What is the ideology?
Politics is an aspect of life in common that, despite affecting everyone in our lives, seems to be widely disowned. The linking of the sphere of politics to the exercise of elites that are responsible for synthesizing the chaotic "popular will" through a kind of electoral alchemy is something that, at least, generates disdain for its inefficiency at the time of introducing satisfactory changes for the entire population in the economic and social fields.
However, there are still few people who question classical participatory democracy, adhering to the logic of the lesser evil. It is, apparently, a position of centers, which does not fall into extremism. One might wonder, however, what is the psychological nature of the political center , and to what extent it is differentiated from alternative ways of thinking. For this, we would first have to address the concept of ideology.
What is the ideology?
Classically, the ideology as a system of fundamental ideas that define a way of political, religious, cultural, identity, etc. own of a person or community. That is to say, in a certain way the accent is placed on the timeless and on the degree to which these ideas define and are defined by the person or group that holds them.
From the point of view of cognition it is very easy to understand the concept of ideology as something immutable . Stationary and fixed categories do not lead towards contradiction, they promote conservative ways of thinking: being an anarchist implies not going to vote in general elections, being of the right implies defending labor flexibility. "I do not vote because I am an anarchist, I am an anarchist because I do not vote. It is a practically tautological reasoning with internal gears perfectly greased.
The complexity of our conception of the world
Without a doubt, c reer in the ideologies fixed a priori is comfortable and . However, this belief has the problem of being totally unreal. To think that people have concepts, systems of categories and "circuits of thought" fixed in time or even "proper to our being" is a form of dualism that goes against everything we know about psychology and neuroscience. Today we know that any idea is actually the result of a network of neuronal relationships in continuous change, even during old age. There are no fixed ways of seeing reality, and therefore even fewer ways of thinking "own ..." if we take into account that these are constantly changing. Similarly, the definitions of political ideologies of the academic literature do not exist in the margin of a reader who will internalize these ideas in the light of their past and present experiences and who will also guide their conclusions according to their objectives and interests.
Between ideas, prejudices and wills
Any idea exists because certain associations between ideas and perceptions of lower hierarchy silence other possible associations of ideas. What happens is that there are associations of ideas within a process of competition and convergence of various pieces of knowledge, biological impulses, subjective assessments and conclusions of deliberate thinking, as noted by Joaquín M. Fuster in Brain and Freedom (2014 ). This happens continuously, even while we sleep. As a consequence, our thought is not rigidly guided by a single integrating principle such as "being of the right" or "being pacifist", etc.
The term "ideology" it refers only to those general guidelines that define ways of thinking, but at the same time it implies an inevitable reductionism when it comes to studying something, comparing it with other things, etc. It is useful to talk about ideologies, but we must bear in mind that what is given in reality is something else : unique and unrepeatable thoughts, deeply original even in spite of being based on experiences, memories and previous knowledge, guided only in part by deliberate thought.
This conclusion It has serious implications . To consciously renounce our ability to reduce politics to hermetic and autonomous philosophical systems proposed "from above" implies thinking of politics as a function that is not proper of central decision-making bodies. It implies, at the end of the day, saying goodbye to ideological monism, to manual policy.
