It is Okay to have a Political Ideology
Many wear as a badge of honor that they are supposedly apolitical
I noticed many enlightened people I interact with and follow today are very afraid of using political labels about themselves. There is a fear that if you describe yourself as being of a particular political stripe you have given up entirely on thinking for yourself. Instead you have subjugated yourself to believing and opinioning everything a party or movement you label yourself as opinions.
I believe we must stop being afraid of labels this way. Many confuse particular personality traits they don't like with an ideology.
The YouTuber Dark Matter, has an excellent analysis of this point: Why I Stopped Being Anti-Woke
Obsessive
Easily offended
Hypocritical
Lack of self-awareness
Dark Matter pointed out how he originally saw these traits as inherent to people prescribing to a woke ideology. But later realized he was reacting to personality traits that could exist within any group, regardless of ideology:
These are often a package deal. I associated those traits with certain groups rather than the more accurate approach of attributing them to the individuals who exhibited those traits. The truth is that someone who is woke might not have any of those traits while someone who is intensely anti-woke could have every single one of them.
I use the label "far left" about myself and this confuses many people. I often get pushbacks by people saying "No, you are centrist. You are too moderate. The far left isn't like you. You are too reasonable." and so on. Some people say that. Whenever I disagree with them you can be sure that tirade of insults about how extreme I am follows.
The reason people refuse to believe I am a far-left person is because I am not tribalist. I don't have a problem holding a view deeply unpopular on the left. I am also very much against people taking offense at everything. And I believe the left must recognize when it is wrong so as to not appear hypocritical.
Generally people are eager to put labels on everyone else but very reluctant to accept one for themselves. A particular peculiar phenomenon I have noticed is intellectuals who claim to not belong to any ideology while fiercely defending or advocating for Donald Trump.
The Absurd Idea of Trump as a Centrist
That might be sensible to claim if you were fan of somebody at the political center but Donald Trump is a right-wing extremist. There is absolutely nothing centrist about him. Yet ironically there are plenty of Trump fans who sincerely claim that he is a centrist. A man who was a the political center should of course now have cultish following on the right and invoke anger and resentment on the left. That is the text book example of a divisive leader. When the man is the most popular Republican among far-right groups in decades, he is obviously not a centrist.
I suspect this misconception comes from the fact that Trump borrows some ideas from the left, but so did Hitler. Both Nazis and Fascists copied ideas from socialists. They were highly critical of capitalism. One of their great enemies where people like George Soros. Rich globalist Jews. In this manner Trumpism is no different. You can hear white supremacists like Tucker Carlson rail against liberal billionaire George Soros all the time. He is careful to not mention that Soros is a Jew, because that would make the similarity with Nazi rhetoric of the 1930s a little bit too obvious.
Right-wing populism and extremism tends to borrow ideas from all over the political spectrum. Fascism lacks a clear principle and theoretical foundation other ideologies have. I suspect why people supporting fascist ideologies can delude themselves into thinking they are somehow support an apolitical ideology.
My distrust of those claiming to be apolitical
These are some of the reasons I have come to be distrustful of people saying they are apolitical or that they don't like labels. Too often when I get into deeper discussions it becomes clear that they have ideas which overlap too much with fascism. People know fascism is a discredited ideology with negative connotations, so even if they agree with fascist ideas they don't want to call themselves fascists. So they invent other labels such as "I am a guy that just follows common sense."
Modern racism is instructive. Nobody wants to call themselves racist because that is such a negative label. Instead they call themselves "race realists." Likewise American right-wing propaganda has done such a good job of scaremongering about socialists that few Americans dare call themselves socialists. Instead they call themselves things such as leftist or progressive.
Humans have always played these sort of word games. Romans hated kings so much that Caesar could not call himself king. The French revolution was again royals so naturally Napoleon could not call himself a king even though the ruled exactly like an absolute monarch. The Dutch during their golden years had similar aversions against monarchs and thus called their leader a Stadholder. Technically a Stadholder was different from a King, but under House of Orange there was little practical difference.
Ideology is About Values not Facts
Extremists routinely deny object facts to suit their ideological convictions. But in principle an ideology has nothing to do with facts. Let me take an example with a taco and a pizza. Whether you like taco or pizza better is just a preference. What ingredients are present in a particular taco or pizza is however not a question of preference but objective facts.
Ideally a political ideology is no different from having a preference for pizza over taco. It should not be a dispute over what ingredients actually exist in a pizza or taco.
Often political debate is similar to a debate over what ingredients should go into a pizza. Depending on your particular subjective taste you may opinion that certain ingredients ought to be in a pizza and others should be excluded. We can see political ideology as the same. It is about what "ingredients" should go into society to make the "best tasting" society.
Let us look at some of these values. While there are countless political ideologies we can at the most basic level make a general distinction between the left and the right.
Left-Wing Values (Progressivism, Collectivism, Egalitarianism)
• Equality: Prioritizes reducing economic and social inequalities, often advocating redistribution of wealth and resources.
• Collectivism: Emphasizes the role of society in ensuring well-being, often supporting state intervention in the economy and social programs.
