The escape of one man into his dreams is the trap of ideology.

A person and his or her dreams is a phrase which covers a set of sociological phenomena involving the trick of self-actualization. No one wants to be considered a failure, and the prevailing complex of culture in the United States and many other locations is that to be considered a success requires beating the system, not merely finding a way in which to thrive in it.

It is when we, having realized some aspect of our personal goals, interpret our actions as having a transcendent value, that we claim no allegiance to any ideology. We declare that this is for those who do not have transcendent value: who do not have a material or intellectual basis to refer to in a comparative sense. Setting aside a presentation of the ideation of public discourse, in which we imagine we engage in such discourse in order to assert to ourselves our sense of transcendent value, this material or intellectual basis means family, money, publication, visibility in some medium, contacts which are based not on personal preference but on perceived indispensability, infinite mojo on blog sites, the list is limited only by the creativity of human beings to seek to distinguish themselves from the mass of humanity around them. In this state, we declare we do not need any ideology, that we have transcended ideology.

Donald Trump is a classic example of this man who has escaped into his dreams. To anyone who has been conscious since 1980, Donald Trump's ideology is essentially that of the vast majority of US society: the self-interest of personal growth born out of pride in not having to depend on others for one's personal worth or wealth. We all ascribe to this identity in some form or another; it is impossible to be an independent person in the United States without this "impulse." Social expectations are so pervasive that they become for us body and life, we are unable to function in society without them. Donald Trump declares he is an independent voice for the independent USian. He shows no allegiance to principles, other than the principle of doing something, certainly in the best interest of the individual, of which he is the first, de facto. To protest Donald Trump is in a way to protest the very core of the US: white, rich, landowning, self-interested. Even if we recoil in horror at the idea that this applies to the person whose teeth we brush, we are forced to understand that this is the ideology of the society in which we choose, or are forced, to participate, and to reject this entirely is tantamount to self-ostracism, or suicide.

That emancipation from ideology, from having to confess allegiance to a given set of principles, to be grown up, matured beyond the abstract playthings of Marxists and other neer-do-wells, is precisely the state of being trapped by some ideology. It is only when ideology is carefully understood and applied, both as a tool for self-analysis and as a means of uncovering the controls which elites place on our thoughts, behaviors, choices, preferences, romantic interests, family ties, hygiene, and so on - that we become in effect free, not of ideology, but of the power of any one ideology.

The Enlightenment sought to destroy what it perceived to be ideology, and in so doing, replaced it with liberalism, itself an ideology but masquerading as something that transcends ideology, and therefore is superior to it. This could be elaborated on more significantly, with applications to the present. Sanderism, a constellation of both the loose set of informal propositions which Senator Sanders has put forth during his campaign and the social phenomenon of their reception, is an incoherent and not too self-critical ideology.

It is a wonder in the United States, that ideas which are so antithetical to many of the behaviors of USians can be rarified almost holomorphically - that is, through as many iterations as one likes - to the point of being so smoothly integrated into the dominant ideology of the US that they become indistinguishable from it. This is only possible because of sociological, rather than merely social, conditions. No one can advocate consistently for socialist goals in the United States without having digested some ideas which are more or less hostile not merely to certain elites, but to the very identity of nearly every USian of every class or race. Yet in their present form, a set of propositions which echo some ideas which could be called socialist, they are not socialism in themselves, and Senator Sanders is no more a socialist than Angela Merkel, Vladimir Putin, or a host of other modern leaders. The reason for this is that there is no socialist ideology in the United States, a phenomenon which requires an entire sociological ontology, much more than a presidential campaign or donations, more than a blog site, more than great enthusiasm. What we are witnessing is much more modest: many who have voted against their own interests, and those who agree this has happened, using democracy to attempt to change this situation.

However, the problem is, that it takes the consciousness of an existential threat to an entire society, felt over a long period of time, for the deep changes to begin to take place. The Soviet Union, despite a political revolution and the introduction of allegedly new values, did not erase the ontology of the Russian people, their basic character, expectations, and appeal to institutions. Soviet artists playfully mocked this notion in satire throughout the period. Furthermore, what one sees in modern Russia is not an anomaly. It is Russia as it has always been, and much older than 1991, 1917, 1905, and so on. The Putin era has allowed everyone to forget ideology, until of course their desires contradict those of the ruling class. Then this "non-ideology" appears again, with physical force. Not too much different from what minorities, labor activists, and others who had a "positive," meaning, open, verifiable and different ideology to free capitalism, experience to this day in the United States.

