Ideology: or, how to lose friends and irritate people
I’m saddened and rather baffled when I see people so readily putting ideology ahead of friends and family. Particularly on social media—and this is apparent to me even within the small amount that I still consume—there is so much flag-planting and virtue signaling, with people declaring their loyalty to this ideal or that dogma, and in doing so often expressing virulent opposition to any antagonizing view. I’ve watched as people I know have readily and gleefully condemned friends, family, co-workers, and acquaintances for not sharing a particular position. There is such a ready willingness to sacrifice personal relationships on the altar of ideological purity, and it’s unquestionably tearing apart the fabric of our society.
Despite its pervasiveness today, I don’t think this phenomenon is anything new (although perhaps its fires burn a bit hotter these days). Writing in the 1930s, author E. M. Forster had this to say: “Personal relations are despised today. They are regarded as bourgeois luxuries, as products of a time of fair weather which is now past, and we are urged to get rid of them, and to dedicate ourselves to some movement or cause instead. I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.”
I think this applies equally well today. Many of us act as though these are the end times, and the political and social struggles we see playing out are unlike anything that has come before. Which, being a student of history, I know is absolute rubbish. All of human history has been a crucible of crisis and conflict; there have never been “fair weather” days during which people were free from struggle, both physical and intellectual. Humans have always been (and will continue to be) a bewildering mix of good and bad, wisdom and ignorance. Failure to recognize this—as exemplified in our increasing demand for moral or ideological perfection in others—only serves to destroy the personal relationships that are the backbone of any healthy society. As Douglas Rushkoff says, “Anyone who has become so distanced from other people that they see humans as less important than their ideology will act in antihuman ways.”
Now, this is not to say that ideology is entirely bad, or that having values and principles is wrong. Far from it. Without those things (or with too much polite suppression of those things), we would not have the creative conflict that provides an impetus for social progress. For instance, proudly supporting gay marriage or insisting on the legitimacy of climate science when your older or more conservative family and friends do not, and being willing to challenge their wrongheaded views, is perfectly admirable and completely necessary. But to do so out of contempt rather than aspiration, and to be willing to reject or dehumanize those people because they do not possess your own “ideological purity” (sometimes on a single issue!)—that is something poisonous and corrosive. It’s an approach that serves only to inflate one’s ego, and not to facilitate any kind of meaningful change in others.
Which I think has a lot to do with why many people adopt such strident and unyielding ideological views: it’s an ego trip. The feeling that you know certain “truths,” and are therefore a better and smarter person than most of your peers, is enormously appealing and gives us a (false) sense of confidence. But what’s the good of achieving enlightenment if you don’t then share it with others? It isn’t virtuous to use your greater knowledge to cudgel those still “below” you and excoriate them for not knowing things of which you yourself were once ignorant. It’s like when a wealthy person harangues the poor for being “lazy and unmotivated” instead of using his or her wealth to try and create bridges out of poverty for those people, most of whom are poor due to circumstances outside of their control. So are you really interested in sharing your wealth—material or intellectual—with other people to make the world a better place, or are you more concerned with maintaining the imbalance because it allows you to feel superior and special?
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Over the years, I’ve become a pretty firm pragmatist, concerned much more with approaches that will produce desired effects (i.e., actually changing or at least moderating someone’s opinion on something). As such, I take quite readily to the Buddhist idea of upaya-kaushalya or “skillful means.” Within this approach, you use wisdom and compassion to bring a truth to someone in a form they can understand and handle. The Buddha would often shape his teachings to the needs of his audience, sticking to simple parables for novices, but expounding deeper truths for his advanced monks.
If your goal is truly to help someone else achieve “enlightenment” (be it religious, political, scientific…whatever) then you should take the time to really understand who you are talking to. What are their existing values and beliefs? How much, if anything, do they already know about what you hope to teach them? What is the best approach by which you can engage them, open their mind just a bit, and try to guide them in a better direction? According to the Lotus Sutra, all Buddhas “understand the actions of living beings, the thoughts that lie deep in their minds, the deeds they have carried out in the past, their desires, their nature, the power of their exertions, and whether their capacities are acute or dull, and so they employ various causes and conditions, similes, parables, and other words and phrases, adapting what expedient means are suitable to their preaching.”
I’m guessing that most of us aren’t Buddhas and thus can’t fully understand the minds of others. But we can give it a shot, particularly with our family, friends, and acquaintances; surely we know them well enough to at least know where to begin. The key is to focus on the first step, not the final step. Just take the time to find that initial foothold and use “skillful means” to introduce the idea or opinion you would like them to consider. And understand that it will take time; minds rarely change overnight. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest, agrees that people typically grow via small steps and stages, and when it comes to comprehending other people or new ideas they can only push themselves a bit beyond their current mindset. He notes, “We can save ourselves a lot of distress and accusation by knowing when, where, to whom, and how to talk about spiritually mature things. We had best offer what each one is ready to hear…perhaps only stretching them a bit!”
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But does this pragmatic approach actually work? It is really possible to put upaya to work in an effective way when it comes to some big issues? I think so, and here’s a personal example.
I am vegetarian, having become so over a decade ago (with credit to Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation for putting me on that path). I am eager to convince other people in my life to also consider a vegetarian diet, or to simply reduce their consumption of animal products, or even to just understand the horrors of factory farming so that they source their meat/eggs/cheese from farms that are more ethical in their treatment of livestock. There are a couple ways I could go about this: I could harangue and browbeat them for their participation in a brutally exploitative industry (about which they are probably pretty ignorant, as I once was), or I could model the behavior I hope they will adopt and generously answer their questions or concerns about vegetarianism. From what I’ve seen, the latter option is massively better at winning people over.
