Isms and ists

As human beings, we are attracted to isms. I think there are strong anthropological motivations going on here. In fact, the evolutionary routes of such behaviour may be the same as the rational case which might be made for isms in general. I'm not, of course, talking here about the virtues of any particular ism, any particular bundle of views, which may be sufficiently structured to qualify as an ideology or system of thought. I'm talking about what draws us to want to be part of something bigger than we are.

If we come across a body of thought which vaguely represents our position, we get that coming home feeling. If it's a position that others may attack, we are going to draw comfort from the safety of being among the like minded, and from feeling less vulnerable to being picked off as some crazy loaner. We will have our sacred texts and the thoughts of the wise originators of our chosen ism to which we can refer to bolster our opinions, and add weight to them by quoting those whose scholarship we admire; scholarship which might impress the opposition.

But here's the danger zone in my opinion. Because the ism can easily take on an institutionalised life of its own, and render us less critical of what it says than we might otherwise be. Our luminaries can easily take on almost sacred status, and we may almost imperceptibly start feeling nervous about entertaining thought which doesn't toe the party line. We would somehow be acting disloyally, betraying "the cause". How nuch accommodation are we making to this tendency in us? Are we allowing our instinctive, if rationally defensible, need for solidarity to undermine our capacity for independent thought?

I'm aware that being an anti-ismist is itself an ism in the making. I'm simply suggesting that if we choose to define ourselves as any kind of ist, we might do well to think how far that ism reflects our true views, and how far we any longer permit ourselves to have such views without reference to higher authority.