Ideologues (part 8) Cowardice and the Addiction to Control
In part four of this series, we explored some of the aggressive attitudes, actions, outlooks and behaviors that are typical to individuals who process information and reality through the authoritarian mode. Again, the authoritarian mode is a subset of perceptive valuation, which is the broader system of intelligence, that is, the general operating system for processing information and reality that human beings work through.
In this installment I’m going to get into the mechanism behind the ideologue’s intrinsic aggression towards reality, self, perceived external values and all things that conflict with internally held beliefs, and acquired predispositions and ways for assigning value.
The ideologue’s aversion to perceived external values or unbecoming traits perceived in self or others is rarely based in authentic motivations towards reality. Instead, their motivations towards or aversions to things are based primarily on their outlook of and core beliefs pertaining to authority, and then, how perceived values fit with, conform to, edify, enhance or detract from the characters they wish to be and see themselves as, and project to social audiences real or imagined…
Easy way to say that is, an ideologue’s entire concept of identity is based on (and in) the social actors they either assumed for themselves, or were assigned by their respective formative environments, which, are totally detached from their authentic senses of being. Their likes and dislikes, their attractions and prejudices are for the most part, mutations of the general consensus of the hive — which mutates, not only from person to person, but also according to emergent groups that form within regions, belief systems, organizations, lifestyle preferences and practices, or cursory aesthetic differences (etc) — all phenomena that serve as the basis for establishing “cultures”.
At the base of mechanism behind ideologues’ aversion to and aggression towards perceived external values is the phenomenon humans refer to as “mutation”. Principally defined, mutation is or can be described as ‘forced and [considerably] abrupt dynamic changes and differentiations that occur as a result of exposure to external traumas, interventions, stimulations, catalysts or influences.’
Side note: Differentiations that occur as a result of internal influence, that is, those that occur within organisms connected and belonging to greater systems and cycles, would in fact be part of natural organization, and subsequently, represent natural growth processes — i.e., the phenomenon humans refer to as “evolution”, which basically charts the growth and development of this [species of] planet’s structural building blocks, through the planet’s respective stages of development. Mutation can only occur as a result of external influence, either seen or unseen. Conversely, adaptation and organic progression are (for the most part) products of internal processes that are intrinsic to organisms and systems…
In the last installment of this series, I got into part of the reason for why I settled on the term “ideologue” to describe individuals who process information and reality through the authoritarian mode. Firstly, the word ideologue means to describe persons who process reality primarily by way of ideal and/or idealism, and subsequently, authority. Secondly though, I use the term ideologue to indicate a capacity for being programmable. An ideologue is basically an individual whose mind is an open slot waiting to be filled with authority — beliefs and belief systems that can imbue them with senses of autonomy (which they ultimately end up weaponizing against others, themselves and perceived external values).
So an ideologue is not simply an individual who adheres to a specific belief system or ideology, but instead, a person who’s outlook and way of processing information and reality sums to a capacity for programmability, and a subsequent pathological desire to assimilate others into the programs they seek to self actualize through. In other words, ideologues are basically people in search of programs to run on and operate by means of (that is, “sources of authority”), who are attempting to “collect others” in their search for identity.
The great paradox of the ideologue, in processing information and reality through the authoritarian mode, is that it causes individuals who are searching for programs to operate on and self actualize through, to only process information and reality in cursory terms. Put it like this… If you look to authority to process information and reality for you, you’re never actually processing information and reality for yourself. It means you end up investing the energy that would otherwise go into thinking for yourself into finding programs and authority-sources that will do mental labor for you. In other words, you’re not looking at data, but instead, looking at the programs that process and filter meanings and ways for assigning value to you.
And because the ideologue rationalizes things according to authority, it causes them to experience feelings of assuredness towards phenomena they barely understand or give themselves time to consider and weigh. In fact, not only do they experience feelings of assuredness towards things they don’t understand and barely consider, but they go on to build complete identities around and then defend their identities based on these things as well…
One defining characteristic of ideologues is their addiction to control. As mentioned in previous installments, the ideologue’s general mindset is fundamentally no different than that of a person who’s addicted to controlled substances. An ideologue is basically an addict. They’re addicted to conceptual substances that are just as potent, if not, more so than illicit drugs…
Ideologues are addicted to authority and representations of authority. They’re addicted to situational power. They’re addicted to comfort and convenience. Ideologues are addicted to punishing things and/or arbitrarily or systemically dispensing justice to others. They’re addicted to winning (which we’ll get into in the next installment). They’re addicted to righteousness and feelings of moral elitism…
However, ideologues are notably addicted to ‘control’ (as a conceptual substance).
