“I do not accept ideologies, whatever ‘ism’ they may be and whatever they may be called, because any thought that is confined to a doctrinal system abdicates its most demanding task: to understand without distorting and to judge without resorting to automatic patterns. All ideology operates through a conceptual reductionism that impoverishes the complexity of reality. In its quest for coherence, it simplifies the multiple and eliminates what does not fit into its pre-existing categories. Isaiah Berlin observed that closed systems of ideas sacrifice the plurality of human values for the sake of artificial consistency, which limits the capacity for discernment and restricts open-mindedness.
This impoverishment is accompanied by a normative dogmatism that presents its principles as self-evident truths, thus closing off any possibility of critical review. Karl Popper argued that falsifiability is the criterion that distinguishes rational knowledge from dogma. Similarly, thought that renounces the possibility of being refuted ceases to be thought and becomes doctrine.
Ideology does not describe the world: it shapes it discursively to generate adherence. Its use of language responds to a strategic rather than a cognitive function. Confucius already warned in the Lún Yǔ:
“If names are not correct, language is not adequate; if language is not adequate, actions are not carried out.”
Semantic manipulation not only corrupts discourse, it also distorts the action that derives from it.
All ideology eliminates singularity in favor of categories that are functional to the collective narrative. No individual can be reduced to an identity assigned by their position in a narrative system. Emmanuel Levinas asserted that the other cannot be understood as part of a whole, since their otherness transcends any conceptual structure. A similar insight is found in the Dhammapada:
“No being is identical to another; each must walk their own path.”
By subordinating the individual to an abstraction, ideology erases their concrete uniqueness. Added to this is the inhibition of self-criticism. Every ideological “ism” contains mechanisms that neutralize internal examination and exclude dissent. Michel Foucault showed how regimes of truth are intertwined with structures of power that legitimize certain discourses and silence others. In such an environment, thought is not questioned: it is reproduced. Ideology is not born of the desire to understand, but of the will to influence. Its purpose is not knowledge, but effectiveness. This subordination of thought to extra-theatrical ends betrays its original vocation. Nagarjuna, from the Madhyamaka philosophy, warned that “wisdom is not directed at an object or a utility; its nature is the emptiness of clinging.” Thinking implies stripping oneself of all self-interested uses of knowledge.
I do not reject ideologies out of moral neutrality, but out of fidelity to a more demanding form of rationality. Philosophy begins where dogma ends, not because it offers greater certainties, but because it keeps questions open. Therefore, instead of adhering to closed systems, I cultivate a questioning attitude, conscious, as Socrates pointed out, that “I only know that I know nothing,” and convinced, with Zhuangzi, that “the wise man is not attached to any form, for all forms are transitory.”
Prabhuji
