(An individual among thousands of others identical that are exactly identical to the individual. What do you think?)
As I read through the history textbook, I’m increasingly becoming aware of how scary ideology is. A pattern can be detected in terms of education in a system of dictatorship : dictators such as Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini educated young children of their political beliefs, while disdaining everything that was against their beliefs.
If you think about it, ideology is what made the Germans believe that the Aryan race was superior than any other race in the world. On the contrary, we are aginst rascism because we are taught that way everywhere : at home, at school, and at society.
Every year in North Korea, the birthday of Kim Jung Il is celebrated at a very big scale. The whole country prepares for it : young girls perform gymnastics, others perform music. The nation as a whole is celebrating his birthday, as if it is their own. And looking at thousands of children wearing the same uniform, shouting
’??? ???? ??!’ (Hail father (leader) comrade!), I suddenly feel goosebumps appearing on my skin. The same question comes up in my head. ‘Do they really believe in him that much?’ And now I know why. We live and believe things based on what we have learnt. That’s why education affects us so much. And sure, if they are born to hail Kim Il Sung from the minute they were born, of course, they are going to turn out that way.
Then, I’m thinking that we should never unite, the North and South Korea. Over half a century, our differences created a wider gap between us. We are trained to live in a capitalist world, where money often helps people gain power and position. It’s fundamentally different from the system of communism, where resources are ’supposed’ to be distributed equally among everyone.
Furthermore, the question is : does ideology link to brainwashing? Where is the fine line where ideology turns into brainwashing? I’m sure people will not have a hard time agreeing with the fact that Hitler and Stalin both brainwashed people to believe in Fascism and Communism. But the decision comes quite hard when it comes to whether we, the children of capitalists, are brainwashed to belive that success and money are key (or even elements that help people gain happiness) to living a comfortable life with respect and friendship.
I’m not trying to say that our world is bad. No, I’m not. It’s just that what we learn doesn’t seem to provide us with distinguished, perfectly supported facts. This is somewhat very different from 1+1=2. I think that this part is where we think for ourselves, and where our ideas towards the world differentiates.
My point is, that ideology is indeed very effective in creating people’s belief system.
We are all affected by ideology.
Jiyeon Han
+ This video shows how Hitler claimed that the Aryan race was physically superior to other races. This is real ideology and brainwashing. It’s actually quite scary, but if you had no idea of whether Hitler was a bad person or not, you’d probably find this quite persuading.
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