Society should invent an ideology on how to live your life

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

Just like the title says, I think there should be an official collective ideology set in place that basically should dictate to you how to live your life. Whoever you are. It would be adopted as an official ideology/religion/philosophy for the citizens of the state (whatever the state happens to be).

It would be an all encompassing ideology on how to live your life based on science, rationality, spirituality, psychology, philosophy, self improvement, how men and women are supposed to behave etc. etc. You name it. Best insights (only ones that support prosperity of the human species, positivity and social cohesion would be picked) from all fields known to mankind would be compacted into some sort of religious book. Churches and religious places celebrating this faith would be erected, allowing people to meet and become a part of a strong community with clearly defined values, goals and a moral code.

This religious system would be regurarly updated by the power structure (meritocratic goverment established by direct democracy) in a sneaky ways that would go unnoticed by most people, so as to reflect the needs of human civilization at that particuliar time and our most recent knowledge and understanding of the world.

This could erase an existential void of society created by the death of religions/Gods, technological progress and ultra liberalism that just aims to deconstruct everything while offering no actual replacements.

It would have to have the same level of allure as the religions of Christianity and Islam for example - offering comforting blanket for the mind (but one that would help you live a good life in this society), and it should also be spread just like they are spreading it - by basically showing it in people's throats in schools, media, public places, anywhere online etc. 

[Raze]

Who decides what the ideology should be and where it should be taught?

[Sucuk Ekmek]

Are you reading Plato's Republic by any chance?

[SwiftQuill]

I don't think it's possible to create a single ideology that accounts for differences in people's development levels, neurology, personality types, lifestyles, sexual identities, economic classes, religiosity, and various other variables. I think in order for such an ideology to work, it would need to be so flexible that it wouldn't have any limitations.

Let's start with ethics. How could we dictate what's good or evil under such ideology? In most countries it's considered ok to eat animal. In some countries, it's considered ok to exploit child labor. In some countries it's considered ok to treat people differently based on their class. Not just on a cultural/societal level, but if we apply ethics to an individual level it becomes even more complex.

You mention meritocracy and democracy, but many societies today are against those concepts. How would you force them to adopt these ideas?

This seems analogous to the problem scientists faced in the 20th century when they tried to come up with a unified scientific model. It simply doesn't work. Science is so complex that you need different models for different fields and different methodologies. A single, unified scientific model can't work. And you propose we should have a unified concept for politics, religion, ethics, and self improvement?

I would propose the opposite perhaps. That these things should be more individual. Each person should stop trying so hard to follow the herd, and should instead develop their own religiosity, infer their own system of ethics, and subscribe to the political concepts they personally believe make most sense.

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

47 minutes ago, Raze said:

Who decides what the ideology should be

The creation process of such a religion and how it should be established is not entirely clear to me, as it really can't be. It has to be a spontaneous thing and have a huge emotional component to it just like Abrahamic religions do.

Think about how a Christian views a sacrificion of Christ and an early history of christianity in general. Despite being persecuted, hunted down, humiliated and offered as a sacrifice to lions in colloseums of the Roman Empire, they still endured all of that abuse and eventually became a dominant religion and the official state religion. Even establishing it's secular power center in Rome itself. Talk about the emotional message that sends.

Or how about Islam, they have to view their ancestors as absolute badasses. All of a sudden they just emerged from the arabian deserts, having united the whole peninsula and utterly destroyed any armies they faced for several decades. Winning several battles they should have lost. 0 defeats. Conquered wast swathes of land. It really did seem like Allah himself wanted them to win over all these infidels.

Successfull religions have a powerfull emotional messages and histories such as these. Perhaps such a message and history for this new religion can be created during some of the upcomming crisies we are going to face

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

@SwiftQuill My response to you is very simple. It doesn't have to be perfect at all, because we are talking about a religion. I never ever said it has to be perfect, it just has to be all encompassing and as good as it possibly can be.

You can still have your freedom of choice to not believe in this religion. All the other belief systems would still exist. But this one religion would be heavilly encouraged and promoted basically everywhere

1 hour ago, SwiftQuill said:

I would propose the opposite perhaps. That these things should be more individual. Each person should stop trying so hard to follow the herd, and should instead develop their own religiosity, infer their own system of ethics, and subscribe to the political concepts they personally believe make most sense.

What you are proposing here is an epistemic anarchy and that's where we are heading right now. Everyone being locked in their own little universe of beliefs, being their own little god. Being disconected from everyone else because everyone else is also living in their own little solipsistic bubble.

Also, you do know how the process of "you personally believing things that make the most sense" work? It's actually also dictated to you by the society and external enviroment

Edited January 11 by NewKidOnTheBlock

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

2 hours ago, Sucuk Ekmek said:

Are you reading Plato's Republic by any chance?

No I haven't but I guess what you are hinting at is that democracies have an inherent bug in the form of stupid and ignorant masses? In my opinion there are some ways to circumvent this problem which I've described in detail in other thread on other topic. Or are you suggesting something else?