• Change & Progress: Views social norms, hierarchies, and institutions as fluid, seeking reforms or transformations to achieve social justice.
• Universalism: Tends to favor inclusive policies that emphasize human rights and protections across class, race, and national lines.
Right-Wing Values (Tradition, Hierarchy, Individualism)
• Freedom & Individualism: Values personal responsibility, self-reliance, and minimal state interference, particularly in economic affairs.
• Hierarchy & Order: Accepts or even favors natural hierarchies in wealth, status, and power, seeing them as a result of merit or tradition.
• Tradition & Stability: Prefers continuity in cultural and social institutions, often resisting rapid changes in norms or government expansion.
• Particularism: More likely to prioritize national, ethnic, or cultural identity over universalist ideals, leading to an emphasis on preserving local traditions.
These differences in ideas on how society should operate also manifest themselves in how people on the left and right see societal change.
Left-Wing View on Change
• Progress as a moral imperative: Society should evolve to become more just, inclusive, and equal.
• Past as flawed: History is full of injustices (e.g., racism, sexism, class oppression) that should be corrected.
• Embraces disruption: Change is often necessary and good, even if it challenges traditional norms or institutions.
Right-Wing View on Change
• Caution toward change: Stability, order, and continuity are valuable; change should be slow and deliberate.
• Past as a foundation: Traditional structures exist for a reason and should be respected or restored when lost.
• Skepticism of utopianism: Large-scale societal change often leads to unintended consequences, and rapid change can cause chaos.
In short, leftists tend to see history as something to move away from, while right-wingers see it as something to preserve or return to—not necessarily an exact past, but an idealized version of it.
None of this has to do with facts. Whether we should preserve tradition or embrace change isn’t a question about facts. It is not like a debate about whether the Earth orbits the sun or the Sun orbits the Earth.
Whether you should get resources according to need or in regard to effort has no objective right or wrong answer. And usually the difference is not absolute. Both people on the left and right think effort and skills should matter in terms of what rewards you get. Likewise both think all people should be taken care of and have some minimal amount of resources at their disposal.
The disagreement is about degree. The left emphasize equality and welfare of all humans more. The right emphasize individual responsibility and efforts more.
I don’t think there is a right or wrong here any more than there being an objective answer to whether you should like pizza or taco more.
The Absurdity of Being Non-Political
Being non-political is something we can strive towards when working in say journalism, as judges and so on. But in these cases I would argue it is more about not broadcasting your political affiliation as to not influence decisions and perspectives. In most other context I think insisting that you have no political ideology is somewhat absurd.
Imagine insisting you have no preference over pizza or taco because all you care about are the objective facts, aka the ingredients. It is like reaching a point in society where people do not dare anymore to say what food that tastes good to them, only what ingredients exist in the food. All because anything “subjective” has become bad and only “objective” things are good.
I notice than in America it has almost become a swearword to be political. The analogy would be a society where it is considered inappropriate to voice a taste preference in food and all food discussions have been reduced to discussions of what ingredients a dish has.
Saying you only vote based on issues, is a bit like saying you only pick dishes based on ingredients and not taste. It is always possible to post-rationalize. You can taste different dishes and then look at ingredients. Next, you can claim you picked a particular dish due to a particular ingredient. You don’t dare utter that you actually found the dish tasty.
Why Are Political Labels Taboo in the US?
The aversion to political labels is not entirely universal across the West in my view. Rather I think it is quite typical for the US. My own theory on that is that the US has a two-party system which polarizes people. When there are only two choices nuance is lost.
In my native Norway, there are 10 different parties, which means different political ideologies have more explicit political representation. Everyone from greens, social democrats to libertarians have somebody representing them.
If you debate politics with someone it is not readily obvious who somebody votes because there are so many choices. Many parties have elements from the left and right. For instance the farmers party in Norway has many elements one might associate with US Republicans, yet it is a left-wing party in Norway. Or rather center-left.
The Christian party in Norway, while a right-wing party, has a lot of common with leftists in the US. They are generally immigrant and development aid friendly. They speak a lot of the poor. On the other hand they are not thrilled about abortions.
Ignorance is Okay
I want to walk back a little bit my claim that being apolitical is absurd. There are of course many people who do not care much about politics and who simply vote based on issues that are important to them there and then. That is okay. I am not suggesting that everyone must care about politics.
My claim is more than even these people have an ideology, it is just that they have not invested time in learning enough about political ideologies to find out what their beliefs are called or labeled as. But in principle they could take many of the political compass tests that exist today and it would put them somewhere in the political landscape.
Thus when people say “I don't have a political ideology”, what they really mean is: “I don’t know what my political ideology is.” Of course if you keep voting Trump it becomes increasingly silly to say you don’t have an ideology.
Imagine marching with Mao and when asked what your political ideology is you insist you have none and only really liked the platform Mao was running on for this particular armed revolt. “During next violent revolution I might support another guy. It all depends on the issues.”
Why compare with a revolutionary? Because for a modern rich Western country in the 2020s Donald Trump is the closest with get to a revolutionary. The way he is going about government is more radical than anything we have seen in the West the last 50 years if not longer. You cannot support any of that while claiming to apolitical.