This [19th century] emphasis on mental character lasted for a time, but it has abated. There’s less talk of sin and frailty these days. Capitalism has also undermined this ethos. In the media competition for eyeballs, everyone is rewarded for producing enjoyable and affirming content. Output is measured by ratings and page views, so much of the media, and even the academy, is more geared toward pleasuring consumers, not putting them on some arduous character-building regime.
In this atmosphere, we’re all less conscious of our severe mental shortcomings and less inclined to be skeptical of our own opinions. Occasionally you surf around the Web and find someone who takes mental limitations seriously. For example, Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway once gave a speech called “The Psychology of Human Misjudgment.” He and others list our natural weaknesses: We have confirmation bias; we pick out evidence that supports our views. We are cognitive misers; we try to think as little as possible. We are herd thinkers and conform our perceptions to fit in with the group.
But, in general, the culture places less emphasis on the need to struggle against one’s own mental feebleness. Today’s culture is better in most ways, but in this way it is worse.
One of my professors, an immigrant, said that the historic strength of America was the fact that it did not have an ideology. It was a nation of pragmatists. This was in the mid 1960s. Ideology, as Brooks points out, can be a refuge for lazy thinkers and a template for misdiagnosis of modern policy problems. It has become almost commonplace in modern political conversation. And what passes for the “ideological” glue in modern political discourse is very thin gruel compared to the ideological constructs of the 18th and 19th centuries.
RE: “One of my professors, an immigrant, said that the historic strength of America was the fact that it did not have an ideology.”
I think that — historically — most Americans, particularly those in “flyover country” had an ideology but it was one that they could not articulate. They just “knew it” [i]when they saw it or practiced it[/i].
In one sense it was/is [where it exists] a beautiful and natural thing. But it’s also dangerous to be unable to articulate one’s ideology — dangerous for “practical reasons” and for spiritual reasons as well.
I think Sarah’s point about the need that we be able to articulate our core ideology is well placed; and that it has a role in our recent church history.
As I left my Southern Baptist roots for a richer understanding of the Church through the Anglican communion (c.1976) I enjoyed the fact that the teaching was not the same old tent-meeting evangelism message every week. There was more, and deeper. But the flaw is that, in many places and in many times, that “simple gospel†and accompanying world view that sees everything through the lens of Jesus as Lord and Christ, has been ignored out of relevance. We taught and preached so much on the “bigger picture†that the church forgot, then forsook her foundation.
I have visited around a good bit in the last few years, and have been involved in ministries sponsored by Baptist churches. I have been humbled and refreshed to see how much the main thing is celebrated as the main thing.
Whatever we wish to teach, if we can’t teach it as drawing us to, and it’s life from, the cross of Christ, I think it is probably wrong or irrelevant. We must be able to articulate the core, or all else falls.
I think of ideology as a secular concept having no place in the church. North Korea has an ideological system of government. Cuba also, but perhaps less so. The Soviet Union tried it for a while, but eventually the fiction fell in a heap. China retains an ideological veneer, but even their leadership recognize it for what it is – a system of ensuring that only a certain type gets close to the levers of government. The United States does not have an ideological system of government. It never has and never will.
When we talk of religion, we are essentially talking about theology. It exists in an entirely different realm of human thought and endeavor than does politics. I assume that it is this, not ideology, that is the subject of comment No. 3.