So... Arnold

[JasonPratt]

My sense is that, if we use the terms "ideology" and "belief system" interchangeably, we've lost some subtle connotations from both words.  But I also get how easy it is to blur the line between the two.

Okay, what are the subtle connotations being lost between the words "ideology" (a logic or system of ideas) and "belief system"? I have agreed that both those terms can refer to what I also called "worldviews", and both terms can refer to sets or systems of ideas/beliefs which are less than worldviews (e.g. economic or government). Perhaps you mean that an ideology must be a worldview, and a belief system must be less than a worldview?

And what do you regard the subtle connotations being lost between the terms, if a system of belief is not exactly a set or logic of ideas, relating to the topic of hating other people?

After all, however "easy" it may be "to blur the line" between the two ideas, I am demonstrably very picky and detailed in thinking about ideas! -- so whatever mistake I'm supposed to be making, in equating a meaning of the two terms, doesn't seem likely to be an easy one! (Though I suppose I cannot deductively rule out that I'm making an easy mistake somewhere in regarding a system of ideas as a logic of beliefs. And vice versa! I do make easy mistakes sometimes, as illustrated in who posted the Ukrainian Beaver meme.  ) Nor did you take the opportunity to easily describe the difference when saying it's easy to blur the lines between the supposed difference. (You gave "mythology" and "religion" as an example of "blurring" meanings between terms, but didn't specify if the same meanings are being blurred between the two sets of terms; and if not, then the differences being supposedly blurred by identifying the terms haven't been described yet, even indirectly.)

[JasonPratt]

Meanwhile, I'm more concerned about the logical implications of ideas (or the lack of logic perhaps!), thus also for the sake of the original topic: whatever worthwhile idea was being aimed at in Arnold's video (and/or what Arnold thought he was aiming at, and/or his producers or whoever actually commissioned and designed it, inviting Arnold along for the ride.)

Upthread I quickly rejected the idea(!) that all ideologies must be hateful or lead to oppressing other persons somehow. Maybe that's supposed to be the "subtle connotation" between an "ideology" and a "belief system" in regard to the thread topic of not being hateful (broadly speaking, per Arnold's video) -- although if so, it's only "subtle" in the sense that once it's spelled out it becomes either self-refuting or simply an arbitrary addition (in the modern pejorative sense of "arbitrary") to the idea of a logic of ideas (an "ideology") compared to the idea of a system of beliefs!

Unless, perhaps, there is supposed to be something inherently and necessarily 'hateful' about a system of beliefs being logical, thus an ideology instead of only a (non-logical or illogical) system. Maybe the subtle connotation is supposed to be that a belief system doesn't necessarily involve truth claims, but an ideology does? -- which therefore means that ideologies are always competitive to some degree in mutually exclusive ways, while systems of belief don't have to be mutually exclusive to each other (not involving different truth claims)? -- and therefore being competitive, ideologies must always involve hate, thus must always lead people to hate other people, thus 'the problem' of hate is 'ideology' (compared to mere belief systems)?

Because if that subtle connotation is spelled out less subtly, I don't think it will be hard to find problems with it! But maybe some other subtle connotation was meant to be the difference between the two concepts or ideas.

However, if the problem isn't ideology per se but depersonalizing ideologies (as noted upthread), then something can be done in working out which ideologies should be avoided on those grounds and which should be promoted instead -- although unless we're going to only promote ideas, to avoid 'hate', without regard for objective truth, then at best we'll only be putting together modern mythologies in the modern sense of suggestive fantasies.

Maybe reality is ultimately depersonalizing; I don't think it ultimately is, even though temporarily so sometimes (which I have reason, not only emotions, to regard as tragic even though temporarily so).

But if reality factually is ultimately depersonalizing, then ultimately it won't be possible to avoid ultimate depersonalization of persons (even to the denial of persons ever existing at all). The ultimate depersonalization, at best, could only be managed -- perhaps! And maybe not at all able to be managed, or with very hard limits to how far it can be possibly be managed!

