If there is one good thing about living through such tumultuous times, and I believe that the bulk of the tumult is yet to come, it is that I can observe what is happening in the world at first hand, which gives me a better opportunity to understand how ideologies are born, how they grow, how they mutate, and how they become corrupted. As things have progressed since that world-changing event on September eleventh I've immersed myself in studying how both individuals and ideologies react to such paradigm shifting events. Now with the credit crunch continuing to grind away at the heart of the ruling Capitalist ideology I have the rare opportunity to put the Fireaxe theory to the test as well as fill in the details about how and why ideologies eventually die.

In this essay I will describe what I believe to be the life cycle of the ideology, the steps along which they progress from birth to death, and try to account for the variations that we see in the different belief systems. Much of this I've discussed previously in other newsletters, in Fireaxe music, and in the outline below, but here is my first cut at tying it all together and condensing it down to a more easy to understand framework.

Yes, even condensed it is a long essay, and it seems to only scratch the surface in a lot of places, but I think that it ties a lot of loose ends together and presents a large part of the Fireaxe theory in a concise and organized way.

What is an ideology?

In the Fireaxe theory, an ideology is a set of rules generally formulated about an abstract central concept, such as a god or a notion like "freedom", and which governs the behavior of its members. The rules comprise of laws, morals, ethics, and social norms which allow the members of the ideology to form systems of complex relationships between each other for the betterment of all. Ideologies form a symbiotic relationship with their members in which the members serve their ideology, making it stronger by contributing to it and helping it spread, and in exchange they receive material, psychological, and "spiritual" rewards. Successful ideologies are the ones which empower and motivate their believers to win more converts and deliver more wealth and power to the ideology. The strategies employed by different ideologies to gain power and influence vary widely but the end goal is the same for all: to survive and thrive.

Ideologies are thus a collection of individuals all acting in coordinated ways which further the interests of the whole and thus they can be compared to organic life forms which are collections of cells which act in concert to the benefit of creature. Extending this analogy allows the likening of competition between ideologies to the Darwinian struggle between organisms in nature and indeed the survival strategies for ideologies and organisms fall along similar lines: they both stake out territory, gather and consume vital resources, fight with each other, grow in number or size, and seek to spread to neighboring areas.

The analogy is not perfect since humans are able to switch ideologies or follow a blending of two or more ideologies while organisms remain much the same from birth to death. Also, ideologies can mutate much faster than life forms can evolve, which makes the ideological world a much more dynamic and potentially unstable place. Nonetheless, the analogy is strong enough to use in understanding and analyzing ideologies and their effects on human behavior as well as regarding them as entities which act in their own self interest. In this regard it is possible to describe the life cycle of ideologies, from birth to growth to mutation and death, as if they were living entities.

Birth

Ideologies are born when a member of an ideology become dissatisfied. Dissatisfaction starts when the symbiotic relationship between the believer and the ideology breaks down, which generally occurs when the ideology is not delivering enough rewards to the believer. These rewards can be of any type: material rewards such as wealth and power, psychological rewards such as recognition, appreciation, and indications that ones goals and dreams are slowly coming true, and "spiritual" rewards such as the promise of eternal life or the satisfaction that one has resisted temptation. Material rewards are the strongest form of reward and a shortage of them can quickly lead to anger and despair, such as when basics like food, shelter, or medical care cannot be easily obtained. Such shortages can be compensated for with psychological and "spiritual" rewards and it is common for people living in poverty or suffering from hardship to dream of winning the lottery, to proclaim their moral superiority over the "spoiled", the "greedy", and those who take life for granted, and to celebrate their certitude that their suffering in this life will guarantee deliverance to a glorious existence in the next, but such rewards do not always make up for material shortages, especially for those who are used to having more. And even with adequate material rewards, a shortage of psychological and "spiritual" rewards can drive a person to become dissatisfied with their ideology, and the promises and propaganda of rival ideologies can sow the seeds of doubt and discontentment as well, and if that dissatisfaction lasts long enough it can sever the bond between ideology and believer, often permanently.

