I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately and am currently sucked up into Jordan B. Peterson’s, 12 Rules For Life: An Antidote To Chaos. Within the first few pages (in the Foreword) I was blown away by the idea of ideologies. Such an old idea, yet so relevant to today.
We’re living in a day and age where information is being censored by tech giants like Facebook, Instagram, and Google – and it’s these same giants that control the media as well. What’s the need for censorship? What’s wrong with conflicting ideas to the mainstream narrative? I’ll come back to the discussion of ideologies shortly…
We all need to wake up
This past semester, I took an economic geography class that was largely focused on social relations and the cultural influences on money. Although I wasn’t too interested in the subject, that class was my favorite because my professor was so woke. What a terrible term, but she was very “awoken” to the happenings in and around the globe.
One of the biggest lessons I learned from her class was to never take anything at face value. What we see with our eyes, is never the complete picture. Like how a simple t-shirt from my favorite brands travels through 13 countries and is made from the hands of “workers” making less than a dollar a day; all for my convenience and the a cheap price-tag. Or how Apple manufactures abuse their “workers” (I use quotations because they are again being paid next to nothing), avoid safety and health checks, and threaten the lives of employees that speak out or talk about what goes on behind the doors of the factory.
Here’s some you can watch:
We watched a handful of documentaries that were honestly quite big culture shocks to me – they exposed me to just how much badness there is in the world. Even more so, it showed me that if we want to create the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible, it’s going to take radical, systematic, and foundational change.
It’s more than sustainability
So often, people say they support sustainability and are all for fair wages and treatment of workers across seas. Then, they go buy products from the very companies destroying people’s lives, the economies, and the environment. We’re all guilty of it; there’s nearly no way around it.
It’s more than claiming heroically that you’re an advocate for sustainability, it’s about becoming aware. We all need to take a moment, and pause before coming to conclusions. Don’t focus on the bright shiny item with a price tag in front of you – think about what went on beyond the price tag. Often, it’s chemicals, abusive labor, unfair wages, destruction of communities and the environment… but no-one is aware. We rarely give these things a second of our time.
So yes, sustainability is important, but there’s more too it. Start thinking about your actions and their consequences. Now, this leads me back to ideologies.
What are Ideologies?
As Doctor Norman Doidge, MD (he wrote the foreword to 12 Rules For Life) wrote,
“Ideologies are simple ideas, disguised as science or philosophy that purport to explain the complexity of the world and offer remedies that will perfect it.”
Everyone has an ideology of some kind. Unfortunately, they are very dangerous, and almost 100% of the time… wrong. Having some ideology, some know-it-all approach is no match for the complexity of most issues in today’s world. Just as the person who screams “we need to save the planet” fails to recognize they themselves are a massive contributor and supporter of the mechanisms destroying it. Dr. Doidge continues:
“Ideologues are people who pretend they know how to “make the world a better place” before they’ve taken care of their chaos within. (The warrior identity that their ideology gives them covers over that chaos.)”
Did you catch that last part?
That’s the juice. That’s the part that really struck my attention in this book. It’s the fact (true knowledge) that many people see themselves as heroes when pursuing a seemingly noble cause, when in reality they are either unaware, or cowards – doing everything they can to avoid the chaos, confusion, and conflict within themselves.
The role ideologies play today
There are so many ideologies circulating through our world at this very moment and the funny part is a lot of people are not formulating their own ideas. They pull from the very sources that have the most to gain from keeping you fearful, stressed, and powerless; I’m talking about the news and social media.
In today’s day and age, we (think) we have access to all of the information. There are billions of results for any given search on Google. Unfortunately, what this means is we aren’t taking time to think for ourselves. It’s easier, quicker, and more convenient to just watch the news, search a hashtag, or find something on Google than it is to formulate our own thought.
In fact, as I was growing up I was never really taught to critically think. I was told what to think – by teachers, parents, society. It’s understandable that we all want the easy way because we were all born into a system that’s main job is to keep us in the system. I don’t want you to think I’m getting all Matrix like and how there’s an alternate reality that we aren’t aware of – but it’s worth thinking about the idea of how things are and how they came to be.
Be careful questioning mainstream
The problem with a lack of critical thinking comes because we just get stuck. Stuck in our programmed ideologies of how we think things should be; that’s dangerous. We start to resent ideas that conflict our own reality and any opinion, belief, or thought that contradicts ours sets us on fire. We get enraged.
Our world is more divided than ever right now. Ideologies are moving further and further to the extremes. People don’t want a middle ground… they want to be right.
The thing is – we can’t all be right. Even more, there usually isn’t a perfectly right answer. If you’re offended by someones opinion, how weak does that mean you are? How dare you have authority over someone else’s thoughts – no matter how far fetched they may seem? That is not your responsibility. You are your own responsibility. If you want to waste your time and energy getting upset over someone else’s thoughts, on the basis that they are not the same as yours, so bet it. But that isn’t going to serve anyone.
Our world was built on curiosity
We cannot shut other people down simple because they think differently from us – that is a violation of our basic humans rights! Everyone’s opinions are valid, even when they question the mainstream.
It should be exciting to hear other ideas and perspectives. As Dr. Doidge says,
“For the ancients, the discovery that different people have different ideas about how, practically, to live, did not paralyze them; it deepened their understanding of humanity and led to some of the most satisfying conversations human beings have ever had, about how life might be lived.”
That’s the mindset we need to take on. If there was one ideology the entirety of humankind were to adopt, it should be one of curiosity.
In conclusion: be a critical thinker
Do not form your beliefs and views of the world through any form of media – you’re doing a disservice to yourself. Shut off the news. Put the phone down. Go sit with yourself and practice being a critical thinker – pick an issue and start thinking about. A great one right now, cohvid (11 + 8). Ask yourself: if I didn’t have social media, the internet, or the news, would I even know that this was a thing. Probably not, because it’s only dangerous to a sliver of the total population. Yet, the media has bombarded us over and over, making the viewer think this is something they should be worried about. For the majority of people, we have nothing to worry about. (This is a great example: did you just get mad and think I’m stupid when reading that?)
In Jordan Peterson’s book, he says,
“… the foremost rule is that you must take responsibility for your own life. Period.”
Work on the chaos within. Disassociate from your ideologies. Open up to new possibilities. Most importantly, turn off the news.
