think about a contagious disease – once it finds a host, the person living with it becomes hard to distinguish from the invader.
The worst ideas are in another way like the worst diseases – they cultivate the temptation for self-sacrifice. Totalitarian regimes are defined by their willingness to kill their own citizens. Of course, any society can find its own version of dark chaos without resorting to a murderous system of government. It simply happens one person at a time, each one deluded by inauthentic experience until we all forget about the long road we’ve traveled to make the world a healthier and wealthier place.
