I have been thinking about ideology (political, religious, cultural…) and what it offers to us and its potential pitfalls.
According to Wikipedia, an ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially as held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which “practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones.” Formerly applied primarily to economic, political, or religious theories and policies.
Ideology has several meanings, according to Webster’s Dictionary. As a ‘content of thinking’ and as an ‘intellectual pattern’ it reflects the involuntary elements of ideology which we all, of any background, have and probably keep for life; it is part of our indelible (class) heritage. It is ideology that channels our social behavior in predictable directions.
An ideology starts perhaps with a small set of beliefs, evolving into a coherent concept with possible a larger set of beliefs, thus providing a very structured frame work to rely upon and anchor around, one’s value system. The relative flexibility of an ideology in its developing stage offers tremendous freedom to evolve into a well defined thought framework.
Ideological values and duties are imprinted by the family, the educational system and by the social environment as well. Therefore, most of the time, ideology tends to be pro status quo (almost by definition, since the survival of that ideology would be otherwise at stake). Ideology is definitely not so universally shared and is definitely more closely bound to our social class and heritage.
My inference: An established ideology, i.e. whose adherents make it status quo, is when I feel it loses its intellectual effect. From this point on, any idea, thought or belief that is not aligned with the stated ideology is vigorously opposed, may be even viciously at certain times.It is when an ideology transforms from a claim to fame to a ball and chain. So we paint ourselves into a proverbial corner of our ideological beliefs.
Now what has that got to do with the photo on the top? That photo visually illustrates my inference stated above. How so you may ask? I am glad you did.
That photo was taken around 4pm in the evening in bright sunlight lit from behind the flower. By using an onboard flash and high aperture being close to the subject, I managed to get the background to be dark. High aperture implies a very small diameter opening, i.e. narrow focusing. It focuses on small area while the surrounding area is cut off. Enough of the photography geek.
If we were to associate the narrow aperture to our rigidity of an ideology, the dark background now represents the darkness or lack of knowledge (in the dark so to speak). The small flash used is like the knowledge we have about our ideology and lights up only that aspect at the cost of everything else. That is how nature or laws of optics work. If you want to broaden your belief system, you need to widen the aperture, thereby seeing more things but at the cost of those becoming less sharper. The metaphorical depth of field (DoF) becomes a guide to tell you when rigidity has set in your ideological belief.
Though it is a beautiful capture by some accounts, it illustrates the pitfall of a mature ideology.
P.S. It is not my intention to insinuate followers of any ideology, either implied or explicitly. It was my aha moment that I attempted to put in words.
