To identify ourselves with an ideology is quite commnon. People of all backgrounds and persuasions can be found at it; sometimes advertising the fact directly: “before anything else I am a Buddhist” “nothing stands between me and my Marxism”, although often indirectly through what they are wearing – a pendant, a bracelet, a t-shirt, or if they are seriously indoctrinated; their entire outfit. Whatever means a person might use to advertise their beliefs, and no matter how bold and sincere they might appear though, we may often wonder if 'appearance' is all this amounts to. After all, it seems relatively intuitive to assume, that if the indoctrinated person really were a Buddhist or Marxist, this fact would be so explicit in their nature, that it would require no less advertisement than the fact that they were happy, angry or upset. They may never the less be telling the truth. Though just as people who must make a deliberate point of telling us when they are angry or upset, it is quite possible that the person who must stress their ideology is compensating for a similar lack of authentic feeling.
Regardless of this fact, we should not necessarily assume that every person who adopts the political arm band, or the title of 'ism' is out to disguise their embarrassing lack of conviction beneath layers of fancy dress and high talk. They may instead be engaging in a form of public pretense in the very sincere belief, that it will eventually lead to a real physiological change in their character - such is the power of theatre and play as anyone whoever has tried their hand at either well knows. But if this is the motive in play, we may also find another implied alongside it. In addtion to cementing reality through theatre, the no-nonsense person, in placing their beliefs on public display through words and symbols, is apparently compelled by an equal desire to perform magick. Since as much as the no-nonsense type may reject outright any idea that full moons or pentagrams effect the human psyche, every practical person knows first hand the very real power of a commitment made pubic. It is what sets our wishes on the road to actual fact, driven not by the power of commitment itself, but from the potential lost face if our intentions were revealed to be only 'pretensions'. Why else, after all, would bride and grooms choose to bind their vows in public, or presidents swear allegiance before their constituents? It is magick of the very same kind: the binding of wish to reality via staking ones face on the wish coming true.
Whether heads of state, newly married lovers, or the ideologically hopeful, none it should be said, is guaranteed any success by these methods. After a lengthy period of time in fact, the person found lamenting faith’s absence rather than basking in its presence, may be the far more common sight; supported by the usual cast of friends and family consoling them that “all faith wains eventually” and “faith deserts us all in the end”, whose words anyone would be foolish and ungrateful not to welcome. Yet as much as these simple platitudes might be appropriate to the condition of some, we cannot assume that they approximate the failure of every circumstance. For many, the reason why vows are so often impossible to live upto, is not because faith receeds over time, but because faith grows bored and demands other things to keep itself occupied. Thus as Buddhists, to use one example of many, we may find our faith in Buddha waning not because our sense of conviction has departed us, but because we must somehow divide our time between all the other ideologies that simultaneously interest us - our liberal party commitments, our hedonistic pursuits and ideals, our desire to assert and promote our capitalist values. In addition to this, we must also somehow make sure we worship all our altars separately, since if anyone found out, word would soon get around that we were 'ideologically promiscuous' and no meeting house, no matter how outwardly welcoming, would have anything to do with us.
For some of course, secrecy and subterfuge is half the fun of any infidelity, and we should not necessarily assume that everyone is non-disposed to a life lived in shadow and diversion. But for most of us, being honest in spirit if not in actual fact, it is probably fair to say that we do not share in the same rougish pretensions. Ultimately however, the distinction may not be that important - in the majority of cases, our resounding silence to our ideilogical infidelities is probably motivated by far more practical, and far less moralistic concerned than secret shame, or fear of being labeled "promiscious". In practice, not only would enumerating all our various philosophical leanings; from the half-heard quips from Bruce Lee, the aphorisms of Nietzsche, to the Zen haikus, take too long, it would give the impression that were were entangled in a web of precepts and principles, of which we were too scatter-brained to find a way out. Clearly we would not wish to be perceived in this way way. We would much rather be thought of as ‘elegant’ than ‘entangled’ in thought and deed, for elegance is the form that all great genius takes, and thus we find; one of the qualities most admired. The intellectual landmarks of history quite easily prove the case - people love Einstein for the deftness of 'E=MC2”. Scholars hail the Ancient Greeks for their simple axioms. The words of Lao-Lzu are embraced for their gentle ease, while all the chaotic and inelegant theories, have been neither loved nor despised for they have so seldom been published. The tendency for history to honour the simple ideas has in fact been not gone unnoticed in the world’s religions either. As Martin Buber once pointed out, it is always the man who offers us two choices and one path who becomes our prophet. No individual was ever reborn as a stuppa or golden statue for presenting humanity with a tangled web of choices; each offering their own unique set of promises and difficulties. We do not like these sorts of prophets because their outlook looks more like an exacerbation of life’s problems rather than its solution. Would-be prophets should always be succinct in their views if they wish to win our respect, and so must we if we wish to be held in the same regard.