One evening not long ago, some Direct Action Everywhere protesters gathered outside a couple restaurants in downtown Pensacola (one of which is pretty explicitly meat-based) and tried to agitate passersby and customers inside by speaking sternly about animal cruelty and showing videos of animal slaughter. The results were pretty predictable—neither the protesters nor the restaurant owners/staff came off looking particularly admirable.*
So while I certainly agree with the DAE folks that eating meat is pretty bad, and that the way we get most of it is truly horrific, I can’t really agree with their tactics. I find it difficult to believe that they convinced a single person to go vegetarian as a result of their protest. If anything, they probably just entrenched the existing beliefs of the meat-eaters they were hoping to influence. Was their protest a misguided attempt at changing minds, or was it instead a self-gratifying demonstration of their own virtue? Unfortunately, I think that many people joining protests are more interested in advertising their moral superiority, and they see the angry reactions that they provoke—to be expected given their confrontational approach—as proof that they are heroic figures in a kind of just war. But is there actually a need for that war? Sometimes, yes. But more often, I think progress can be made a lot more peacefully, albeit less spectacularly.
My own approach features a more delicate touch. Do you love dogs, cats, and other “pet” animals? Ok, let’s work with that, and try to extend your compassion to other animals. Would you be fine seeing dogs tortured and slaughtered the way pigs are? Remember that pigs have been proven time and again to have at least equal intelligence to dogs. Do you love the environment? Let’s talk about the extensive pollution that is produced as a result of factory farming—the toxic runoff into our rivers, the enormous amount of carbon it releases, etc. Do you want a healthier diet? Let’s talk about all the research showing that plant-based diets (or Mediterranean-type diets that feature much less meat than the standard Western diet) are way healthier for you and really reduce all kinds of medical risk factors.
I take the person as I find them, identify areas where we agree, and make that my starting point. I then begin to nudge them as far as I can in the right direction without pushing them so far that they shut down. And over the years I’ve seen several of my friends significantly reduce their meat consumption (or just be more mindful of where it comes from), while a few have become full-fledged pescetarians or vegetarians. Some of them have credited me specifically for influencing their view. For others I’ve no doubt been just one voice out of many that gradually pushed them that way, although I rest well knowing that I played my tiny part—a flapping butterfly wing that helped create the gale.
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If your goal is to genuinely change minds and win people over to your side, then upaya-type tactics are demonstrably superior to black-and-white depictions of an issue and the accompanying condemnation of those on the “wrong” side. Although some of those on the opposite side may indeed be mean-spirited or deeply recalcitrant people, usually the majority are simply uninformed on the issue or have never had anyone genuinely reach out to them with courtesy and good will in an attempt to win them over.
When I see or hear someone expressing a view that I strongly disagree with, I find that a useful exercise is to try and remember what my own ideas and opinions were like not too many years ago. For instance, before reading Singer’s book, I gleefully ate meat and other animal products with no concern (or even any real awareness) of where they came from. Ten years ago, I was no different from the carnivorous people I now hope to influence. The main difference now between me and them is that I was fortunate enough to stumble upon a book whose author—instead of lambasting my immoral behavior or insulting my intelligence—calmly and clearly outlined the problems with factory farming and animal testing, and succeeded in significantly altering my established views.
Humility is key. Richard Rohr notes that with any wisdom we gain, those of us who have passed through the first stage (ignorance) and reached the second stage (understanding) should then possess an empathy for those still on the first half of the journey who cannot comprehend what they have not yet experienced. If our “higher stage” does not include this empathy, then perhaps we have not really achieved the understanding that we think we have. “[The wise ones] do not create enemies,” says Rohr, “Mature people are not either-or thinkers, but they bathe in the ocean of both-and.”
When we engage in a disagreement with family, friends, or even strangers, it is crucial for us to maintain that “both-and” mindset. We should endeavor to realize that, more often than not, the person we are talking to is both a decent person with whom we agree on any number of issues and misguided on a particular issue that—with patience, empathy, and “skillful means”—we can challenge and begin to shift. There is no need to renounce an entire person for one or two misguided views. Instead, we should heed the words of Archimedes who famously said, “Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world.” Our ideas and beliefs may be our place to stand, but without an appropriate lever (i.e., upaya) what chance do we have to move even a single person?
Postscript:
*I have to take issue with the restaurant owner for this ridiculous comment that is quoted in the paper: “You know how many meals come off of one pig? Enough to feed all you vegetarians for about 10 years.” Let’s please stop spouting versions of this absurd argument. A simple Google search of the available research (plus a basic dose of common sense) reveals that we can grow far more plant-based food on far less land compared to meat farming. (E.g., according to this recent data: “plant-based agriculture grows 512% more pounds of food than animal-based agriculture on 69% of the mass of land that animal-based agriculture uses.”) If we want to feed more people and conserve more land, an increasingly plant-based diet is the way to go.
Post-postscript:
While looking for images to accompany this post, I just happened to come across Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, and the more I thought about it, the more appropriate that image seemed. The French Revolution was initially inspired by noble ideals such as liberty, equality, and fraternity. But as the revolution progressed, it was hijacked by ideological purists who quickly began to perceive anyone outside their own circle as enemies, and tens of thousands of people (most of them innocent of actual crimes but guilty of the “wrong” politics) were sent to the guillotine. The beautiful ideas that initiated the revolution soon devolved into a hideous ideology that resulted in nothing less than a bloodbath.
