There has always been an intriguing sense of cynicism that comes to my mind when I think about the countless efforts exerted by individuals and groups who find it their sole purpose to wage ideological “warfare” against the surrounding bystanders, me and you. There is a subtle war in this country that we are facing everyday, though publicized via different channels such as the “war on drugs” or the “war on illiteracy”, the true war that is ensuing is that of ideological “warfare”.
I will be bold and say that it is my opinion that our ideological “wars” are in fact very cleverly constructed concepts that are in place to push opinions, not ideas. We are besieged by the rhetoric that involves using morals and ethics to justify biased and selfish propaganda, most often by politicians and government regulated institutions.
Ideological warfare is in reality the attempted intellectual subjugation of society, it is founded solely on the idiosyncratic whims of those who are in places of power and is undoubtedly a failing phenomenon.
As long as there have been ideas there has been disagreement, this is undeniable, it is a common characteristic of the personality of human nature. There have been countless disputes amongst great theologians, writers, thinkers and so forth on millions of ideas and opinions and beliefs, again a reality of the human condition.
However, in the most modern of times the evolution of ideas compared to opinions has coalesced somewhat creating a distorted hybrid of the two words and their meanings, which has become an unfortunate detriment to the way we interpret them.
We must realize that many of the ideological “wars” that are present in this country today are actually founded upon and continue to thrive on opinion based motivations.
Over time there has been an increased emphasis on the “war on drugs”, which is essentially a government crack down on users, importers and exporters of illegal substances.
However, this “war on drugs” over time has developed into a cancer that propagates domination and close mindedness, opposed to understanding the true underlying issues through education and problem solving. To begin with the “war on drugs” is completely abstract.
It is impossible to enact war upon an inanimate object, furthermore it is impossible to win a war against an inanimate object. The “war on drugs” fails to realize the very thing that is causing it, addiction, a disease.
It is a very well known concept in economics that if there is always a demand for something, necessity will provide the supply, yet the “war on drugs” doesn’t seem to understand this.
This ideology that seems to fuel the never ending battle, stemming from the Nixon Administration1, is one that doesn’t seem to be founded on any genuine fundamental critical thinking.
Instead, it is more so a means to control the population based on what one thinks is right or wrong, yet in doing so it causes even greater displays of unrest and unwillingness to adhere to current drug policies.
The “war on drugs” and its supporters also does not seem to comprehend the complexities that fuel the drug trade and its conspirators. There are a few columns that support the foundation of the drug trade, those that supply it and those that demand it.
The “war on drugs” is at the mercy of these two phenomena because they are exclusively the sole components to its ability to thrive. Ideologically proving to a homeless crystal meth addict that they shouldn’t use drugs is as effective as using a cotton ball to stop a bleeding gun shot wound.
The mind of the addict is in no way benefitted by the D.A.R.E. Program, or a leaflet on how Afghanistan is poisoning Americans with illegally imported opiates2. These so called ideologies that back this ambiguous struggle are in reality opinions.
Opinions that are being carried out under the guise of ideology by means of government and military force. They provide very little compassion or resolve to the impending issues, these opinions would rather simply destroy the problem or stuff it away.
Ideological warfare in its own right is essentially futile in nature because it suffers a severe handicap of personal subjectivity. Ideas as we know them are the testimonies of our human experience, our character, personality and our opinions.
Taking this into consideration it is almost unfair to think that there would be an advantage to maintaining an ideological or opinion based “war”, as I like to call it, on a society that has made it blatantly obvious that it is not going to cease it consumption, purchase and sale of illegal substances.
Borrowing from my previous point about basic supply and demand economics, in this country we can observe the highest rate of illegal substance consumption3 in the world to date, mind you we also have some of the most rigid drug policies as well4.
At this point I would assume it could be safe to assess that out of all the countries in the world we can also observe an equally high demand for such illegal substances.
Taking into consideration the ideologies that put into place the current drug policies and that the “war on drugs” was the catalyst in instituting such policies, I would have to conclude that the ideological “war on drugs” failed.
Ideological “warfare” is a conflicting abstraction, it relies upon the swaying of society to adhere to personal subjectivity of the individual’s interpretation of what is a permissible lifestyle or series of behaviors. Ideas are meant to be pure constructs of our conclusions based on human experience and over time have been polluted by the hegemony of individual opinion and bias.
There is very little efficiency in the domination of an individual’s spirit. The crushing of the individual mind to assess its own decisions and motivations is the unique power that is displayed when ideological “warfare” plagues a society.
We are only capable of helping one another by enlightening each other to different methods of thinking, not by forcing what we think on everyone around us. Our most notable triumphs as a society will always come from the compromises we allow ourselves and our willingness to be open to the ideas, not opinions, we may have to better our future.