Ideological dissatisfaction, which can also be called a "crisis of faith", creates an immediate problem for the individual since they can no longer receive many of their ideological rewards, especially those of a psychological and spiritual nature. Things such as praying, paying taxes, and giving to charities no longer give the individual the same feeling of satisfaction since the framework which made these acts of selflessness and humility meaningful has been brought into question. What use is it to pray to a god who doesn't seem to listen, or to send money to a government which will only spend it on wasteful projects? As doubts grow, the ideological conditioning in the mind becomes undone, usually over time, but sometimes it happens all at once, and the rewards which once satisfied the individual now leave him or her wanting.

This presents a serious problem since, according to the Fireaxe theory, ideologies imbue their believers with a permanent sense of inadequacy which can only be relieved when enough ideological rewards are received. When the ideological bond breaks down the deficit does not go away, and this tends to leave the individual feeling worthless, isolated, depressed, and in need of something to fill the void. It is not unusual to find people who have lost their faith in what they believed in indulging themselves in a number of material excesses, such as sex, drugs, alcohol, and other thing which make one feel better or at least less inadequate, but it is unusual to find people who can completely compensate for a loss of ideological rewards without embracing another ideology. Most people will fall into a state of confusion or depression and seek out something to replace what was lost, trying out this belief system or that belief system or even trying to work out a new path on their own. It is those who try to find a new way to offset their permanent sense of inadequacy who sometimes give birth to a completely new ideology.

The litmus test for any ideology is whether or not it satisfies the needs of the individual. It does not need to be based on truth to any degree, it merely needs to be plausible enough to make the feelings of inadequacy go away. For instance, if a Christian had a crisis of faith and stopped believing in a god, she would not be able to embrace the idea of a glorious afterlife in heaven to alleviate her fear of death. However, if she were to adopt a belief in technologically advanced aliens who communicated with her telepathically and told her that at the end of her life they would come and take her with them to their home planet where they would make her young again, that belief would fill the void left behind when she stopped believing in heaven. Also, this example shows how atheists can come to believe in a version of eternal life that doesn't involve a divine being or the need to worship one. Technology can substitute for divine fiat on a conceptual level, such as how some atheists embrace Cryogenics as a way to extend their life, or believe that some day robotics will be developed to a point where their consciousness can be transferred into a machine, and thus they too can alleviate their fear of death through the denial of their own mortality.

But a new ideology doesn't have to be simply a refurbished version of their old one with aliens standing in for angels, it can be very different indeed as long as it satisfies two requirements: one, that it must alleviate the believer's sense of inadequacy through some kind of reward system; and two, that it must solve the problems of the believer's former ideology which caused her to stop believing in it in the first place. Meeting these two requirements is not a simple task and can require a long period of trial and error before an adequate replacement ideology is found. Also, the second requirement implies that the new ideology will be in conflict with the old since it inherently suggests that the old ideology is false. Being in conflict with another ideology will make more demands of the believer and thus the believer will need more rewards to compensate, which can often be gained through winning arguments, achieving victories in political and social policy matters, or showing in some other way the superiority of the new ideology. But even if the believer stays in the closet to avoid conflict with members of the old ideology, the new ideology will still be more of a burden than the old since it is necessarily more complex. It must do everything that the old ideology did, plus it must solve the problems that the old ideology did not.

The basic principle is that ideologies necessarily get more complicated as time goes forward and as new ideologies replace the old ones. Ideologies are not simple things, they generally comprise a large number of ideas, rules, and explanations that can fill the pages of a thousand books or more. Primitive ideologies could contain all of their rules on stone tablets or in a single tome, but modern ideologies require volume after volume of laws and regulations which seemingly address every facet of human interaction. So how does a single person create a whole new ideology all by themselves? In short, they don't. Rewriting an entire ideology is more work than anyone can do and so in general a new ideology borrows a lot from the old out of convenience, but there will always be at least one central difference which separates it from the former ideology, something that will often be mostly conceptual in nature but around which the rest of the ideology can be formed. For instance, the notion that "all men are created equal", or that "self interest rightly understood" will naturally lead to a more perfect social order if it is left unregulated, can be used as a guide to remake the old ideology into the image of the new. Once the central concept has taken root, the rest of the ideology can be formulated around it, uprooting and replacing the borrowed parts of the old as necessary.