As much as we would like to join the prophet on his clear-cut path however, as we have seen, things are not always so easy in practice - the hedgerows and by-lanes of life may often prove as alluring as the road that leads straight ahead, and no matter how much tell ourselves we will stick on the “straight and narrow” our destiny may often seems fixed in waywardness. Given that we find disappointment in our own inability to see things through, it is quite likely that this whole situation will make us feel quite hopeless. But before we castigate ourselves for a trip badly traveled, we should first ask ourselves whether the path we chose was ever possible to walk in the first place, or indeed, whether any person has ever done so. If at least one person has, then we can at least say our passage is a human one – it will not be necessary for us to become Gods in order to reach its goal. But all the same, this does not necessarily mean the path is one we will be able to tread - some men can cut blocks of ice with their hands and pull trucks along by their torso, yet few of us would be wise to copy these feats. Non the less, since the proof of our abilities very often lies not in logic, but in action itself, there is probably no way to discover the extent of our inabilities other than by testing them directly. In testing our abilities against religious or political scripture then, this means we must at least be faithful to the possibility that we might make a good Marxist, Buddhist, or Jainist, even if we aren't completely conviced by the doctrine itself yet.
That faith is the essential springboard from which all political and religious action is derived, is not a principle that has gone unnoticed by the world’s ideological groups. Every doctrine must have at some point stressed its importance, and if they have not, it has probably been assumed obvious from the outset. What has been glossed over without being self-evident however, is the order of priority that faith must take. It is no good being faithful to our God, Prophet or figurehead. First and foremost we must cultivate faith in our own ability to listen to what our teachers have to say, and to hopefully follow through on some of these sayings. The difficult task of being a faithful Marxist, Christian or Hindu in this respect, does not primarily lie in summoning faith in a 10ft tall idol or a relic studded with jewels, but in a fallible being made of skin and bone who is sometimes noble but mostly pathetic. Aside from the third hand platitudes and 10th rate sentiments, this is at least one thing self-help has been correct to point out - the great difficulty of doing anything and believing anything, is that we must first learn to believe in ourselves.
Yet even assuming that we do manage to summon enough faith in our own inabilities to follow our doctrine, this does not mean that our doctrine itself will not be without problems. On many occasions, we may specifically find that although our doctrine’s moral precepts are generally straightforward, there are some situations which they cannot possible cover. “Thou shalt not kill” for instance as an instruction is fine and straightforward for most occasions, and we hopefully do not have to struggle to observe it every time we venture into town to do our shopping. But circumstances may not always be so sedate as a weekly shopping trip, and it is not inconceivable that we may find ourselves in a situation where either our own life, or the lives of our family was threatened. In a situation like this, even the most resilient of Christians may struggle to follow the universal rule of pacifism, and in the heat of impulse, find themselves acting against one of the central tenets of their doctrine. We can perhaps only be thankful that in our case, the situation is probably hypothetical, and that our lives are generally too mundane to warrant worrying about it. Non-the less, It is an unfortunate fact that not so many have been lucky - history testifies to the fact that any number of Christians have killed for one reason or another; and where the church has caught wind, the response has largely been apathetic. It is perhaps only the more Christian churches which have been keen to condemn and ostracise those who have transgressed; and where murder has been taken ‘lightly’ rather than ‘seriously’ such measures have no doubt been fair and correct. Where it has been additionally assumed however, that in disbarring the former member, the former Christian no longer performs any function within in it, such conclusions have been quite wrong. Given in fact, that the Christian who kills does so out of desperation rather than anger in fact, such a person performs a highly invaluable function - he tests the very limit of his faith, and in so doing ensures its structural integrity. Without such individuals willing to test its doctrine out in the field, the Christian faith would in fact be like an developer with no surveyor; lumbered with an edifice surely to crumble.
