you just don't know

the problem with the understanding of ideologies that we have is that it's restricted to the academic elite and does not reach the majority of people: if you do not understand how ideology shapes your reality then you are unlikely to question your reality.

we live in a time where we are privileged to have access to an incomprehensibly vast quantity of knowledge, but most of us consume only 140 pseudo-random characters at a time. it takes a lot of work to learn how to mine data efficiently and effectively, and then even more work to incorporate it into one's narrative. the shortcuts are enticing: find something that makes sense, and stick with it.

we delve deeply into whatever rabbit hole presents itself, learning a lot but in a very narrow context, and we end up in incompatible extremes that are counter-productive to our health and well-being as individuals and as a society as a whole.

religious ideologies are not the only ones subject to fundamentalism. throwing yourself into any universe of discourse to the exclusion of others can be disastrous, and it is always important to keep an eye out for cognitive dissonance... both in others and in ourselves.

there is no framework, narrative, body of knowledge or group of people with an answer for everything. even a system of knowledge that covers most things, like the fields of psychology or science, cannot possibly break ground into topics of mysticism and spirituality until the right tools become available, but any field that rejects psychology and science because they disagree on the fundamental nature of reality is unhealthy in every respect. the more i learn about medicine and biotech the more distorted i feel that things have become, but for all the bad science and unethical practices that have been exposed there's a majority of legitimate stuff that we cannot afford to ignore.

pluralism is a feature of many ideologies and sure, it's a form of ideology in and of itself. it's arrogant and presumptuous to attempt to enforce it through education, but it is undoubtedly the safest way to bring about a workable level of consensus.

real life is full of contradictions. if you're living without them, you're doing it wrong. if you're not confused, then you simply don't understand what's going on.