The problem of hating persons (including if such a problem even exists as a problem and isn't only an illusionary problem!), therefore, must depend first on figuring out what is factually true, and the logical implications of such truth; and then figuring out whatever is possible to do about the problem.

[FarAway Sooner]

Jason, maybe the issue comes in my own reading of the two words. 

My sense has always been that ideologies tend to explain things through a very limited handful of principles or ethical dimensions that can be applied regardless of the situation.  Ideologies typically seem to draw their power through their simplicity.

My sense has also been that belief systems tend to be more convoluted, complex series of often-overlapping, often-competing ethical dimensions. 

Of course, people almost never refer to their own belief systems as ideologies, any more than they refer to their own religions as mythologies (which I think was part of your original point).  So maybe "ideology" is just a label you use to describe the other side's moral calculus after you've reduced it to very simplistic terms.

It doesn't help any that humans' ethical belief systems are VERY seldom applied in logical, rational, systematic fashion.  They are generally applied very instinctually, with the justifications and carefully thought-out arguments coming later.  Psychologists like Kahneman, Tversky, Haidt, and Pinker, plus journalists like Wright have been largely in agreement on that for more than a quarter-century now. 

If you've not read any of their stuff, as a student of ideas, you'd probably find what they all have to say very provocative. 

[W8taminute]

Are not ideologies and belief systems both a set of laws created by man?  So if the answer is yes then there is no way that they could be perfect.  They should not be totally trusted?

Historically, a lot of ideologies and belief systems, like a lousy archer, fall short of their marks. 

[JasonPratt]

Okay, I can at least corroborate, from some personal experience, the notion of "ideology" being used as a pejorative to oversimplify an opposing or at least competing belief system. I'm not sure why that term has been foisted with that job -- maybe it sounds hoity-toity or foreign, or (more likely in my personal experience come to think of it) 'ideology' = 'philosophy' contrasted negatively to 'religion' and especially 'our religion'. I do think that's a mis-use of the term, ironically reducing its own content in an oversimplified and misleading way, but I feel pretty confident from past experience that if I brought up the term "ideology" in Sunday School next week and asked the class for their opinions about it, I'd get back something along that line. 'Ideology' (for them) would be what 'those people over there do who aren't us and also are wrong in important ways compared to us'.

I can also get behind the idea that oversimplified sets of beliefs are both unrealistic, thus dangerous for real life, and also can be proportionately popular by being simple. Combine those two ingredients, and that can easily (maybe necessarily) lead to problems, including very possibly hate, although even then the connection doesn't seem to be logically necessary. I remember a very left-wing author friend of mine telling me many years ago, that the Wiccans she personally knows, or knew at the time, have an oversimplified notion of 'spirits' and might get into big trouble if spirits are real and also not all are benevolent! She's well aware that not all Wiccans think all spirits are benevolent of course, but her report is one example I can think of where popularistic oversimplification of a belief system doesn't lead to hate as a consequential problem.

Labeling such systems of beliefs "ideologies" would be borrowing a neutral synonym for "belief system" and reducing its meaning for a shorthand description of that problem. But then the same term shouldn't be used for the sake of oversimplifying a belief system in opposition to it; and yet the two applications do have some overlap! Ironically.

If one term has been applied for that purpose, then I suppose it's kind of logical to apply a synonym for the term, which looks and sounds a lot different (for identification distinction purposes), for describing "more convoluted, complex series of often-overlapping, often-competing" sets of ideas or beliefs (such as "ethical dimensions"). But what term would you use for something in the middle of that continuum? -- and, relatedly, do you regard anything to be an ideal to aspire to between those evident problems with sets of ideas? After all, some amount or level of reality is complex, so a true set of ideas might be complex in some proportion -- unless the complexity is only an illusion, which I don't think it is but I wanted to be fair about not simply asserting otherwise.

