{"id":1848366,"date":"2023-02-15T12:05:16","date_gmt":"2023-02-15T17:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1848366"},"modified":"2023-02-15T12:14:34","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T17:14:34","slug":"why-its-psychologically-dangerous-to-confuse-political-ideologies-with-religious-movements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/why-its-psychologically-dangerous-to-confuse-political-ideologies-with-religious-movements\/","title":{"rendered":"Why It\u2019s Psychologically Dangerous To Confuse Political Ideologies With Religious Movements"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwhy-its-psychologically-dangerous-to-confuse-political-ideologies-with-religious-movements%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1848366&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47-->\n<p>The following is a transcript excerpt from Dr. JOderdan Peterson\u2019s conversation with Rav Arora on the necessary distinction between political and religious beliefs. You can <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/podcasts\/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast\/s4-e82-the-spiritual-void-and-the-west-with-rav-arora\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">listen to<\/a> or\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/episode\/s4-e82-the-spiritual-void-and-the-west-with-rav-arora\">Watch<\/a> Listen to the entire podcast on DailyWire+<\/p>\n<p>Podcast time: 7:29<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s psychologically dangerous to confuse political explanations and ideologies with religious and spiritual ideologies and movements. You don\u2019t want the political to carry the weight of the spiritual, I don\u2019t think. I think it\u2019s dangerous. I believe ideologies function as crippled religions. So they have the motive force of religious belief and the attractiveness of religious belief, which I think is actually a necessity for human beings because we\u2019re religious by nature, but they don\u2019t have the symbolic complexity that a religion has \u2014 a well-established religion with its mystical elements and its dogmatic elements.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>You also claim that religious belief is in decline. It is clear that organized church attendance in certain countries is declining. Christianity is growing at an unbelievable rate in China, for example, so it\u2019s not necessarily a global phenomenon. With regards to abandoning ideology, there\u2019s danger in confusing your political beliefs and your religious beliefs, not noting that there\u2019s a difference between them. One of the associated dangers there, I think, especially in totalitarian utopian systems, is the proclivity to raise the leader \u2014 whoever that might be \u2014 to the status of a demigod. That certainly happened in the Soviet Union and in Mao\u2019s China. It is possible that it will occur again in modern China. You know, you\u2019re supposed to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar\u2019s and render unto God that which is God\u2019s. That\u2019s the fundamental ethos that underlies the idea of separation of church and state, and I think it\u2019s a good psychological truth as well. [\u2026]\n<p>The problem with ideologies, as far as I\u2019m concerned, is that they\u2019re not useful as practical, problem-solving guides. Many of the problems we face are extremely complex. They need to be decomposed in a sophisticated way into their constituent elements until they\u2019re differentiated enough so that partial solutions for some of the problem can arise as a consequence of practical endeavors. This requires a willingness to think in detail and the ability to develop specialized knowledge. Ideology can blind you to your own stupidity, and that\u2019s actually dangerous.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>We could also take the example of poverty. We can all agree that poverty as it is, I believe, is unacceptable. That\u2019s the starting point and the motivation. You might then say: \u201cWell, what is poverty?\u201d And you could conclude that it\u2019s lack of money. From that you could conclude, because there\u2019s an unequal distribution of resources, that if the rich would only loosen their grip on wealth, then there wouldn\u2019t be poverty. Then it\u2019s not much of a leap from that to the rich are by definition causing poverty and morally culpable for it. Even though there is some truth to that, some of the time in some situations, that doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s always true and it\u2019s the only reason all the time. There\u2019s an additional danger, which is that you now have a solution. So, you\u2019re smart. You\u2019re not the problem, so that you\u2019re moral. You have a convenient enemy, so your dark unexamined motives have a valid target, which you\u2019ve already defined as immoral. And that means you\u2019re more likely to give reign to violent impulses, let\u2019s say, that you should otherwise keep in control. That\u2019s all very dangerous. It\u2019s not sophisticated. It\u2019s emotionally and motivationally dangerous. It can interfere with problem solving. It can confuse you about the depth and limits of your knowledge. You end up thinking you actually understand how the world works, and you don\u2019t understand it at all. You don\u2019t even understand the problems.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Consider poverty. What does poverty mean to you? What do you mean by alcoholism or poverty? Are you referring to drug abuse? Mental illness? What about physical illness? Education is not enough? Low intelligence Inconscientiousness and intelligence? Antisocial behavior Relative poverty? Absolute poverty? Are you referring to a negative worldview? Are you referring to a lack of ability or willingness to plan for the future. Do you mean total lack of access to material goods? That\u2019s all poverty, and that\u2019s just the beginning of a decomposition. All of those problems are markedly different, and it isn\u2019t obvious that there\u2019s one solution that will address it. It\u2019s not obvious at all. It&#8217;s highly unlikely that there is a single solution to all of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Then there\u2019s the complex problem that you have a theory that identifies a problem and explains its existence and offers a solution. So now you\u2019re going to assume that if you could only put that solution in place, that you would do that competently and it would produce the result that\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The following is a transcript excerpt from Dr. Jordan Peterson\u2019s conversation with Rav Arora on the necessary distinction between political and religious beliefs. You can listen to or\u00a0watch the full podcast on DailyWire+. Podcast time: 7:29 It\u2019s psychologically dangerous to confuse political explanations and ideologies with religious and spiritual ideologies and movements. You don\u2019t want &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1006,"featured_media":1848369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[14204,5359,18396,6550,13067,3753,18745,4054],"class_list":["post-1848366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire","tag-confuse","tag-dangerous","tag-ideologies","tag-its","tag-movements","tag-political","tag-psychologically","tag-religious"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1848366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1006"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1848366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1848366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1848369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1848366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1848366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1848366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}