My Substack: On the Effects of Ideology on the Modern Condition
Hannah Arendt, the postwar German Jewish philosopher, saw “ideology” not as simply a synonym for “philosophy,” but as a form of government, a term to be used alongside the likes of “tyranny” or “democracy.” Ideology, according to Arendt, is a type of government new to the modern age, a form of governance enabled by the rise of technology and bureaucracy. She described ideology as governing by distributing a particular lens of the world so totally throughout industry, community, politics, and relationships, and every conceivable facet of modern life, that we do not realize we are seeing through its lens. As such, Arendt described ideology as a “totalizing” form of governance, only possible due to modern technology. Unfortunately, ideology blinds us to the humanity of those who step outside of its governance. Ideology seeps into our mind and constricts our ability to take in new information and synthesize new ideas, and it constrains our ability to empathize and love.
I began this substack to address the dangers of totalizing ideologies on how we view the world and how we view each other. My own personal first crack in the lens of ideology came from seeing how neatly classic antisemitism fit into a Marxian and identitarian lens, now a rather mainstream liberal lens, promoted by others like me who have graduated from ideologically-captured top universities and graduate programs. From there, it has been a journey to notice all the ways in which ideology has impacted my life and stifled my creativity and intellect. I hope my own journey can help others to similarly take off the lenses of ideology.
My Own Personal Ideological Capture: How it Began
About two years ago, I finished two back-to-back rounds of graduate schooling: a Ph.D program that I left after achieving my M.A. in American History, and a law degree. My two experiences were vastly different, and my experiences of the former lead to a much greater appreciation of the latter. I realized that my lifelong goal of becoming a history professor, a dream I had harbored since the 5th grade, no longer had an anchor in the reality of academia. Academia, I discovered, was subject to zealous ideological capture from within, enabled by a neutered university managerial structure that cares more about wrangling higher tuitions and fees from students than promoting the university’s core services.
I entered graduate school, like many millenials of the time, after the humiliation and financial desperation of the the post-2008 economic landscape. It is hardly original to point out that many of us had been promised futures by our baby boomer parents and teachers that no longer applied to the reality into which we entered. We were promised that academic achievement and merit will lead to a secure future. We were promised that you simply needed to “follow your dreams” and “do what you love,” and if so, you will “never work a day in your life.” We were taught that our worth lies in our careers, that meaning and passion comes from our professions. The topics of marriage, children, and families were pointedly ignored, never appearing in the impressions millenials were lead to have about the “good life.”
Thus, many of us became angry and embittered when the realities of the Great Recession engulfed our expectations and the realities of the contemporary social and professional world became apparent: that “connections” mattered more than merit, that jobs we had even held in the past suddenly became unpaid internships, or disappeared altogether, and so on. Texts that we read as undergraduates took on new meaning: works such as those by Karl Marx were no longer interesting philosophical texts to debate while taking courses such as Anthropological Theory. They became the Truth. Dogma. The Fight that was Worth Fighting.
Graduate School: Manufacturing and Selling Ideology
Like many graduate students, I entered my program full of righteous conviction. I was hardly alone. Each other member of my graduate department, let alone the professors, were equally as motivated by the desire to vindicate their experiences, and “prove” the historical trajectory that had lead to their experiences, as well as impress upon the public the solutions that they envisioned. Under the guise of pursuing academic history, coalitions of embattled and embittered millenials, along with our similarly-minded faculty, sought to reproduce scholarship affirming their worldviews. Marx and Marxian derivatives were most popular. In the universe of academic history departments, history was a series of injustices propogated by the holders of capital with the correct identity characteristics to enable them to capture that capital, and our world today is a result of the bigoted historical rulership of capital and smattering of successes from underdogs who rose up to smash their strictures.
In many historical instances, this characterization is not untrue. But it is also not complete. Absent from academic history were positive discussions of the past, unless those positive discussions were wrapped in the correct identity signifiers. For example, postwar “consensus historians,” narrating a positive vision of public American philosophies and ideals, or positive stories of material and technological progress, were seen not only as a misguided product of their time, but as bigoted for even looking to narrate a story of positive elements to the past. And at the time, I agreed. Like others in my department, I was zealous in my moral certainty. I was “on the right side of history.”
Ideological Undoing: Judaism and Israel
There was one complicating factor towards ideological dominance: I was Jewish. In the “oppressor, oppressed, underdogs rise up” narrative we were all vigorously researching and writing up to cement as reality, Israel was in the category of “oppressor.” Israel was neatly entered into the general framework for how to view the world: the ontology of the present stemmed simply from colonialism, capital, and bigotry; indigeneity is always clearcut and ahistorical; and if one gets placed by others into the category of “privileged,” they no longer get granted humanity or understanding. Instead, they can only be motivated by hatred. Bigotry. Bloodlust. And as a 25-year old graduate student who finally was receiving a paycheck to “do what you love,” who felt vindicated in my post-2008 humiliation, and who prided myself on my open-mindedness, I allowed myself to agree. For this, I now feel deep shame.
I chose Modern Middle Eastern History as my “outside field” for my degree, and TA-ed for History of the Modern Middle East under a Palestinian professor. Ironically, it was much of what I learned while TA-ing that class that helped build my knowledge base for recognizing the bigotry and outright lies that went into the narrative of people who hate Israel. But, I must say, whether or not I had TA-ed for that class, it would have been impossible to ignore the sheer degree of hatred for Israel that seeped into every aspect of modern academic faculty and their proteges.
I have numerous stories of the extreme hatred for Israel that I encountered as a graduate student, and plenty to say as to showcase its inherent antisemitism. Elaborating on those stories, and explaining my growing understanding of antisemitism that I wish for the world to know, are stories for another time. I can tell stories of the graduate student union having a BDS section on their website but refusing to take a stand on pro-life protestors with graphic photoshopped images of aborted fetuses outside of the main library, because the latter would be '“too political” and the union should remain “neutral.” I can tell stories of the types of emails that circulated on our history department listserv of graduate students and professors. And I do hope to share these stories.
Since then, I have only come to further and further see how ideology distorted my cognition, and more importantly, my empathy. I have moved past viewing the reflexive hatred that people have for the “other side” with disgust; now, I view that reflexivity with curiosity. How is it that people can so summarily dismiss and demonize the rationale, narratives, and values of those who hold different politics than themselves? How have we allowed hatred to masequerade itself as morality, so long as that hatred is directed through ideologically-sanctioned methods? What are we losing out on as a country and as people by the contempt we hold for those not trapped within our own ideological bubbles?
Goals for my Substack: Bringing to Light an Invisible Epidemic
Through the process of deconstructing from ideology, I hope to speak with a clear head and a tempered heart on topics ranging from Judaism, gender, family, and the general state of discourse. I hope that those of you who choose to read will also be able to catch when ideology starts to influence your perception and choose to step back and read on, and that we can interact as people with individual ideas, not as party adherents with zealous convictions.