Ideology has three functions: To inculcate robotic mental algorithms in people; to get us to demand our own subjugation; and to ensure power for a select few to dominate and control society.
Ideology is not a political system. It is a way to make normal people willing to fight, potentially to the death, to defend what takes over their thinking, removing the intervention of the mind. This is done by the loading of ideological words combining to form a mental algorithm automatically processing social, political and moral decisions. So, kind, well-meaning people can turn into callous, judgemental monsters
But, ‘I think, hence I am’ still applies. Tolerance of disagreement is nil because it is felt a full-on personal attack. Ideologues have an on/off switch. You’re either with them or against them. Lacking any shade, nuance or subtlety, they are semi-robotic in their blind obedience. Their excluded middle is like a computer- on or off. Possibility is anathema- the on/off switch forbids it
The third aspect involves the few ideologues running the show. Some will be deluded thinking they are working for the supposed objectives of ideology that promises a Heaven on Earth that never comes. But all will systematically and callously use ideology to con people for the sole purpose of ensuring absolute control and power over them.
Once you see through the manipulation, the aim of all ideology is power for its own sake. Fascism, Communism, Socialism, virtually every political ‘ism’, bar perhaps humanism, are cruel and dishonest methods with the sole aim of domination and power. Many Centrists will deny this.
They do differ in the speed and urgency. Where far left and right are happy to use force or cruelty to get power. So called ‘moderates’ tend to be happy with long term manipulation and deceit. But all want power and moral supremacy for a few. Cliques of power obsessed ‘holier than thou’ manipulators pose as moral supremacists
Ideologues loathe disagreement, thinking compromise and cooperation irrelevant. Democracy stands aloof to the gaggle of ideological and authoritarian systems of the Left/Right spectrum. Authoritarians try to present it as encompassing the entire selection of political choices. The idea of rejecting Left, Centre or Right outrages them. Democracy is, thus, their greatest enemy and they, ours.
All ideologies boil down to: reducing people to a semi-robotic state of blind obedience; to engineer self-defeating demands for mental and physical subjugation; and to satisfy the lust for power in a select few. It is a nasty and dangerous scene. When left fights right, it is only a sordid squabble over who will get the power. You can be certain none of them care for us.