Commtary by David PrestonMost of the male-to-male arguments you see on FB aren’t about finding truth. They’re about finding a herd and sticking to it. Yet men fancy themselves free, so you will often find them cloaking their sheepish nature in the fierce pelt of ideology. But ideology is herd-following all the same. Are you guilty of ideology? Here’s a quick way to check . . .
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An ideological position is one where you look at a question primarily from the angle of: What does my group think about this? – and then reflexively go with that. A variant of the ideological position is what I call argumentum pro hominem, where you take someone’s part because you think he’s smart or that he’s usually right.
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You can tell an ideologically based position in others by the following signs:
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1) Keeping It Simple. Lots of memes, pithy quotes, and references to established authorities. Few original thoughts or deviation from the premise.
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2) No Surprises. The ideologue’s position is consistent with what you would expect from the person based on other positions he’s taken (or people he’s defended) in the past. If he doesn’t set out his political affiliation from the git-go, as a point of pride, he will usually cop to it sometime during the discussion.
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3) White Hats / Black Hats. The ideologue seeks to simplify the world by establishing that there are two schools of thought on the matter in the hand. There are The Good Guys (of which he is naturally a member) and there are The Bad Guys (represented by his opponent). A variant of this would be The Smart Set and The Stupid Set.
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The ideologue might recognize some naive virtue or intelligence in his opponent, but he will never concede that his own position might be dead wrong, because to do so would be to admit that he might be one of The Bad Guys. Neither will he cop that the world might be a lot bigger than his mental projection of it, because then he’d be adrift in that world, without a herd.
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[Insert reassuring kitten here]
