I often tell people that I hate ideology, but still, even as I rant against people who have the answers before they know the question, I know I'm not being completely honest with myself. Of course I have ideology. Of course I see things from my own perspective. We all do.
The only alternatives to ideology are to either to know nothing outside myself, or to have a direct line to universal truth. If I knew nothing outside myself, I'd be in Hollywood. I were to claim some corner on the market of absolute objectivity, I'd be putting myself in the same category as certain religious zealots, who claim only they understand revelation, and Ayn Rand's Objectivists, who claim that their rather extreme beliefs are the product of pure reason. These are the most ideological people of all. This claim on truth leads to self-righteousness. Their doctrinaire arrogance makes them the most dangerous of all people.
I am not a religious fundamentalist, and I don't believe that my ideas on how the world should be run are the only ideas that will work. I like them fine, but am willing to compromise. I may even change my mind from time to time. But I have moral beliefs, and I have ideas. So I must have some ideology. But what? The only way I can sketch out my personal system of beliefs and ideas is to look at others.
One person whose balance of thought and morality is John Maynard Keynes. Keynes is sometimes viewed as the savior of capitalism from the darkness of the Great Depression, and sometimes reviled as the harbinger of government dependency and (cue thunderclap) socialism. What I see in Keynes is a man who understood the dismal science of economics better than most, and wanted to reconcile it with the moral goals of civilization. I could say the same of other contemporaries of his, like Friedrich Hayek, but I don't share his moral interests. I care about the general welfare of citizens just a little more than I care about the freedom of individuals. He was just the opposite. From Keynes, I've found that I believe in a moral capitalism where governments work to reduce the natural inequalities of competition, and take some interest in things like industrial policy, a strong safetynet, and public-private collaboration for the greater good. Neither Keynes nor I would begrudge a person who grows rich from their work. We just believe that that no economic decision is made in a vacuum, that every dollar spent is a dollar someone else earns. We believe that every underpaid or unemployed worker is not just a consequence of the market at work, but is also now collecting tax-funded unemployment and Medicaid, while avoiding the purchases that go to another worker's paycheck.
Another personal hero is the recently departed playwright-dissident-turned-Czech-president-and-Nobel-laureate Vaclav Havel. In the essay, The Power of the Powerless, Havel describes the small actions that a greengrocer undertakes against the banality of oppression; the way that a shopkeeper might one day decide that the propaganda posters that come with the vegetable shipments don't need to go in his shop's window. Havel writes,
"Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them. As the repository of something suprapersonal and objective, it enables people to deceive their conscience and conceal their true position... It is an excuse that everyone can use, from the greengrocer, who conceals his fear of losing his job behind an alleged interest in the unification of the workers of the world, to the highest functionary, whose interest in staying in power can be cloaked in phrases about service to the working class."
Havel doesn't call on the masses to resist, and never claims to have the answers. He just describes the unwitting path that he and his friends and neighbors took towards being dissidents, the slow acceptance that his society is enervated by beliefs used to support a hollow, calcified, and oppressive hegemony. He simply describes the way that one argument over something silly could land someone (anyone) in jail. Havel never thought he'd be a leader. He just followed his beliefs, and did it in a way that worked well enough with others that he ended up at the vanguard of one of the major turning points of the twentieth century. It all started with a humble, humane demand for dignity and truth. It's the way that all revolutions ever since have started.
I still don't know what my ideology is. I don't think I'll ever be comfortable calling myself one -ist or another, though surely several are appropriate. Part of me gets some satisfaction out of thinking I'm above all that, but I'm not. And another part of me rejects that kind of satisfaction. That part just wants what's right. That's never easy to pin down, nor should it be.
