Picture the following: You’re laying in bed after a long week of school. The coziness of your blanket surrounds you completely. The raindrops are bouncing off the roof, and thunder sounds in the distance. The atmosphere is perfect, so you turn off your phone and close your eyes, waiting for sleep to arrive. No more than 17 seconds later you hear a notification. You pick up your phone to see that the notification was from Instagram - your favourite creator just released a new reel. “Just one reel won’t hurt'' you tell yourself, not knowing that this rabbit hole is deeper than you expected. You’ll realise in about four hours that there’s no such thing as “just one reel” - you’re on a journey now.

Assuming things haven’t done a complete 180 since I departed from the USA, I’m fairly confident that somewhere along your 1 am safari through the bowels of social media, you will stumble across someone who offends you. Now this ‘someone’ can have many names, including, but not limited to: Donald Trump, Ben Shapiro, Andrew Tate, Jordan B. Peterson or Piers Morgan. As you stroll through gardens of controversial opinions, chances are that you’ve had one of the following thoughts:

1. They’re absolutely right, why don’t more people talk about this?

2. Why would anyone think of saying this?

While those two opinions are opposites practically speaking, a more theoretical approach reveals that they share an underlying pattern. Both of those questions are just tips of gargantuan ideological icebergs; icebergs which reach into culture, philosophy, and politics. Statistically speaking, the closer you get to the left on the political spectrum, the more likely you are to come to a conclusion resembling thought #2 and vice versa. No matter your political bias though, I believe buying into any ideology is actually quite detrimental to you.

Let’s start with the obvious. Social media - the predominant instrument of influence in today’s day and age - works on an engagement-based algorithm. The more people interact with a piece of content, the more traction it gains. The more traction it gains, the more people see it and thus interact with it. It’s a positive feedback loop, really. The comments resembling thought #1 of course aid the popularity of the post in question, but so do those more closely following in the lines of thought #2. This applies to society in general too by the way. 

In my opinion, Andrew Tate is an amazing example of this. Whether you agree with him or not, one trait of his is non-negotiable: the hypnotic effect he has on the masses, which - again - goes in both directions. It seems to me as if hardly anyone who knows of Tate had a neutral opinion of him and yet - even with millions of haters around the world - he’s the second most searched man on the planet. All that is due to emotional reasoning. Intense emotions of  ‘love’ or ‘hatred’ for Tate will cloud the judgement that one would generally use in the processes of critical thinking. And it’s in the absence of judgement that ideology breeds. When adapting ideology, you align yourself with the belief that this outspoken individual is either bad or good. Entirely. And subsequently, so are all of their statements, simply by virtue of who they were spoken by.

While adapting such ideology doesn’t cause harm by itself, in large numbers, followers of ideologies manifest their opinions in awful ways. Actions like the threat of withdrawal of professor Peterson’s clinical licence, the internet-wide ban of Andrew Tate, or Piers Morgan’s “voluntary retirement” from the show Good Mourning Brittain, are not only ideological in nature, but also contradict the natural right to the freedom of speech. And on the other hand, there are atrocities such as the January 6th Capitol riot, where hordes pillaged the Capitol Building following Trump’s claims about the election being rigged (which there’s essentially no evidence for).  Normally we’d associate such censorship with authoritarianism - such violent riots with anarchism - not the politically moderate environment the current world tries to inhabit.

There’s very few moderate ideologies. An ideology often presents the facade of “having all the answers”, while simultaneously being digestible and simple, which very few moderates are brave (or foolish) enough to claim. This conflict between the complexity of the world and the simplicity of the ideology often keeps experienced critical thinkers from committing to one. Upon encountering a person like Tate, Peterson, or Trump, an experienced critical thinker would ask themselves: “where does this person get their ethos from?” and even after establishing an opinion, they’d continue to judge the ideas by their content and not their speaker, as the moment they accept the claims as truthful on the basis of their author, the thinker would become the child of an ideology.

So do I agree with any of the controversial antihero-protagonists of this essay completely? Absolutely not! But do I think that anyone can take the good bits of their preachings, implement them in accordance with their own moral compass and toss the rest in the interest of bettering one’s existence. Yes….yes I do! When Peterson writes “Abandon Ideology” I do believe he means it. In the intro to Beyond Order - 12 More Rules For Life, he explains the underlying theme behind the rules of this book, which is ‘the danger excessive comfort poses to one’s development’. Adhering to ideology is simple and comfortable. Thinking individually is difficult and challenging, but it at least keeps you from making mistakes such as contradicting one’s natural rights.

Regardless of my own political views, I fully believe in letting go of all ideology. Building nuance is uncomfortable and difficult. You may need to embark on your little hero’s journey outside your comfort zone. You may need to disagree with someone - in fact - you may need to offend someone to learn how to think independently. You may even need to be wrong! Now that sucks, doesn’t it? But as you make mistakes stumbling up the hill of nuance, you’ll realise your ideology was the 150 pound weighted vest that’s been dragging you down all along.