Lost in ideology

ANONYMOUS WRITES:

Facing the unknown is always uncomfortable and therefore we devise strategies to avoid it. Losing ourselves to ideology is one such avoidance strategy.

An ideology is a fixed story about how the world works, or how it should be. With such departure point we will try to fit everything we encounter into this narrative – actively avoiding, denying, or suppressing any anomalies that might suggest a different truth.

Some ideologies encourage thus the individual’s complete identification with their culture, their race or political grouping. People with such ideologies tend to blame all anomalies they encounter on people outside their “group” and mistake everything foreign for evil. And will not be able to chart their own path independently.

A very good example is when the President of Namibia again targeted whites to share their wealth to correct the mistakes of the past 30 years after independence.

Because ideologies are static pictures of the world, sticking to it is a rejection of creative exploration. Instead of facing the unknown, the ideologist actively avoids, suppresses, or denies the discrepancies between their worldview and their experience. The many atrocities committed in the name of ideology, under fascism or communism, for example, speak to the truth of this idea.

Living a good and meaningful life therefore means rejecting the quick fixes outlined by your ideology. It means accepting that we don’t know everything yet, and facing the unknown willingly and purposefully. As humans, it’s our awesome right and responsibility to create our own maps of meaning to guide our life.

Culture provides the backdrop for this act of creative exploration, and myths provide a model for how to do so while staying true to our individuality.

This picture, as summarised from Jordan Petersen in his work Maps of meaning, is shockingly familiar in the Namibian political landscape.

There is no shortage of educated and capable individuals in the country. The problem is that the educated prodigies cannot yet loosen themselves from their complete identification with their political home.

The stumbling blocks that arise from this inability to loosen yourselves from the strings of your grouping is that it become impossible to chart your own path and it limits your own creativity. No solution outside the already charted paths can be found.

It is even more so if you hail from a minority group within your bigger group, like say you are from the Caprivi and you want power in the bigger group. To chart a path within such constellation, you need endorsement by some more powerful individuals from the more dominant elements in the group. This make you even less inclined to be an individual.

You as an individual has no chance to chart a path you might belief to be the correct one (that is if you even contemplate an individual path). Even if you know the group's path is leading in a wrong direction.

Unfortunately, or fortunately the group easily forgives you for such mistakes and are reluctant to keep the individual responsible. They rather sacrifice or blame something outside the group as no bad can be from within, even if the mistake is very costly to the country.

Typical arguments often given are “they do not want to give me a chance”, or “they boycott my attempt’s” or even “I do not yet have enough training”.

Before the newly educated, capable individuals do not loosen themselves from their ideological groupings, no critique will be accepted and will continuously be removed when it is encountered. Moreover, no path will be chartered that is not tainted by ideology.

The challenge here is on accountability.

How can and will someone be accountable if the “ideological group” is actually responsible for the mistake? Is this why Air Namibia could not be saved or TransNamib are still continuing as an insolvent business. What about Meatco which are from all reports also in dire straits?