I would love to make an important
contribution to the current debate of ideology versus anti-ideology.
Unfortunately, I can only make a minimal contribution.
The issue comes up while continuing to read Ron Chernow's book Alexander Hamilton.
I get furious at Jefferson and Madison and want to picket the Jefferson memorial. Jefferson supported the French Revolution even after Robespierre was using the guillotine daily on the very same great people who had served in and supported the American Revolution. Just like the Lefties who supported the USSR long after Stalin's horrific purges and the Gulag were exposed.
So
I asked myself, "If the arguments were the same in 1790 and 1990,
where did the core division come from?"
I believe the answer is Plato versus Aristotle. That is the original core division that is at the root of our current debate and the root of the debate when the U.S. was founded. When I read Plato and Aristotle at the University of Chicago, half a century ago, I was immediately an Aristotelian.
As I now view the debate in the world, Plato was the ideologist and Aristotle the anti-ideologist.
It seems implausible that such a mighty and extraordinary subject (ideology vs anti-ideology) that has wrought havoc in all our lives and generated bitter turmoil for many centuries should be attached to such an ancient intellectual divide. But it is plausible, and I am personally stunned to recognize it.
The element that has changed the dialog and created human havoc is that Plato did not
deal with commerce. The great sorrow of the past two centuries and the sorrow in the modern dialog-dichotomy is that the ideologists are anti-commerce. The
Platonist/ideologists think that commerce is a moral force
and should support their morals.
My contribution to modern thought is that commerce is not moral. The recognition of the non-morality of commerce is vital to human understanding. (Think about why Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao murdered so many people -- the people who were the wheels and cogs of commerce.)
I have time on this vacation to re-read Aristotle and I will.