{{If you've not read any of their stuff, as a student of ideas, you'd probably find what they all have to say very provocative.}}

I don't think I've read any of their work, but I agree that "humans' ethical belief systems are VERY seldom applied in logical, rational, systematic fashion.  They are generally applied very instinctually, with the justifications and carefully thought-out arguments coming later." At the very least, that's an accurate description of the reality of each human's intellectual growth (ideally to some kind of maturity) from a baby onward! It's a whole other question whether the justifications and carefully thought-out arguments involve any degree of discovering accurate ethics, and/or accurate reasons for why some ethical beliefs are true and others false.

A position that all such effort is only post hoc rationalization over merely instinctive amoral behaviors, would not be something I could coherently accept -- even where I do agree that sort of thing also happens: both the instinctive irrational amoral behaviors, which can be discovered, and rational inventions of moral codes (including as only rationalizations of the ultimately irrational and amoral behaviors).

That has a bearing on the original thread topic: Arnold seems to be making a moral appeal. If that's only any combination of irrational amoral behavior and/or rationally invented moral coding for the purpose of staying ahead in social gamesmanship, then any actual moral appeal goes floof! There might be a merely pragmatic appeal: 'you remember what happened to the Nazis and we'll do the same to whomever we call a Nazi!' But he wouldn't be appealing to the ethics of a discovered rational morality. The people he tends to be socially allied with in his personal life, perhaps not coincidentally, tend to be derogatory of the idea of a discovered rational morality; tend to be very much interested in using invented coding for social gamesmanship (including appeals to other people's beliefs in an actually discovered rational morality); and also tend to be rather emotional hateful haters when they feel like it, think they can get away with indulging in it, and/or think they can manipulate other people into emotionally reacting along with their goals (which is social gamesmanship again).

Be that as it may: substituting invented social games and/or emotional reactions to internal and external stimuli (both of which certainly and demonstrably happen, I fully acknowledge), for discovered moral grounding as a guide for behavior, does not by any principle lead to less hate.

Whether a discovered rational morality leads at least in principle (so far as people choose to put it into practice) to less hate, will depend VERY MUCH on what is being, or supposed to be being, discovered.

[FarAway Sooner]

Yeah.  Nobody's positing that it's a one-way street between instinct and reason.  Kahneman won his Nobel (in Economics, of all things) for talking about decision making.  His most popular book is probably Thinking: Fast and Slow, where he explores the feedback loops between instinctual and rational thinking.  Kahneman's work is applied to general cognitive processes.

Haidt looks much more specifically at ethical decision making.  The best introduction to his working is The Righteous Mind:  Why Good People Disagree on Politics and Religion.  Both books are written for an educated layman rather than for psychologists.

Haidt and his colleagues in Moral Foundations Theory have spent a lot of time trying to figure out exactly which values overlap each other and what the "root ingredients" are of various ethical beliefs we have.  Haidt admits that the model doesn't have perfect predictive value, but the model postulates six main "ethical dimensions" (i.e., single-dimensional axes for measuring the ethics of an action) that most human beings use:

• Fairness:  Is it fair?
• Harm:  Does it hurt anybody?  Whom and how much?
• Freedom-from-oppression:  Does this restrict people's ability to make their own choice?
• Respect for Authority:  Does it preserve some kind of worthwhile stability or order?
• Loyalty:  Does it reflect/promote some kind of group solidarity?
• Sacred:  Does it make references to some overtly higher good?  (this is admittedly the squishiest category, and covers everything from religious belief to environmentalism)

Not all people weight these dimensions equally, and most people instinctually use one or two of these dimensions to reach an initial decision about most situations very quickly.  With enough time and patient gathering of information, they can come to change their minds.  But the processing of this information is more often instinctual, so it's important to couch arguments across numerous different dimensions, rather than getting hung up on arguments that focus on a single dimension.

One of the things that I like about Arnold's outreach is that he doesn't get too hung up on the "Fairness" and "Harm" dimensions that generally represent about 95% of the arguments against the sort of extremism he's talking about.

[GDS_Starfury]

its worth mentioning that he spends almost no time on trump.  Im guessing the title is there as click bait.
the rest of the interview is worthwhile.