Armed with a new concept which forms the basis of a new ideology, the believer will change their way of thinking and acting in accordance with the new ideology and note any changes in their life, especially whether they are receiving, or seem more likely to receive, the rewards that they need. If the results are positive they will reinforce the belief in the new ideology, if not, the new ideology is likely to be discarded and another one tried out. Once they find a new approach that "works" for them, the individual will often seek to spread their discovery to others. At this point the new ideology has been born.

Growth

An ideology grows by spreading to other people which means that a successful ideology must do two things: one is that it must inspire its members to spread their beliefs to others; and two is that it must appeal to and work for a large variation of individuals. It is the second requirement which is the most difficult to achieve since people vary greatly in their life experiences, views, and needs. For instance, while alien and high technology based ideologies may have a strong appeal to sci-fi buffs, they are relatively inaccessible to those who have had little exposure to "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" style fiction or who find those subjects fanciful or too far fetched to be real. But a determined believer, one who is driven to find converts because his new ideology rewards him for doing so, can always find ways to repackage or alter his ideology to broaden its appeal. For instance, if someone was trying to spread a "Star Wars" type ideology and he found that having the movies set in a time long ago and in a galaxy far away made them seem too irrelevant and inconsequential to most people, especially compared to religions whose sacred ground you can visit without having to leave the earth, the believer might change the ideology to say that the story happened in our galaxy, and in the present, and that one day soon we will be swept up into the battle between the empire and the rebellion. All of the sudden the idea of investing time and energy into becoming a Jedi Knight, or at least the idea of developing any fledgling Jedi skills that you might have to the point that when a Jedi Master comes down to visit Earth that he will take you on as an apprentice, takes on a sense of both relevance and urgency. Yes, it doesn't square with what George Lucas wrote, but it's far more exciting, and who is to say that the movies are perfectly accurate? Maybe Lucas didn't have a high enough mida-chlorian count to channel the scripts for his movies accurately. Yes, an ideology can explain away anything and still be believed as long as it still "works" for believers, and if changes need to be made to win more converts that isn't a problem provided that the changes don't cause the ideology to lose more converts than it gains. Most ideologies go through many changes as they grow in order to gain a broader appeal, and although changes to the central ideals are more difficult to make, changes of any kind don't necessarily invalidate the ideology. If people still believe in it, then it is the "truth".

Thus, the way that an ideology spreads is very similar to the way that anything spreads through our culture and successful ideologies will usually take on characteristics that increase their ability to spread. This can result in the ideology being "dumbed down" for the masses, or injected with current cultural trends and notions, or merged with competing but similar ideologies. In this way the growth and mutation of an ideology is not unlike how a movie idea is developed in Hollywood or how a large project is undertaken in a corporation. To win the support of each new person the ideology usually has to be changed in some way to impress them, accommodate them, and meet their own particular needs (as well as stroke their egos). Each new convert makes their mark on the ideology and those changes get carried forward to the next person. But as the ideology grows it becomes more difficult to change things since those changes will invariably start to conflict with what others hold as core beliefs. If the ideology changes too much it may stop working for the original believers who may demand that no more changes be made to it and attempt to exert an autocratic control over the ideology, dictating what is part of it and what is not. This can work, but it can also arrest the growth of the ideology or splinter it into several factions. However, once an ideology gets beyond a certain size it will be beyond anyone's ability to control. This may seem bizarre or ironic, but it is not unheard of for the person who invented an ideology to disown the beliefs of those who changed it and popularized it. Even ideologies which hold up one person or a group of people as their supreme leaders are not completely beholden to their decisions, for leaders are only leaders if their followers follow. Simply put, once an ideology reaches a critical mass of believers, it takes on a life all its own.

