One of the things that bothers me about The Pleasures of Children’s Literature is that it treats ideology as a cause of only evil things. Previous classes I have taken at MSU have done the same thing except it has been referred to as “social constructions,” which is essentially the same thing. I do not doubt that concepts such as racism which have been socially constructed have caused suffering for various people. However, imagine a world without any ideologies at all. According to dictionary.com, ideology is “the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group.” (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ideology) A non-ideology world have no doctrine, no beliefs, no morals, and no right or wrong. A person could freely steal, rape, murder and whatever else he/she wished to do and no one would think it would be wrong. It would be anarchy. Try to get in the mindset of having no ideology and imagine what the world would be like. Are there any advantages to this kind of world? Is it even a possible future? Personally, I don’t think it is possible. The basic reason that an act has been deemed as wrong is because it is harmful to the self and/or to others. So a world without ideologies would be populated by people who do not care if others are harmed. It would even require lack of self preservation. This is because if individuals care about their own survival, they would thus find it useful to have some form of uniting for protection and forming some kind of governing system. This would of course require rules and ideologies. So a world without ideologies would contain people who did not care about themselves or others. It raises the question, if they don’t care about themselves, then why would they steal, rape, and murder? Perhaps the non-ideology world COULD theoretically exist or perhaps it is an oxymoron. Even animals have a sense of self-preservation and set up various rules for their cultures. Wolves, for instance, have ranks with leaders and behavior that is deemed desirable and undesirable within their packs. According to the above definition, this counts as an ideology. In the end, I do not find it possible for humanity as it is now to completely stop caring about themselves or others.
How does this affect our lives now? Assuming we need at least some ideologies to survive, we need to decide which ideologies to support in our jobs whether you’re becoming a teacher or an advertiser. I find it most logical to support the ideologies represented by one’s own country since I plan to work in a public school in the U.S. However, the currently established ideologies should not be taken for granted; they should always be analyzed for improvement. That is why I plan on teaching my students what the US values at the same encouraging them and teaching them how to constructively criticize.
I agree that having no ideologies present in the world would not make life itself very meaningful. For many people life hold such great value because we know that one day it must end but where we go from their depends on our actions now. In addition having these ideologies makes everyone interesting in their own individual way. For instance one of my friend is Hindu while I am Christian, we absolutely enjoy having discussions about religion. When we do neither one of us is trying to convert the other to agree with everything we belief in but we both enjoy hearing the differences in both religions and the different celebrations and traditions that come from it.
ReplyDeleteWith out these differences in how we live our lives and experience life for that matter I believe the world would be a very boring place with no real meaning or importance. That is why as I teacher I plan on educating my students the basic society values and moral but also talk about the differences in beliefs without claiming that one is right and one is wrong. Just on the basis on exposing them to the different living styles that are throughout the world.