An ideological timeline

I thought it might be fun to revisit my youth for a little insight into the development of ideologies--or, more correctly, the acceptance and denial of ideologies.

Everyday we are bombarded with misinformation about every kind of noun, and it’s increasingly difficult to decipher between reality and imagery.

Luckily, ideologues stand at the ready to train you in the art of groupthink—conformity to a certain set of ideals to achieve a certain end.

(I hope you caught the sarcasm there, because as David Spade quipped in Tommy Boy, "I'm laying it on pretty thick.")

Ideologies are certainly not new; that being said, it does seem like a somewhat modern phenomenon to have two consolidated ideologies transform the discourse of an entire country (America in this case) into a simplistic binary opposition—left versus right, Democrat versus Republican, liberal versus conservative, however you choose to label it.

I don’t want to turn into one of the “what happened to my country” blowhards, but I would like to present a somewhat helpful, if not cumbersome, timeline of my own experience with these two noxious ideologies.

I can remember, in my younger days, always being very positive about my country in every way. What was not to like?

I was educated in arguably the most diverse school district in the state of Michigan, and I didn’t even know it at the time. My America wasn’t a “diverse America”, though, it was just America.

I didn’t know that being there, in that time and place, would shape the way I looked at the world. And I didn’t know then that it would take so long to get back to where I was.

Micah, who wanted to be a weatherman, and Ken the math whiz weren’t black, they were Micah and Ken; Jeff and Gabby weren’t Jews, they were Jeff and Gabby; Genie wasn’t Greek, she was just the smartest girl in my class; Jameel wasn’t Pakistani, he was one of my best friends.

Those were the good old days before my brain was convoluted with all manner of misgivings. Everything was just right because I knew of no other way; but, that quickly began to change.

I didn't question the politicians who constantly boasted from the stump that our country was the greatest country in the world. Why not? Things seemed pretty good for me and pretty bad for a lot of other people.

I didn't live in the Middle East with all the brown people who wore towels on their heads and threw rocks at tanks? Who does that? What could a rock do to a tank, anyway? And why weren't they in school? As an older child, I finally found out what Muslims and Jews “looked like” and the only ones I knew back then were rich and they were the ones driving the tanks—we started calling them SUVs around that time.

I didn't live in Canada where the jealous "wannabe" Americans lived. I remember thinking about just how pathetic Canadians actually were; I mean, how many of those colorful bills could I get for just a few greenbacks? Pathetic. Canada was so close and yet so far away. And in what parallel universe could "The Kids in the Hall" and “Mr. Bean” actually be considered funny?

I didn't live in France or Belgium or any of those feckless Scandanavian countries. What did those frogs know about fighting a war? Where were those Nordic-types during World War II? Probably skiing someplace, whittling wooden shoes or erecting goofy windmills. Those poor saps live in welfare states where transient junkies huddle around every corner; who were they to question my country when the tanks rolled into Baghdad? In America we lock our junkies up and throw away the keys.

I didn't live in Africa where the dark people lived; well, the dark people and the missionaries that is. Africa never made sense to me. Why didn't they have roads or phones or televisions? I knew they were poor, but how much poorer could they have been compared to the kids down the street? You know, the kids whose father squandered his paycheck entering junk cars into the demolition derby. But, they were poor and I knew it.

I had to sit through boring missions services at church on a fairly regular basis--complete with pictures of kids forcing smiles in squalor. It made me feel good to think that Christians were helping Africans go to heaven. But why do we have to help them? Why us? It seemed to me that we were blessed and they were forsaken for a reason; I just couldn't figure out why.

I didn't live in South America or Mexico where the machete-wielding banana republicans lived; I never understood those people either. Were they Indians or Spaniards? Why were they speaking Spanish a half a world away from Spain? And why were those Mexicans still trying to take over Texas? Texas is ours and always has been, right?

I didn't live in Asia where the smart people lived. They seemed very American in a lot of ways, but they were certainly smarter than us. The kids over there go to school year-round and would certainly have all of our jobs before too long. All the I was told were Asian were smart, rich and named Neil, or Michael or Johnny. Asians never seemed threatening to me, but, then again, I didn't have a job for them to take.

As the world became more complicated, I became somewhat obsessed with explaining it away. I loved books because they provided answers; right or wrong, I had something I could turn to in my attempt to figure it all out.

As I grew older, non-threatening people were increasingly few and far between in my world. Everyone, as far as I was concerned, who wasn't American, or at least openly pro-American, only wanted to bring us down--down to their level. That wasn't going to happen on my watch. I stood at the ready to defend my country against anyone who had one negative word to say about it. I read books by authors who were of like mind. Men like Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan, David Horowitz and Alan Keyes really appealed to me. They recognized the greatness of my country and they wanted to keep it that way.

These ideologues had an affect on me before I even knew what the term meant.

All this changed for me when I became an adult and began to take an inventory of the interested parties. The "what" was no longer good enough in my life; I had to know the "why."

I knew I was supposed to be a conservative, but why? What did I have in common with my intellectual heroes and the wisdom they were espousing? The answer, I soon found out, was very little.

So, I looked elsewhere.

When I got to college I immersed myself in the works of the heroes of the left—Marx and Engels, Zinn, Nader and Chomsky. The same curiosity that led me to the right was now pushing me left. But there was still a lot of unanswered questions that nihilist leftist ideologies only served to expand.

And so, in an attempt to rebuke one ideology I pursued another.

But that’s life. It’s full of questions in need of answers. And it’s this pursuit that has led me to the point at which I can say with confidence that, at least for a time, ideologies destroyed the natural tolerance of my youth.

Today, everywhere I look I find little bits of truth in need of gathering. I don’t find them piled up in one corner or another—my old expectations are gone.

Our house is full of truth, but it’s a big house; and I’ve learned that one must be willing to look in some strange places to find it. And, in order to do that, we must spurn these noxious ideologies that pit us against one another.

In the end, I came back to the center where the boring people live, breathe and wring their hands. From here, I can gravitate toward the truth in whichever direction it pulls me.