Google definition:
ideology - a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.
Yes, that's what I just described. A system of ideas and ideals that form the basis for the way we see the world and how it should be organised (i.e. Our moral, political and aesthetic worldview)
So it appears that I have the correct understanding of ideology, and you do not; you've mistaken morality for ideology. It would behoove you to check your facts before posting what you believe to be true.
Ethics form a part of your ideology. While ethics cannot be separated from ideology, ideology is not simply ethics.
If it helps your understanding, this is slightly more explicit:
Ideology: consists of ideas, beliefs, understandings and attitudes, etc. [and] contains statements of a normative character expressing morals, values, etc... advocating a particular pattern of social relationships and arrangements, and/or aimed at justifying a particular pattern of conduct, which its proponents seek to promote, realise, pursue or maintain
Malcolm Hamilton - The Elements of the Concept of Ideology
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9248.1987.tb00186.x
or you could just read the wiki:
Ideology - Wikipedia
Then you need to explain why I have no ideology
That's just a conceit based on a misunderstanding of ideology I'm afraid.
You certainly have ethical values, preferences about how people should act and how societies should be organised, etc.
You have expressed these multiple ties in this thread, for example:
I don't normally categorize people as inherently good or evil. My solution to the world's problems, violence in particular, is to make sure people are well off. I've seen so much evil that results from evil.
3 statements of ideas and/or ideals that express normative values or preferences. There are dozens more in this thread alone.
So what is your ideology, and why do you have that ideology rather than some other ideology? Did you just accept that ideology for no reason other than becoming familiar with it?
Not that it's really relevant, but if I had to sum it up in 1 sentence: I was a secular humanist who stopped believing in human rationality and the Idea of Progress and so adopted the pre-Christian tragic view of humanity and the idea that the primary goal is to structure society in a manner the minimised the fact we are a stupid, irrational species who don't learn from our mistakes and who need to live peacefully with those we don't really like.
Why do I have that? Same as everyone else in the world, a combination of: where I grew up (culture), my family and friends and socialisation, my experiences, my education, ideas that I read or heard about and evaluated with rational thought rational thought, irrational biases and prejudices, rationalisation of that which I can't change, etc.
Your concept of ideology doesn't work because it posits a "primal ideology" from which original human action sprang. Again you've got it backwards. The behavior and instincts of primal humans eventually led to ideology when we evolved the ability to think about how to live in a civilized environment.
You misunderstand, It requires no "primal ideology". What you say above seems pretty similar to what I've been saying.
Ideology was the outgrowth of complex communication. Ideology thus coevolved with the progression to larger and more "civilised" populations, and was a hallmark of successful societies that eradicated or absorbed the less successful societies. So we have a
coevolution of language, behaviours, instincts, group formation etc.
Prior to this, humans were likely similar to our social primate relatives. Chimps, for example, can only maintain small groups because they are limited by personal interaction hat largely relates to tangible realities. Society is organised by direct power and reciprocity.
Large scale society relies on us creating bonds of "fictive kinship" that allows people to feel they belong to the same group without the direct exercise of power or reciprocity with all/most group members (religions with their origin mythology are one example).
This is only possible because complex communication allowed us to create abstract concepts, which allows us to create bonds of fictive kinship, laws, complex moral codes, etc. all of which are dependent on ideology to justify and perpetuate.
Human instincts were at the bottom.
Not in any meaningful sense in the modern world.
Once we have millennia of abstraction, human instincts no longer have any necessary connection to reality. You may "instinctually" hate Jews, simply because of what you have read other people say about them, which they made up because of what other people made up, that they made up because of what other people made up, and what they made up because of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion which was made up.
Trying to understand German anti-Semitism purely through the lens of "instinct" without recourse to ideology would not be meaningful. The key point is how ideology 'manipulates' human instincts that evolved to be focused on survival, not discerning objective truth via rational evaluation of evidence
Abstraction starts to separate experience from reality. So in a small group, it would be hard for me to judge Saul to be a bad person if they had always been kind to group members and diligent in group endeavours.
Fast forward to Germany in 1939.
Fritz, Hans and Herman know no Jewish people. They are all from the same town, went to the same school and are all upper-middle class.
It would be perfectly possible for them to hold these views:
Fritz thinks Jews were just as good as other Germans and finds it terrible they are being oppressed by fanatics.
Hans thinks Jews are infidels who killed Jesus and that unless they convert to Christianity, they cannot be true Germans. If they do convert though, they are as good as any other Christian German.
Herman thinks science has shown Jews to be genetically inferior and finds the idea they will pollute pure German blood to be sickening. He believes Jews can never be German and they must be removed from Germany once and for all before it's too late.
All of these ideas are purely abstract, have no connection to directly experienced reality and may even be objectively wrong.
The hold different ideological views because of genetics, intelligence, upbringing and socialisation (family and friends), exposure to events, vicarious exposure to events (friends, media, etc.), exposure to abstract ideas (friends, books, media, educations, etc.), rational thought and argumentation, etc.
It is also perfectly possible that any one of them moves from their current beliefs, to adopt any one of the others.
You seem to be suggesting that it wouldn't matter which one of the ideologies they adopted, it wouldn't actually influence their behaviours in any way.
