“Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble – and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb, too. The imagination and spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors."
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
In this age of perpetual crisis it seems the only thing we're in no danger of is running out of ideology. Can't hardly look at the news, or much anything else for that matter, without running smack dab into it.
Have you got The Fear yet? It's election season again, which means it's once again the end of the world as we know it and the only thing you can do is vote. Good luck choosing between the ones who let it get this way and the ones vowing to make it worse.
Out wandering around doing street photography, away from the all the noise and fury of ideology it all seems a bit absurd. By and large, people are just trying to get by, survive work and maybe have a little fun and do their thing.
Soon as ideology rears its ugly head though they're mortal enemies, feuding and fighting like my Hatfield & McCoy kinfolk. For equally specious reasons.
Why? Still can't wrap my head around our obsession with dividing ourselves into us and them, but we certainly have a knack for it.
Still, we have more in common with one another than we'd probably like to admit and for better or worse, are stuck on this rock together for the foreseeable future.
Do we really have to make things more difficult for one another?