Ajax Posted October 5, 2010 Posted October 5, 2010 (edited) Bear with me on this one guys... ideology (ˌaɪdɪˈɒlədʒɪ)— n , pl -gies 1. a body of ideas that reflects the beliefs and interests of a nation, political system, etc and underlies political action 2. philosophy, sociol the set of beliefs by which a group or society orders reality so as to render it intelligible 3. speculation that is imaginary or visionary 4. the study of the nature and origin of ideas [sIZE=3] [/sIZE] Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition 2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009 So in my philosophy class we've talked about how an ideology is a story that a group tells itself to explain the way things are and to justify it's own policies and behaviors. These ideologies aren't necessarily ficticious, nor entirely based in truth. I think I'm creating an ideology around my ex that helps me "explain" what happened and why she left. My ex told me she loved me and was talking about our future together mere days before she cut me out of her life. She had all kinds of explainations as to why this happened, and I've taken some of those explainations and begun to paint my own picture, as well as tossing out those excuses that don't fit my new "ideology." Why did I love her? Ideology: She was everything that I was looking for. Why did she tell me she loved me during our relationship? Ideology: She did. Why did she start pulling away? Ideology: She got too close, too scared to commit, afraid to get hurt. Why did she feel this way? Ideology: Someone must have done something bad to her in the past that she couldn't get over. Why couldn't she get over it and trust me? Ideology: She's weak. In my current ideology, my ex was twisted by her own pain and ultimately succame to it. Her pre-breakup behavior can be reconciled with her postbreakup behavior this way: She changed. She ceased to be the girl I fell in love with and became someone else. Is some of my ideology true? Probably. Is all of it? Probably not. And of course it inevitably brings us to the Star Wars comparison. Sorry to those of you who thought this was going to be an intelligent thread. In Return of the Jedi, Luke asks Obi-Wan why he lied to him about Darth Vader killing his father. Obi-Wan tells Luke that his father had been a good friend, and when he turned to the dark side, the good man that was his father was destroyed. Obi-Wan says, "Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." So here's what I'm putting to you LS'ers: Is this what we do when someone we love leaves us? Do we take bits of the truth and weave them into a picture we can understand by filling in the gaps? Do we create an ideology about our lost love to explain the unexplainable? Do we cling to truths based on our own point of view? Edited October 5, 2010 by Ajax
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