Principally defined, control is the ability to impose will onto things so that they serve as extensions of or instruments towards satisfying one’s desires.
Ideologues are addicted to controlling things. And instead of developing their abilities for adaptive response, and recognizing and conforming to new circumstances and reality, ideologues attempt to both fix and create reality by controlling external values, while paradoxically doing little to nothing to control themselves — that is, impose will onto their own impulses, urges, attitudes, actions and behaviors… onto their reactions and collections of addictions.
Ideologues believe the way to solve every problem is by controlling the attitudes, outlooks, actions and behaviors of other individuals and groups or external values, and by forcing others to recognize, edify, yield and conform to their authority, or that which they take on or recognize as authority.
So for instance, a political ideologue is more concerned with how policy is used to control the behaviors of others than they are with policy being used to restore and reinforce material infrastructure for the respective regions or countries they live in. They’re more concerned with who’s in charge and who gets to tell people what to do than they are with how resources are being allocated towards the repair, development and general sustainability of the infrastructure for their given republic.
A racial ideologue (irrespective of color) is more concerned with the amount of influence and control their group has within the greater social arena, than they are with ways to improve and intellectually fortify and diversify the capabilities of their people.
And this leads us to the question, why link the desire to maintain control to cowardice? Well…
Control in and of itself doesn’t have to be cowardly, but the desire to maintain control in lieu of adaptation is cowardly. A combination of adaptation and control, at least with respect to perceptive valuation, is or would be ideal. However, an over-reliance on control causes the mind to atrophy, as a result of failing to properly engage the dynamic thought process.
As mentioned in my Punishment Series, cowardice is a type of addiction — or more accurately, a necessary product of what happens to the mind when the path of least resistance is taken over and over again. Cowardice is the addiction to convenience, as manifest through the collection of intense withdrawal symptoms individuals experience whenever they’re exposed to situations or stimulations that remove them from feelings of comfort and security. The addiction to convenience causes the mind to become weak, frail and easily triggered. And the pursuit of situational control (as a conceptual substance) is purely and simply about achieving and maintaining optimum convenience…
Simply put, the desire to maintain control over others and external values, specifically, in lieu of objective consideration, reasoning, personal honesty, empathy and adaptive response, turns human beings into cowards; as it disables and corrodes the dynamic thought process — causing the mind to atrophy, and become weak, brittle and frail…
And I want you to consider the point being made in this article very carefully…
Let me ask you something…
What purpose is served by heterosexual people being overtly offended by those who identify as homosexual, if not to control the attitudes, outlooks, actions and behaviors of others?
Let me ask you this now…
How easily triggered are homophobic people by representations of same sex interest or affection? How scared and mentally fragile are they as individuals? How cowardly (and by cowardly I mean eager to cause injury and suffering — embarrassment, exclusion, physical harm or even death — to others so as to quell feelings of personal insecurity and unsureness) are homophobic people towards gay people?
What about folks who self-identify as either liberals or conservatives? How far out of their way do they go to try and control the attitudes, outlooks, actions and behaviors of people from the opposing view? If you’re an ideologue who seeks to self actualize through either political leaning, then how weak, cowardly and immoral do ideologues from the other side of the spectrum appear to you?
What about racists vs out-groupers? Or…
Catholics vs Protestants?
Christians vs Muslims?
Theists vs Atheists?
Nationalist vs Pro-Immigrationalists?
You know what’s really funny, yet sad at the same time? What ideologues hate most is the mirror, and what reflects them back to themselves with laser precision and accuracy is always one of two things — first, authentic and transparent people (individuals who are full of light), and second, ideologues with polar-opposite views. The enemy ideologue is always the mirror. What every ideologue has in common is that they’re exactly like the ideologue they believe they’re diametrically opposed to.