Edited January 11 by NewKidOnTheBlock

[Whitney Edwards]

I suggest a meritocracy school that raises children in a way that they become healthy high conscious citizens and have enough "life knowledge" and "life resources" to not only lead a good life but also vote with a healthy non toxic mindset. 

Conscious people. Conscious government. 

Democracy doesn't work perfectly. 

[Terell Kirby]

Ideologies are inherently limited in that they give way too much credence to self referencing truth claims. In retrospect the best ideologies are the ones who call themselves out as ideologies. But to do that would disqualify that worldview as an ideology.

Edited January 11 by Terell Kirby

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

All that has to happen is for this religion to serve your needs long enough and you will eventually accept it as the truth and become a follower.

Edited January 11 by NewKidOnTheBlock

[Breakingthewall]

It has been tried and is still being tried, it is a slow evolution of trial and error that will eventually lead to a good destination. This documentary is interesting

 

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

@Breakingthewall What I'm suggesting has definitely never been tried in human history as there would be no atheism (as atheism is stupid) nor do I count any attempts of nazis, fascists or communists in any part of the world. In this religion there would be a belief in a higher power or God so to speak, but also reason, and all the things I have mentioned above

[Emerald]

What if the overlords of society come up with something that you don't like personally? Are you still going to follow this state religion?

[Leo Gura]

That's exacty what Islam is.

You can see how that turned out.

Living well cannot be an ideology. Because goodness is consciousness and ideology is evil.

What soceity needs is not ideology but much deeper education that guides people into epistemology and psychological mastery.

High development cannot be reached through ideology.

Edited January 11 by Leo Gura

[Cireeric]

We just need to develop humans with capacity to navigate reality better by themselves, self-asses, self-initiate and self-direct their lifes. 

There needs to be room for individual expression and individualized developmental-paths. 

6 hours ago, NewKidOnTheBlock said:

This religious system would be regurarly updated by the power structure (meritocratic goverment established by direct democracy) in a sneaky ways that would go unnoticed by most people, so as to reflect the needs of human civilization at that particuliar time and our most recent knowledge and understanding of the world.

That assumes that humans are not capable of directing themselves and need a shepherd. 

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

47 minutes ago, Cireeric said:

That assumes that humans are not capable of directing themselves and need a shepherd. 

Isn't that the case for most people though?

59 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

That's exacty what Islam is.

You can see how that turned out.

Well that's certainly not how I intended it.

52 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Living well cannot be an ideology. Because goodness is consciousness and ideology is evil.

Well that's true, sort of. Since ideology is selfishness ultimately. But also everyone is selfish and wants to meet their needs. There is a need for a community and a collective sense of purpose in our society. Do you think it's just going to solve itself by itself naturally by people just becomming more individualized and stuffing more knowledge inside their heads? (We already have all the info on our finger tips anyway).

[Leo Gura]

33 minutes ago, NewKidOnTheBlock said:

Well that's certainly not how I intended it.

There's the rub.

Edited January 11 by Leo Gura

[UpperMaster]

53 minutes ago, NewKidOnTheBlock said:

Well that's true, sort of. Since ideology is selfishness ultimately. But also everyone is selfish and wants to meet their needs. There is a need for a community and a collective sense of purpose in our society. Do you think it's just going to solve itself by itself naturally by people just becomming more individualized and stuffing more knowledge inside their heads? (We already have all the info on our finger tips anyway).

I think there two key problems that you are trying to solve. 

1. People have need for purpose and community, and often get that through organized religion/ideology. You basically want to create the "best ideology possible" wherein helps people live a great life. You want to achieve this by adding pillars like self improvement and best science.

 

2. You believe not all people are going to develop themselves into higher developmental stages, and will innevitably fall into ideology. So your solution is to give them an ideology that will cause less hard and most progress. 

 

Rebutalls. 

• Firstly Creating the "best" ideology is already incredibly tricky. How do you even know what the best science is? Deciding what is the "best" way to do anything is not trivial and takes a lot of work. The best spiritual teachers in the world debate over what is the best way to achieve spiritual mastery. The best scientists disagree with each other on how to do the best science. I'm illustrating these examples because it shows how difficult it would be to find the best way to do things. 
•  People won't be encouraged to reflect on their beliefs and shame other people who try. This would actually be destructive. 
• YES, I think people can develop into higher developmental stages, because it is already happening. A lot of the world is stage orange whereas before it was stage blue. We can move up collectively. it just takes a fuck ton a time and mass education, not ideology. 

 

And for the record, Leo is right by saying that's how Islam is. Most hardcore islamists believe that their way of doing things are the most developed and correct. Most islamic people believe that  Islam is a "encompassing ideology on how to live your life based on science, rationality, spirituality, psychology, philosophy, self improvement". 

The Quran has lessons on how to behave, and organize society aswell as face lifes challenges. People believe it's right.

We need people to be more self reflecting and go away from ideology. It is possible I believe. Maybe not any time soon though.

Edited January 11 by UpperMaster

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

@UpperMaster I see. I got you. I may reconsider my stance on the matter