Ideology 2

More on ideology and idealists . . .

I believe that most idealists are actually rationalists, and that most ideologies are, at base, founded on purest reason. For example, some years ago, I read an article in a major publication regarding the human tragedies attending one of Africa’s endless wars. The article concluded with the description of a boy that the reporter had seen at a hospital. The child had been struck by shrapnel and had lost, among other parts of his body, a testicle.

A few days later, the same publication ran a letter it had received from a reader about the article. The reader, a woman of strong opinions, pointed out that if the reporter had bothered to examine girls in the region he would have noticed that many had been subjected to “female circumcision,” that is, the removal of external genitalia. Compared to this crime against an entire gender, she wrote, one boy with a little metal in him was hardly worth discussing.

It was an interesting letter . . . though, I must confess, at first, I didn’t follow the logic. What the writer was saying, after all, was that one innocent victim’s personal tragedy was rendered (by magic?) less significant by other victims’ personal tragedies. It didn’t seem to follow, in other words, that one bit of agony should be made less by more.

But, then, I realized I had misunderstood. The writer was, in fact, speaking as an ideologist, and what she was really saying was “The pain of people who are like me is more important than the pain of people who are not.” Or, more precisely still, “Your pain is less significant than my pain” – a sentiment, which, I think, is at the secret core of all ideologies, no matter nobly it may be otherwise expressed.

And, you must confess, it is entirely rational.

Not particularly attractive.

But wholly rational.