Worship is the Antidote to Ideology
We need to relate to something more than our pre-conceived notions of the world if we wish to change them
This week I’m taking a break from the series on Mozi (parts 1, 2, 3) to share some thoughts on this wonderful essay by Simon Sarris:
Mass media — print, radio, television, internet — replaced dialogue’s primacy so thoroughly that we cannot have the old ways back. Just as we are no longer capable of seeing the gods, we are no longer capable of a conversational mode of being.1
In Are We Still Thinking Simon Sarris provides a Mcluhan-style alternative history for how we became the kind of thinkers that we are today2. In his account, before the advent of mass media the way we gained new information about the world was through conversation. As mass media developed our lives were filled with broadcasted information and our use of dialogue faded. Because we no longer had the testing, prodding, and debate that naturally comes with dialogue the information we consumed became just a touch more credible. Over time, parts of it became so credible in fact that they gained a life of their own. The emergent structures, that came forth out of the flow of information, made their way into society as ideology and its evil cousin radicalisation. Today, we are self-aware enough to recognise the existence of these ideologies but at the same time they have so taken over our lives that they are now the water we swim in. Instead of approaching the world as a conversation we take in information from others as something to be passed through the filter of the particular ideology that has inhabited us. Our ideologies have become our identities.
Rather than dwelling in their own thoughts, being a human being, living and experiencing things and gaining wisdom, people restrain all of their wisdom faculties with these chastity belts of ideology.
In many ways our self-awareness about the problem is a contributing factor. We know that people speak through the lens of ideology. So, when people say something that our ideology dislikes we shine a spotlight on their ideology itself as something that makes them immediately suspect. A pattern we are all intimately familiar with post-Covid.
In this regard, many modern people casually lump religion in as another form of ideology. A filter through which all information passes making it shallow and immediately suspect3. However, given the story that Simon Sarris is telling it’s not obvious that this move is justified.
Before the mass printing of books, when we still lived in the world of conversation, religion was certainly the most prominent force for organising that conversation. In a Christian setting, that meant the church.
The church was certainly the source of information that set the agenda and determined the topics of discussion. But the agenda that was set was not about the church and its beliefs about the world, but about God4.
As such, the agenda was not a broadcast of information but a source of conversation. Conversation between the adherents to align on what faith meant in their daily lives. Conversation between the adherents and the priest to determine the kind of care they expected. And, most importantly, a conversation between the adherents, the priest, and God. The church gave this conversation a context but it was still a conversation.
In more colloquial language this ‘conversation’ with God is called worship. To worship means to show reverence to something that is deserving of praise5. By focussing the conversation on something beyond the church that was noble out of all proportion with those present the congregation could ensure their appropriate position to the real world.
In a world of ideology we get stuck in a rut, calculating how the latest information fits into our pre-set ideological lens. No matter how much information we take in we cannot change this ideological filter. At best, through repeated exposure, we might adopt a new ideology but that is no substitute for thinking for ourselves.
When we worship we are forced to engage with someone more noble than us, our preconceived notions, and our ever-so credible media. In that conversation we gain an opportunity to learn something that might take us beyond the ideology we take for granted.
Sarris calls at the end of his essay to reject ideology through action. Ideology may have free reign in the realm of ideas but it is not possible for it to gain the same purchase in real interactions and commitments within the world.
To lay a single cobblestone path is to have more virtue than attending a hundred protests, or sharing a thousand petty articles.
Replacing shallow thoughts and hollow slogans with real world results is good but it is not enough. To actively fight back agains the tide of ideology - to replace our ideologies with something better - we need worship. If we want to relearn this skill we may want to look again at the institutions that guided our cultures for millennia before we carelessly confuse them for ideologies.
Mood
All quotes are from the essay Are We Still Thinking.
This summary was not generated by a GPT
In fact in the US the only institutions that have taken a bigger hit to their trust in the last 50 years are The Medical System, Television News, and Congress. Though that probably makes sense.
I recognise that for many readers this statement may be difficult to understand. I apologise if what follows is unclear. I would only refer you to the linked article as a partial attempt to try and make what I mean clearer.
The truth is everybody worships. The question is whether the object of worship really deserves it.
Great insight! I appreciate the clip from David Foster Wallace—good advice for those of any age.