In our own lives of course, it is doubtful that we will ever be called upon to test the limits of our own doctrine in this way- murder, and its practical consequences, is thankfully not a topic we will need to trouble ourselves. Never the less, we will probably find a limit to our doctrinal principles somewhere along the scale, and even though the circumstances might be less extreme, we will inevitably discover what the murderous Christian has: there are some moments which our doctrine cannot prepare us for. Beyond the exceptions of misunderstanding and stupidity, the reason for this is quite simple. Rules, from the religious to the legal, assuming there is a difference, are always general in their domain. No codex can cover every potential event that life may present us with (hence the never-ending creation of laws) and where religions have tried to cover them all, the resulting rule-books have quickly turned into little more than a historians treasure trove of quaint anachronisms. We do not for instance, still require scripture to give guidance upon the sale and bartering of Oxen, and exactly how lenient or how forceful we should be with our slaves, is a dilemma that hopefully does not prevent us from sleeping at night. Recognising the absurdity of enumerating rules fast past the original scope of their guidelines, most modern people have wisely ignored the particular rules of ideology, and have sought to observe only the universal ones instead. And for those situations where precepts sometimes prove too broad to accommodate the narrowness of life, with equal wisdom, the same people have discarded the rules altogether in favour of intuition- thus in practice, the contemporary man allows his principles and his passions to work in harmony together.
As far as our ideological leaders may be concerned however, nothing could be less ‘harmonious’ than allowing our principled side and spontaneous nature to consort together. If we posses any wisdom at all in fact, we should recognise that where the unruly and the principled are to be found together, both are in fact locked in a ‘struggle’ to usurp the other. In theology in particular, the idea that our impulses and rational nature are fundamentally at odds, has been widely interpreted as the mutual antagonism between the body and spirit; and where it has been assumed that the spirit may only triumph in doctrine, orthodox churches have generally sought to ensure its freedom by preserving it (or perhaps 'imprisoning it) it in even more doctrine. It is probably only within the unorthodox systems of Zen and Tao, where the spontaneous aspect of human life has been cultivated and encourage, and both philosophies have often done so with great success. Although sadly, where the human impulse has become reified by as a further rule to be rigidly observed in either pilosophy, the spirit of spontaneity has often been lost.
Assuming that it were possible to keep spontaneity purely 'spontaneous' and rules perfectly ordered however, what remains to be asked is why people of various ideological types have exclusively sought one over the other. Maybe if our desire to obey our duties, and our contrasting wish to be free in spirit were destined to be locked in struggle if we did pick a side we might understand, but this view overlooks a crucial point - since rules are always directed to our conscious, rational side, and the natural circumstances of life; our unconscious spontaneous side; mutual antagonism between the two is quite impossible. There really is no question of either trespassing into one another’s territory or cancelling out the work or the other; any more than play obliterates all the toil and achievement of hard work. Both are entirely separate responses to totally different aspects of existence, and in as much as both often ‘fill in’ for the absence of the other; the two may even be complementary.
A further analogy may be necessary to draw out this subtle yet complex point. Taking our ideological precepts first, as a type of plan for future action, let us imagine them as blue-print in an architect’s design. In the immediate instance, It is obvious that the blue-prints are essential and cannot be shown to one side: the building could not be created without it. Although at the same time, it is impossible to imagine that the building could go up without a certain degree of ‘gut-instinct’ to help things along the way. After all, as much as our plans might be ‘fool proof’, if the wall came down, or a bird suddenly decided to take up shelter in our roof, nothing in our plan could instruct us in our next course of action - both incidents would require us to think on our feet, and in responding to these events without prior planning, the blue-print would be harmonious with the impulse in meeting the same end. In the same way then, we should not necessarily think of our ideological rules as ‘hopeless’ because they cannot hope to cover every eventuality we might come upon - as blue-prints or guidelines to action, by definition they cannot realistically be expected to. But by the same token, we should not either think of our impulses as interfering with the rules we have tried so hard to obey - even if they do not help to bring about our ideological ends, they at the very least fill in for the aspects of life which ideology cannot cover, and therefore have not ‘interfered with’ or stolen the place of anything.
