Amazing article, It is a great insight into the malevolent person.
Yet I don’t see the problem in the malevolent, but the system that allows their rise by making those malevolent traits praisable in every ideology, even in commerce.
There is no definition of ideology in the text, yet one is needed, because every ideology is dangerous. For an ideology seeks to impose a single maxim over other human endeavours, nazism was about racial supremacy, marxism positions the class struggle as an idea over all, religious fundamentalism puts god above everything, capitalism puts commerce above all, logic positivist wanted to reduce everything to epistemology as such classical physics uber alles.
Ideologies, then have a tendency to be holistic and reductionist, they attempt to put everything inside their maxim and reduce all other bodies of knowledge to such maxims, they are dogmatic, thus making it favorable for those with malevolent personalities to thrive as they are the most dogmatic of all.
The reason why some autocratic rulers were no malevolent such as Marcus Aurelius, Atatürk, and others is because they followed no ideology. They were not idealist but realists, in the case of Aurelius we have his meditations and as such we can see that he holded no maxim, he made no reduction to a singular knowledge, Stoicism was a physicalist philosophy, a realist belief system.
How can we fight ideologies then? Well Ideology are always opposed by other ideologies and we can keep that fight eternally, but also by science, as the relentless pursuit of operational knowledge always ends up destroying the maxims’ ideologies hold. Examples of these are; Galileo when incarcerated by proving the copernican system, a maxim of a race above all of nazims is absurd when biology proves there are only phenotypic differences between humans, the materialist beginning of civilization proposed by marxist and social darwinist both erroneos by the excavations of Gobekli Tepe and the other Tepe cites, etc.
In essence to stop the malevolent is by generating a system that does not allow for their rise, a system without ideologies or at least where they are contained into their own battle ground, internet forums. Such system then must disregard arguments by maxims, in essence make the validation by science alone.
If the malevolent can rise still in the system of science it is to be seen, but for that to happen they would need to transform science into an ideology, but that would be no science.
I guess I agree with the gist of your comment. I’m very worried about extremist / fanatical ideologies but more on this below.
because every ideology is dangerous
I guess it depends on how you define “ideology”. Let’s say “a system of ideas and ideals”. Then it seems evident that some ideologies are less dangerous than others and some seem actually beneficial (e.g., secular humanism, the Enlightenment, or EA). (Arguably, the scientific method itself is an ideology.)
I’d argue that ideologies are dangerous if they are fanatical and extreme. The main characteristics of such fanatical ideologies include dogmatism (extreme irrationality and epistemic & moral certainty), having a dualistic/Manichean worldview that views in-group members as good and everyone who disagrees as irredeemably evil, advocating for the use of violence and unwillingness to compromise, blindly following authoritarian leaders or scriptures (which is necessary since debate, evidence and reason are not allowed), and promising utopia or heaven. Of course, all of this is a continuum. (There is much more that could be said here; I’m working on a post on the subject).
The reason why some autocratic rulers were no malevolent such as Marcus Aurelius, Atatürk, and others is because they followed no ideology. [...] Stoicism was a physicalist philosophy, a realist belief system.
Amazing article, It is a great insight into the malevolent person.
Yet I don’t see the problem in the malevolent, but the system that allows their rise by making those malevolent traits praisable in every ideology, even in commerce.
There is no definition of ideology in the text, yet one is needed, because every ideology is dangerous. For an ideology seeks to impose a single maxim over other human endeavours, nazism was about racial supremacy, marxism positions the class struggle as an idea over all, religious fundamentalism puts god above everything, capitalism puts commerce above all, logic positivist wanted to reduce everything to epistemology as such classical physics uber alles.
Ideologies, then have a tendency to be holistic and reductionist, they attempt to put everything inside their maxim and reduce all other bodies of knowledge to such maxims, they are dogmatic, thus making it favorable for those with malevolent personalities to thrive as they are the most dogmatic of all.
The reason why some autocratic rulers were no malevolent such as Marcus Aurelius, Atatürk, and others is because they followed no ideology. They were not idealist but realists, in the case of Aurelius we have his meditations and as such we can see that he holded no maxim, he made no reduction to a singular knowledge, Stoicism was a physicalist philosophy, a realist belief system.
How can we fight ideologies then? Well Ideology are always opposed by other ideologies and we can keep that fight eternally, but also by science, as the relentless pursuit of operational knowledge always ends up destroying the maxims’ ideologies hold. Examples of these are; Galileo when incarcerated by proving the copernican system, a maxim of a race above all of nazims is absurd when biology proves there are only phenotypic differences between humans, the materialist beginning of civilization proposed by marxist and social darwinist both erroneos by the excavations of Gobekli Tepe and the other Tepe cites, etc.
In essence to stop the malevolent is by generating a system that does not allow for their rise, a system without ideologies or at least where they are contained into their own battle ground, internet forums. Such system then must disregard arguments by maxims, in essence make the validation by science alone.
If the malevolent can rise still in the system of science it is to be seen, but for that to happen they would need to transform science into an ideology, but that would be no science.
Thanks.
I guess I agree with the gist of your comment. I’m very worried about extremist / fanatical ideologies but more on this below.
I guess it depends on how you define “ideology”. Let’s say “a system of ideas and ideals”. Then it seems evident that some ideologies are less dangerous than others and some seem actually beneficial (e.g., secular humanism, the Enlightenment, or EA). (Arguably, the scientific method itself is an ideology.)
I’d argue that ideologies are dangerous if they are fanatical and extreme. The main characteristics of such fanatical ideologies include dogmatism (extreme irrationality and epistemic & moral certainty), having a dualistic/Manichean worldview that views in-group members as good and everyone who disagrees as irredeemably evil, advocating for the use of violence and unwillingness to compromise, blindly following authoritarian leaders or scriptures (which is necessary since debate, evidence and reason are not allowed), and promising utopia or heaven. Of course, all of this is a continuum. (There is much more that could be said here; I’m working on a post on the subject).
Sounds like an ideology to me but ok. :)