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Point taken on the redundancy.

I'm not sure I totally understood the crayon analogy. I tend to think of ideology as an organizing mechanism of humanity.

It could also be called belief or dogma. Everyone lives under these sort of cultural conditions. There are benefits as well as drawbacks depending on the ideological alignment.

As a possible positive example, if the free market ideology of Austrian economics was more ubiquitous we might not have allowed much of the developed world to fall into socialism.

In a complete absence of ideological alignment any system of belief can fill the gap. At the moment the gap seems to be filled by materialism and mass media trends.

Lau 9mo ago

Believing that the gap is filled by mass media and materialism is an ideology too, it's a symptom.

The crayon analogy I like because I think it's childish to think you can imagine what the true greatness of existence is. You can give expression to the feeling you have when you try to imagine, that's something else, but as soon as someone starts to fix an image, the gap of uncertainty is filled with that which hasn't been discovered yet and is taken for true.

I think the most sane approach is to dare to leave open that which is unknown. That doesn't mean you can't have faith, but it does mean no personification, identification, or any kind of fixation of that which is uncertain.

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Sourcenode 9mo ago

I understand what you mean in terms of attempting to quantify or describe the ultimate reality.

The Tao which can be named is not the eternal Tao.

At the same time, surrendering the ability to express ideas about how society is functioning doesn't lend itself to practical action.

The ideology of relinquishing all ideology is also an ideological approach.

The balance, as far as I can tell, is being in the world, but not of the world.

Have you met this toad?

Lau 9mo ago

I've known about that toad, but I've yet to meet him.

I'm grateful for your reflections.

I used two extremes in one analogy to show the absurdity of it, but I think you're right in saying the balance is being in the world, not of the world.

I also think that it's useful to use this definition of ideology: ideology is the act of fabrication or use of false constructs in order to cope with uncertainty.

Examples are: assuming the laws of physics are constant and homogenous everywhere in our universe, which hinders the study of what they actually are. Or, assuming we are our body, which fails to explain psychosomatics or relocation of memory. Or, believing in God, ruining the ability to have faith and keep your senses open to witness what that may actually be.

Sourcenode 9mo ago

Yes. As soon as we try to describe something with words we capture it in away which abstracts it from reality.

Yet I still need directions to the grocery store 😂