Though as much as we may sometimes replace ideology with an impulse, and often with no great harm to our ideology itself; every decision out of step with our doctrine, may not necessarily be a spontaneous one - as we have seen, in many instances where we rescind on our doctrine, we do so not out of impulse, but because we have found some other doctrine, idiom, or precept far more appealing - the Hindu finds temporary solace in capitalism, the ascetic in hedonism, the Christian in Marxism. As we are no doubt already aware, people generally do not generally admire this kind of behaviour. It is called 'fickle' and 'contrary' and as a result we rarely admit to our ideological infidelities in pubic. Yet if contrariness is a shameful quality to concede, it is a wonder we do also try to keep our commitment to a single doctrine similarly hidden. For in practice, even the complete Buddhist, Marxist or Christian must manage an extraordinary number of contradictions all at once: The Buddhist must learn detachment through his or her complete attachment to the Dharma. The Christian must somehow reconcile 'love thy neighbour' with 'an eye for an eye'. The Marxist who's doctrine says that all private property is abhorrent, must redistribute that property, albeit unavoidably into various private hands.
On the grounds of contradiction then, it is surprising, if not incomprehensible, that we regard the person with many faiths any less than the person with just one - both in practice, are clearly as contrary as the other. But maybe there is some difference to them. Maybe the person who is monogamous to a single ideology seems so much more respectable than the person ‘faithful’ to dozens, because he has far more devotion or ‘conviction’ than the other type. Anyone, after all, can dabble around in the exotica of far off philosophies and obscure rituals, but it takes a rare stoic conviction to stay the course with a single doctrine; despite its decreasing lustre and sparkle over the years.
As is often the case with any sort of monogamous relationship however, to what extent we respect their devotion is largely dependent on what they are devoted to. We would not for instance, find a woman devoted to a dogmatic husband admirable in her faithfulness. In this case we would say that faith was ‘blind’ and that we could not respect her monogamy until she chose something respectable to devote herself to. For the same reason then, if we do find the person monogamous to one doctrine worthy of admiration, it cannot be due to their single-minded devotion. It must the ideology itself which has roused our respect, and given that practically all ideologies are internally inconsistent, this by extension, is to have found virtue in something contrary. Why then should we not give equal respect to the ideological cherry-picker? Certainly not because he or she is being 'fickle' or 'contrary'. Contrariness lies at the heart of even the most single-minded of faiths.
Perhaps In looking for another reason, we should look towards our attitude towards consumption and excess instead. We perhaps find it 'distasteful' to worship at three separate altars or with five separate scriptures, in the same way we find it distasteful for a person to have five houses or six cars – we couldn’t possibly get the full use out of them, and we would in the process, have made our lives far more hectic than necessary. While this may be true of some case though, it is certainly not true in all of them - some people may in fact get far more use from five cars than a person with one; but who only used it occasionally, and a person with several homes, may find their situation far less hectic than a hobo suddenly lumbered with the responsibility of looking after just one. Thus, as far as ideologies may be equated with our possessions, it does not necessarily follow that more than one doctrine would be ‘one doctrine too many’. More importantly, unlike our physical possessions, we do not in possessing any number of ideologies horde them from all the rest, and so there is no danger of us being ‘excessively selfish’ either. Unless it is a private members club, most ideologies should in fact welcome a practically infinite number of patrons, and if the ideology does operate an exclusive members policy, this a sure sign we are not dealing with an ideology but a cult – which unlike harmless forms of snobbery, are almost always deadly in their pretensions.
None of this, it should be stressed, is to advocate or excuse of holding a entire set of doctrines (where a person chooses to) it is only to point out that if there are significant problems with following many ideologies at once, it is not for the reasons ordinarily thought: There is nothing more contradictory in holding many doctrines as opposed to one, and nothing essentially ‘excessive’ in the same behaviour. Similarly, there appears to be no great sin in acting ‘out of faith’ where our action is dictated by our impulses, rather than by some rival precept. Such impulsive behaviour as pointed out, not only occupies a very different territory to the one ordained by our rules, it sets the necessary limit beyond which our precepts cannot reach. Even so, there may still be significant problems with allowing either our impulses or external ideologies to usurp our principal doctrine, and for reasons that are not clear to us, we might prefer to be a complete fascist, Hindu, Christian or Marxist. But as well we might, it is worth pointing out that when history has produced a person who is able to follow a system of belief to the letter, such an individual has rarely been permitted to rejoin his fellow man. In fact, in following any ideology with this unique sort of perseverance in fact, such individuals have usually been reviled as humanity’s monster or venerated as its saint. Therefore if we do find difficulty in following any doctrine with complete perseverance, we should perhaps take small comfort in the fact that we do not have the capacity to join the likes of Hitler, Ghandi and Buddha - while such individuals may have earnt themselves equal glory and disdain, all were denied the simple pleasure of being human, which is a pleasure only we can partake in.
