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By it’s nature an ideological approach is a reductionist approach since the wide sweeping panorama of reality is reduced to fit set ideological directions. The ideology becomes the filter through which reality is viewed and it reduces vastly complex interactions to simplified statements and judgments that are more reflective of the mental state of the one who holds the ideology than the actual state of affairs. Yet ideology is attractive since it simplifies decision making and analysis - it reduces or eliminates the mental and spiritual effort involved in understanding and interacting with a complex world. It provides a set of facile algorithms which grind up information and re-form the resultant paste by pouring it into a preset ideological mold.

A process like this works well for the ideology since it redirects the critical faculties and intellectual abilities of adherents into an efficient process for re-purposing data to support and defend the ideology’s outlook and away from examining the ideology’s own assumptions, motivations, and limitations.

Because of this, ideology and ideological approaches can be said to be more connected to will and power than to depth and breadth of knowledge. In other words, ideology trumps knowledge. It reshapes, rejects, accepts, and even manufactures “knowledge” (as propaganda) according to the goals (will) of the ideology and in seeking it’s own preservation and growth (power).