Ideologies: Their failure

People keep asking me how I can say I stand for something when I continue to refuse to adhere to an ideology (i.e. lower taxes, bigger government, etc). I often struggle with the discussion because we have been lead to believe that ideologies are solutions, when in fact, they are soundbites to lure an unwary public into voting for someone. I have discussed before concrete evidence of how ideologies simply do not work (republicans increase debt; democrats failure to solve poverty). But, I want to put it into a simple story.

A bridge manufacturer has developed an expertise in designing and building bridges using lightweight, composite materials. In fact, all they do now is build bridges using that material. Composite materials are more expensive than steel and do not have the same physical properties, but this manufacturing company is so sure of the benefit, that is refuses to build using anything else.

along comes a village in the north atlantic. they hired this company to build a bridge over a river. the crossing is buffeted by winds and freezing temperatures most of the year. ships pass through the river, creating unique currents. the conditions present a unique challenge to the company, but they are so sure of the superiority of composite materials, they convince the villagers to buy their bridge. oh yeah, since it costs a lot more, the bridge design is not as robust, but that is okay, because composites are superior to steel. the villagers believe them and spend their money on hiring the company to build the bridge. two months after the bridge was built, a cold spell hit the town. they were used to this level of temperature, but the company did not realize that it gets that cold in that part of the world. at the same time, an iceberg splits into several massive chunks which start impacting the bridge. this is normal too but the extent unknown to the bridge company. and last, but certainly not least and not unexpected, a freezing rain hits the village. as we can guess, the composite material could not handle the conditions and the bridge fails and several villagers die. it is later discovered that the use of steel would have been a superior choice at half the price.

What happened? the company was so sure of the superiority of composite material that they used all their energy into fitting it into the problem. the use of composite material was the solution (for them) and they were going to do whatever it taked to make sure that the solution they wanted was used. but, there were big problems. first, they ignored completely the issue at hand. there were unique conditions in this village that the company did not know of or bother to understand. instead, they fully relied upon prior knowledge and assumed that this situation was going to be similar. the small differences made the difference. second, they already had the solution before they analyzed the problem. they were hell bent on using composites. if they had gone into the problem with open eyes, they would have realized that composites were a bad design choice. and finally, they cut costs. the villagers could not pay for the expensive bridge they wanted, so they cut costs to still build a bridge despite the fact that the cutting of corners would seriously hamper the safety of the bridge.

Now, take that story and apply it to what we hear day in and day out from politicians. we are told we have to believe something. the democrats' solution for everything is bigger government. the republicans solution for everything is lower taxes. each problem is unique unto itself, and we deserve more than soundbites, we deserve solutions.

I end with this. Conservatives and Republicans hoist Reagan as being the beakon of conservative government. "He lowered taxes." "He decreased the size of government." go to factcheck.org or look around. You will quickly see that he did not. Reagan's genius was not in actually implementing a conservative ideology. His genius was in fooling others into believing that he did. He knew you needed to look at problems individually, and he did.