The Prison of Ideology
Political ideologies can make you stupid. I am not here to target the right or the left of the political spectrum. I am speaking as someone who has been on both sides of the seesaw. The fight is never really about the truth, and I think both sides are willing to acknowledge at least that much.
The whole point of an ideological battle is groupthink. You believe in certain things, so you gradually start believing in things that are somewhat connected to your original beliefs. You find people who agree with you, which makes you even more confident. Those people believe in things you have no idea about, but you believe in them anyway, thinking that because they are part of your group, they must be right.
Instead of owning opinions based on the knowledge you have acquired, your opinions begin to form your identity based on the company you keep. Ideologically driven identities are often born out of the people you listen to. These days, those people are in abundance, and through social media, they can connect with millions.
The size of groupthink is only increasing. If you look beneath the broader right-wing and left-wing political spectrum, you will find many more subgroups. You can test the rigidity of these identities by how desperately people want to share their political opinions. It is almost as if they are dying to do it. Their social media is filled with at least one post or comment about their politics.
They have to let you know that they are having this thought. They are dying to have an argument with someone because their ideological identity is suffocating them. They have to vent. So they hate their parents, their friends, or anybody they meet online. They abuse them simply because they hold an opinion different from theirs.
Aside from politics, this is also reflected in fan clubs. They cannot tolerate two great players. They have to separate them into two groups and feel proud of belonging to one of them. Their identity is so rigid that they cannot appreciate the other great player because they have pledged allegiance to one side.
In the end, that is all it comes down to. We want to belong, and being part of such groups gives us an identity that is closer to what we were already feeling inside. Political enemies become our easy targets for releasing pent-up frustration.
The inner frustration gets a direction, but unfortunately, it not only destroys older connections, it also destroys the hope of forming any new ones.