It is precisely this "managed democracy" of Putin which has capitalized on the same "anti-ideology" of Trump, and the "pragmatism" of New Labor in Britain, of the substantially homogeneous political landscape in the German establishment. The common core is the allure of concrete actions without any meaning, without a single attempt to tie these to more than material expediency. For societies which reject Marxism, including its materialism, this approach of "anti-ideology" and the mocking of the use of technical terms such as oligarchy - even if they are bandied about too freely - embraces materialsm, freeing society to "make up its own mind," about all other matters. In reality, this is a cynical irony of being enslaved in ideology: no one has the freedom to make up his or her own mind without calling into question the "anti-ideology" that surrounds us, gives us sustenance, structure, purpose.

There is not an oligarchy in the United States. This word used without critical awareness obscures the much more complex and insidious truth: the United States is, at its core, a society of self-aggrandizement, where everything that is not pure thought has a price tag, a trademark, a copyright, a monetary value. It is not an egalitarian society, no matter how loudly its big, green statues proclaim this. Stepping aside from this very difficult analysis, what is the case is that the United States ideology depends more on materialism than the official Marxist ideology of the Soviet Union: at least in the latter ideology, personal worth was not measured by individual wealth.

In this sense, engaging in pure thought is the last non-commodifiable act, in part because fewer and fewer people can understand it, let alone do it. No demand, you see. Having read this far, you may wonder whether I think coherent written expression in English also falls under this category.

Whether one likes it or not, whether it is stated or not or contradicted in statements, this self-interested materialism is the "non-ideology" of the United States. In this sense, this ideology has more or less won in Eastern Europe, including Russia, which can return to its arch-conservative, regressive roots, and is doing so at a blistering pace. Being freed from having to exert oneself to self-criticism, to commitment to a stated ideology, means to retreat into the only option left for humanity - survival of the fittest.

The basic ingredient missing from a permanent success to Senator Sander's campaign is a coherent ideology on the part of his followers. This is due to Senator Sanders, who is running for President of the United States, thereby meaning that the best he can do offer superficial, oblique, albeit materially true, statements as critiques. The idea of revolution is not serious, but not for the reason that some Democratic Party cadres make. They are not serious because they are not effective, rather, their effect is limited by the degree to which they present the real situation, and the real costs involved in deep change.

I will come out here and state that I support Senator Sanders as the marginally better candidate. However, the United States electorate will have to digest a lot more than the word "oligarchy" in order to realize the "revolution," to challenge the power of the system and society. We have to free ourselves by study, by debate about what society is, what ideology is, and then act in such as way as to educate not only to the latest outrages, but to the very constructs that allow us to perpetrate them, permit them, even identify with those who benefit from them.

The US electorate has to realize that claiming not to have an ideology is an ideology of two degrees: the ideology of the unconsciousness and the ideology of "anti-ideology," itself an egotistical lie.

Therefore, there are no "independent voters." Utter ridiculousness, a fiction.

One last idea:

"Die vollkommene Anpassung des Bewusstseins und seine objektive Unfaehigkeit, sich Alternativen zum Bestehenden auch nur vorzustellen, ist die Ideologie der Gegenwart." - Herbert Schnädelbach

translation: "The complete conformity of consciousness and its objective incapacity even to imagine alternatives to that-which-has-obtained [i.e., the conditions of the individual and of society] is the ideology of the present [age]."

I know many people are here on this site because some other people embody this very observation. We all embody it, really, until we do more than react to material conditions, but begin to smith a new way of understanding what it means to be a human being in a complex society. "Not me, us" is really facile. It should be "Not me, ideology." Much more powerful, much bigger learning curve.

I will attack more of these ideas, ideology, sociological constructs, psychology and the myth of self-awareness, and so on. That being said, I apologize for all time to anyone who did not understand what was written and for confusions that may arise. I am perhaps the least capable person to attempt to unravel these ideas into informal communication. The fault lies with me, not with the power of the ideas I attempt to communicate and apply. Seek them out for yourself, make them your own, and discard me as soon as possible.

Peace and love to you, reader.