As an ideology grows and slowly starts to replace the old ideology it must do more than merely provide psychological comfort for individuals, it needs to form complex systems of human interaction that empower it to an equal or greater degree than the old ideology. If it cannot achieve this, it will not be able to make much headway in changing the old ideology or winning converts and will probably end up as little more than a cult or an eccentric social movement, but if it does prove to make its members superior to the ruling ideology it may one day challenge that ideology for supremacy. For instance, if we take our "Star Wars" type ideology and assume that those who follow it become committed to some kind of "code of the Jedi" which stresses physical conditioning, mental discipline, and a strong sense of honor, followers who once spent their free hours playing video games and surfing the net would now be busy transforming themselves into more attractive, capable, and admirable people. Such changes would help them in achieving their life goals whether Darth Vader was real or not. Their ideology would then begin to attract followers based on the results it was achieving for its adherents rather than any connection to a popular series of movies, and casual supporters would start making adjustments to their behavior to accommodate the young movement. The ideology would be growing, gaining power and support, and changing things. But to really grow beyond the nerdish subculture the ideology would need to be expanded to be about more than just the possibility that one could become a real Jedi Knight and provide meaning, guidance, and ideological rewards for those from other walks of life so that they are motivated to contribute as well. If the ideology can accomplish that it doesn't matter how contrived or silly it is, the fact is that it works and that its influence on the world is both real and formidable. It would be a force to be reckoned with.

As an aside, one might point to the Fireaxe theory and state that it is my personal ideology: that it is my substitute for my former religious beliefs and that I'm trying to spread it to others. To that I would answer that the Fireaxe theory is a poor substitute for any religion or ideology since it runs directly counter to any and all notions of creating a utopia in this life or finding salvation in the next. Personally, I find my rewards in my incessant attempts to show that I'm an exceptional person, of which trying to formulate a theory which explains how the world works is one such attempt. It's something more to place into my little box of sunshine. And as far as spreading it to others is concerned, if that was my intention I would sex the theory up with some outrageous and controversial views, obscure many of the precepts with difficult and impenetrable language, give it lots of "feel good" hooks to allow believers embrace it and want to spread it around, and most importantly I would add a utopian vision of the world and the way that it would be if everyone were to understand my theories and put them into practice. Doing such things would prove my theories correct while simultaneously negating the premise on which they were founded, and while that would be an entertaining thing to witness I would find it repulsive to purposefully disillusion people. So for now I will stick with being boring, pessimistic, and essentially irrelevant.

Conflict

Unless the process of mutation an ideology undergoes as it is growing reduces its ability to motivate its members, it will inevitably come into conflict with the ruling ideology and with other competing ideologies. Each ideology is trying to make the population follow its own set of ideals and the rules they set out for their believers generally conflict in many areas and on many levels. Recall that implicit in the new ideology is the idea that the old ideology fails in some way and is therefore flawed. The new ideology was born to replace the old and succeed where it failed. But those in power, who are following the old ideology, will usually not see the flaws in their beliefs. After all, the system works for them: they receive their rewards in return for their service; but even if they do suspect that it isn't working as well as it should they have vested interests in keeping the old ideology going and will tend to defend the status quo. Powerful ideologies can usually crush weaker ones, usually by imposing hardships on the members of the new ideology so that their suffering outweighs any rewards they get from it, but the battle between ideologies all comes down to the level of dissatisfaction in the general population towards the ruling ideology for that is where the competing ideology gains its strength. If too many members of the old ideology are not satisfied with it and the new ideology appears able to correct the problems with the old, the conflict between the two will generally not be settled quickly or easily.

Ideological warfare is fought first and foremost on the battlefield of the mind. The goal of this warfare is for each ideology to convert the members of other ideologies into believers or to at least make them obey its rules. The fighting can take place on multiple levels and can involve anything from physical violence, propaganda, the threat of violence, imprisonment, and persecution, to less aggressive tactics such as political infighting, subtle persuasion, material rewards, and virtually any other method that can influence people towards an ideology and shift the balance of power. The intensity of the conflict is generally proportional to the level of disagreement between the ideals of the competing ideologies. All ideologies do not necessarily differ on a fundamental level, which would make them incompatible, and sometimes the differences between them may only be slight. If there are few and relatively minor differences between the ideologies the conflict may end up being resolved without too much fighting. And resolution does not necessarily mean the eradication of one ideology or the other. One side may simply concede in the areas where the two conflict or both may strike some compromise which preserves the character of both ideologies while allowing them to get along. The conflict and the resulting resolution may also end up changing either or both ideologies, essentially mutating them in minor or major ways, but even if an ideology makes concessions it doesn't necessarily force it to change any of its ideals or beliefs. Instead an ideology can always frame its concessions as being merely temporary setbacks on the road to reaching their ultimate goal and they can promise their believers that if they keep fighting and supporting the ideology that one day they will achieve the victory that has been denied them.

