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The left gains power, giving voice to the marginalized — then fringe voices demand more radical stances.
Attention becomes power: the marginalized are reduced to an “empathetic” means to power.
Constructing this power means expanding marginalization, or amplifying radicalism, which undercuts the centrist maneuvering that could sustain the once valid vision.
The coalition fragments under its own ideological logic of expansion.
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Freud saw sublimation as the transformation of primal drives into cultural achievements: anger into intellect, libido into politics.
Marcuse, by contrast, warned of repressive desublimation—a capitalist tactic that permits desire’s release, not to liberate, but to pacify.
Apparent freedoms—such as sexual expression, consumer choice, and political dissent—can feel rebellious but are commodified and stripped of transformative potential. Rebellion becomes fashion; liberation, a brand.
What feels like escape (or destructive effort) is merely a sanctioned indulgence, looping back into the very system one seeks to resist. Thus, freedom itself becomes a tool of control, dressed in the language of autonomy but bound by market logic.
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Elite institutions (think Ivy League schools) mint cultural gatekeepers whose status hinges not on wealth alone but on signaling “enlightened” beliefs.
These luxury beliefs—costless to elites, costly to others—reinforce class divides under moral pretense. The affluent promote ideals like family fluidity or police abolition, yet privately adhere to stability and security.
(Rob Henderson coined the term luxury beliefs: these are social elites who support hip values, such as socialism or polyamory, while profiteering from free market capitalism and maintaining stable, traditional families, raising kids in a gated suburb, and sending them to private schools. These are often people who say "I’m socially liberal and fiscally conservative," decrying privilege and yet carefully maintaining it, turning a blind eye to the social harm and fragmentation that results from these liberal, progressive beliefs.)
In crafting beliefs as symbols of distinction, elites maintain power while cloaking harm in virtue. The result is an aristocracy of thought: insulated, performative, and quietly punitive.
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Ideology reveals itself through narrative. Who we cheer and who we condemn in stories reflects deeper societal values.
Protagonists often embody virtues of resilience or rebellion, but success is framed within an ideological lens—economic power rarely equates to moral virtue. Modern heroes like Luke Skywalker emerge from margins as reluctant rebels, while classical myths like Odysseus embody cunning authority and brutality.
Entertainment, then, is not neutral; it shapes and reflects our beliefs about power, justice, and legitimacy. By asking "who is made admirable—and why?," we reveal the machinations of cultural conditioning: the story of making the mogul despised and the breaker cheered is a morality play that pays moguls, with little relation to reality.
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Conservatives and progressives alike negotiate between destruction and preservation, despite the stereotypical association.
Progress often requires dismantling; conservation advances select traditions. Each, then, is paradoxically both deconstructive and constructive, both are progress. Conservatives may innovate to safeguard the church (or military); progressives may preserve rights through new structures (like state healthcare or language).
Both have a model of a utopic future they seek, ideally populated by fantastical citizens.
Yet in this tangle of ideologies, shared momentum falters. Individualism fragments collective belief, while the pursuit of objectivity (intellectual rationalization) through self-negation returns us to raw will.
Stripped of subjectivity amongst abstract models, we reenact the old drama: subsuming selfhood into a greater cause, progressive or conservative. Both camps, in chasing opposing ends, circle back to the same existential surrender: a desubjectified (captured) human as the carrier of argument.
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Monotheistic thinking—whether religious or ideological—elevates unity over individuality.
Societies governed by a single, dominant belief, like medieval theocracies or authoritarian states, often sacrifice innovation for perceived stability.
Communal conformity becomes the goal, stifling dissent and creative progress. History shows that regulations imposed for ideological cohesion can suppress technical and intellectual advancement.
In contrast, progress thrives in environments that value diverse ideas and individual freedom. The more society enshrines one concept—be it God, state, or collective good—the more it risks silencing the plurality that fuels advancement.
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From Westward Ho, we get a model of radical, even ethical, perseverance: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” In a perverse sense, this becomes the noble revolutionary spirit: failure is valorized over productivity; the iterative attempts are the path, eclipsing the goal.
Persistence despite failure embodies the scientific method of collecting failures as data points of knowledge and a worthy action, but socially introduces a zero-point principle of always starting anew. Begin again from nothing.
In this sense, it is contradictory to modern ideas of success and efficiency, making repeated failure itself a revolutionary concept.
Yet, commitment without results breeds disillusionment and resentment. The lack of success leads to mobilization and recruitment being driven by masochism or resentment, an enactment of failure and loss as liturgy of pain, burning out as we “fail again,” commiserating in our lack, until we “fail better” into nihilistic extremism.
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Systemic injustice is often invoked to explain disparities, framing the system as hostile to marginalized groups. Yet, others argue the same system disenfranchises native populations by suppressing dissent, obscuring data, and pursuing policies against democratic consensus. Thus, “systemic” becomes a rhetorical mirror—used to shift culpability or delegitimize opposing views. Dissenters are branded immoral, not mistaken, eroding reason in favor of ideological piety. When logic is treated as bias and statistics as heresy, governance drifts toward a priesthood of the enlightened, enforcing orthodoxy under the guise of justice.
via Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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We know the most straightforward answers are not always the truth (Occam’s razor), and the shortest path is not through (cutting the Gordian knot), and occasionally greater complexity, such as quantum mechanics or string theory, may describe our universe more accurately than Newtonian mechanics.
Still, in the case of ideology, it always discards complexity for reductive universals. It is where these ideas clash with reality that complexity emerges, meaning our need for simplicity creates complexity by revealing actuality.
Instead, our ideology forms idealism: "we will dream a world in which we shall not be taken advantage of," and our rebellion against the actual shall be punished. However, we will have made the world more complicated in our attempt to simplify it.
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What happens when children are taught to reject their own tribe, or when parents prioritize distant children over their own?
Ideology and in-group preference can enter twine. Going against your tribe or kin can provide motivational social affirmation (acceptance from an alternate tribe or faction), yet it is based on twisting natural impulses; it requires denial or abnegation of self (or reliant others) as a social signal of growth (ideological adherence) that is ultimately detrimental (contradictory) to survival.
For example, when threatened, inaction can be made to seem wise (cowardice OR peace and self-control). Avoiding responsibility and duties is framed as rejecting the system/society (brave, counter-culture, OR lazy and parasitic). Donating your paycheck, despite your child’s needs.
Though common-sense says these actions are harmful, reframed within ideologies as valid traits to maintain social inclusion allows destructive tendencies to become normalized.
