Image and Ideology

The world we exist in is largely based on image and ideology.  The world I want to live in is one I want to largely be based on close relationship and personal learning.  Image is a very open relationship where image is the relationship.  Ideology is formed as public learning which can move towards groupthink.  Personal learning about ideology can make us aware whether we are subscribing to an ideology or whether we are actually open minded about learning.

This hive is called renaissance and becomes an ideology if its intent is to persuade others towards renaissance.  Otherwise renaissance here is a practical wisdom, acquired individually and as a part of personal learning and privacy of relationship.  If ideology is being practiced then the idea of renaissance will become a shared belief.  If all people were then to become "renaissance", that would serve not to be renaissance, but simply the rise of a social culture.

We do need social cultures to transform because when we look back at history, we can be perplexed by the beliefs of yesteryear.  Once upon a time a woman could be declared a witch, the test for which was throwing her into the river.  If the woman lived it confirmed her as a witch and if she drowned then it proved that she was not a witch.   That is how history will look at our own social beliefs in the future, except there will actually be recorded audio and visual content of what we think were sound beliefs today, which the future will look upon in a perplexed manner.  Groupthink today is certainly one of those potential perplexing practices today.

I could wonder how BeBee would look if the Spanish Inquisition was today's reality rather than a dark period in European history - the reality of BeBee is that it possible in our age for the reasons that people are looking for platforms, tools and applications that represent our time.

If I was invested in image and ideology I would want others to understand what best represents our time, but that is not at all what I want to do using BeBee.  I want to be able to spot where I have swayed in that direction, which means that I have lost my own compass about following a learning journey and my desire to make privacy of being, relationship and existence as much as it can be.  Clearly that is a great challenge when the predominate ideology is our life as product without knowing our own value as a product as "free" become analytics not just advertising.

It does not matter to me whether the ideology stems from the Spanish Inquisition or the Economy of Likes, so long as I understand that an ideology is at work - and I am conscious of that ideology in order to allow me to move back into that decreasing space where thinking is predominantly thinking about our own thinking.

Nor do I state that the Internet or Social Media is doing something to us such as making us more narcissistic.  It is subscription to an ideology or an image that does that, not the platform or it may just be who we actually were to begin with, while we projected a social image.

An ideology like personal branding however is something that I can connect dots with an increase in narcissism because this is the bedrock of modern image making.  Other ideologies like public relations support that image making but the movement to Brand You brings us to the center of that image making - and the net result of that is most people become the product of that.  There are people who have made a distinction between brand and product which is a healthy distinction, but personal brand when it becomes an ideology is tied to a person's central nervous system - anything reality that seeps into the image activates a nervous disposition.

On the one hand in the Economy of Likes we are the product and on the other where a narcissistic response develops is when the branding of ourselves further envelops us as product.  I don't want to be a product of BeBee, I want a 21st Century mindset to emerge from my own learning journey that I practice on BeBee.

The practice of following further reinforces ideologies because it is what everybody else does and this has become the expected norm - but that norm was a product of social engineering and if our mentality has been socially engineered, it is the product of that mentality that has been socially engineered.  This is without even bringing the behaviour set of groupthink into this ideology equation.  This is benign social engineering - designed to make subtle shifts in our behaviour.  There is also malignant social engineering which is the type that usually concerns us

In the above video, corporations are being taught to protect themselves from malignant social engineering but benign social engineering such as likes and following are not given a second thought, possibly because we are OK with the ideology.  This is fine, but I am here to learn that, not promote anti-social engineering. 

Whether it is image or ideology, these two things exist on my own learning journey and how I learn about this either makes me savvy about utilizing image and/or ideology or it makes me wise about my own choices as a free thinking and private individual.  It is the latter that I prefer without making that a part of my own ideology.  I am open to blow up my own beliefs if I become aware of my own actions - and this is the only meaning of "know-yourself" that I pursue, otherwise simply pointing inwards with a learning journey is another form of narcissism.

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