So an ideology is characterized by a set of statements asserting pairwise relations of the form: “My foundation is this proven mechanism X that works, your foundation is this vice Y you refuse to trade for a virtue” The solipsistic self-image is ((X1, Y1), (X2, Y2),...)
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There is no consensus external view because the outside-in views do not harmonize. So the choice for an insider is to believe in either a solipsistic and self-serving self-image or an incoherent union of outside-in critical moral judgments that can be dismissed as incoherent.
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Example, for (capitalism, socialism), (capitalism, libertarianism) we get X1: market Y1: lazy free-riding X2: efficiencies of scale Y2: naïveté of small-scale/decentralized idealism
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Point is, no ideology is ever characterized from first principles in practice. People who try to do that are (correctly) dismissed as impractical fundamentalists. An ideology only exists as a set of pairwise defenses of solipsistic self-certainty against *specific* competitors.
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This is a neat arrangement because what it does is define the ideology via arguments of convenience against the specific weaknesses of competitors, based on their visible incentives while explaining their iwn behavior in terms of reasonable necessity rather than incentives.
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Example: some degree of free-riding is an obviously likely in a welfare state, so that incentive becomes the definition of socialism. Their internal justifications (eg compassion) can be rejected as hypocrisy. But their own behavior is explained by “efficient market” not “greed”.
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Example 2, (socialism, capitalism), (socialism, libertarianism) X1: compassion, Y1: greed X2: community, Y2: selfishness Example 3 (libertarianism, socialism), (libertarian, capitalism*) X1: individualism, Y1: bureaucracy X2: innovation, Y2: cronyism * capitalism in practice
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This intersubjective approach to ideological self-definition is pragmatic, operationalizes and weaponizes attribution error at scale, successfully casts all failures as aberrations caused by the vices of others, and ensures you never have to admit you’re wrong about anything.
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Ideology, like love, means never having to say you’re sorry. Example: when market failures happen through distortions/ externalities, capitalists blame state institutions, libertarians blame cronyism, socialists blame greedy individualism. Nobody has to accept any blame.
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Note what happens in such discourses. Specific problems are plausibly everybody’s fault and therefore nobody’s fault. Nobody has to change behavior, everybody gets to preach at everybody else, recommending specific moral evolutions to them from vice to virtue.
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Trick to breaking out of these patterns is to ignore analyses that do not center specific behaviors of named people. When you do that, it will turn into a game of no-true-Scotsman. Pick 2 of 3: a name, an ideology, responsibility for a problem
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If you ditch ideology, you’ll at least find someone to hold accountable within your means. Not vote for them, not work with them, not buy their stuff etc. This is what cancel culture clumsily tries to do, except via mob judgment contagion rather than actual distributed judgment.
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Everybody was all bullish on ideologies a few years back, and many people wanted to work on them, innovate on them, etc. Now everybody is sick of them, and tries or pretends to be above them. But they aren’t going anywhere. Good time to invest actually.
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