Ideal-ology-itis

Conservative politicians in the U.S. have campaigned tirelessly for less regulation of the financial industry, among others. Their rationale includes claims that regulation stymies the growth of the economy and that the banks, for example, can police themselves far better than the government. Mr. Greenspan said he believed that bankers were honest enough to keep things on an even, safe, keel.

Well... look at what the f__k that far right ideology got us. All my income taxes for all my life have been diverted to banks and bankers' pockets. Meanwhile, they are charging me 17.5% interest on my credit card and paying me 1.5% interest on my savings.

Right wingers -- who will NEVER admit that their deregulation of the banking system was a primary cause of the failure of 2008 -- aren't the only fools.

Communists got a completely failed experiment in the USSR. Lefties and socialists delighted that China was thoroughly socialist/communist, and now look at that bastion of free market capitalism. Very clearly, though, the economic ideals in both cases were contaminated by despotic governments unable to manage when they got what so many liberals had wished for.

In all three examples, the failed reality illustrates what happens when ideologies prevail over common sense. Why do we tend so easily to get hung up on a line of thinking that might seem useful at first glance, then ride it straight into hellish intellectual extremes? Philosophers do it, economists do it, politicians do it, theologians do it. Who doesn't?

Idealogy-itis -- the infection by a commitment to a set of ideals no matter what happens out there in the real world -- is a sickness of intellectuals and dunces alike.