Intense ideological conflict occurs when two or more ideologies have fundamental differences which cannot be resolved in a more diplomatic way and force must be used to one degree or another. Conflicts of this magnitude are quite common between ideologies and all ideologies which aspire to rule must be prepared to fight for their survival, using violence if necessary. If an ideology cannot defend itself through force of arms, it will eventually fall to an aggressor which can. This is not to say that non-violent struggle cannot succeed against a violent foe. Martyrdom, for example, is often a powerful psychologically influential force and in the end the battlefield on which ideological conflicts are fought is in the mind. Martyrdom, and here I refer to non-retributive self-sacrifice rather than the suicide bomber variety, makes an appeal to the basic humanity of the martyr's foes, challenging them to kill an unarmed innocent, which usually violates many of the ideals of his foe's ideology. Many members of ideologies will see the contradiction and hypocrisy in defending their ideology by breaking its rules and thus refuse to do so. However, during such intense ideological conflicts, ideals are often set aside and a pragmatic view of the conflict takes hold. When an ideology is fighting for its survival, or at least when its members believe that they are being threatened with extinction, standing by one's ideals can be rationalized away and brutalizing the enemy can be seen as being necessary to serve the greater good. From this point of view a small part of the ideology is temporarily violated in order to preserve the whole. Thus, appeals to a foe's better nature, such as through martyrdom, are not necessarily effective. On the other hand, committed believers will often stand loyally by their ideological ideals out of principle, believing that the greater good is undone by the corruption of their beliefs and respect the martyrdom of a weaker foe, even when faced with annihilation. This may seem illogical on the surface, but if, for instance, an ideology has a belief in an afterlife and judgment, its members will often devoutly follow their ideology, even unto the death of both, since they believe that they and their ideology transcend reality and thus they will not desire for either to become corrupted.

Such commitment on the part of its believers is vital to the survival of the ideology. During ideological warfare, rewards may be few and far between as resources get consumed during the fighting and so believers must satisfy themselves with dreams of eventual victory and the promise of great rewards for themselves, their families, and their loved ones in the future or in another world. The stronger that an ideology has been conditioned into the thoughts and behaviors of the believer the more easily he can envision future glories and receive psychological and "spiritual" rewards and thus the more hardships he can endure for his ideology. Things which weaken this conditioning, such as witnessing the corruption of the ideology, need to be avoided since they can demotivate the believer and cause them to contribute less to the ideology or to forsake it completely. Also, ideologies which survive intense conflicts are the ones which are very good at conditioning their believers to resist the pressure of rival ideologies in whatever form it comes in: physical, intellectual, "spiritual", and anything else. War in any form is a brutal and frightening experience that most people want to avoid, but being able to endure more suffering than your foe helps you to win a conflict and thus ideologies benefit when they provide ample comfort to those who are making extreme sacrifices in its name. But to be effective, this conditioning can't occur only during wartime, and thus even when at peace a successful ideology will make sure that its members are immersed in propaganda, rituals, and simulated fighting in order to toughen them up for potential conflicts with rivals. Additionally, it helps an ideology to be in constant conflict in order to build up such preparedness in its believers, and being at war also provides an ideology with a justification for why its believers must make do with fewer rewards. After all, you can always blame the enemy for any and all shortages and promise that your followers will get plenty of rewards if they work hard to win the war. But such an approach doesn't work forever, and even the most hardened warrior will grow weary of sacrifice eventually.

There are ways other than total victory in which violent ideological conflicts can be resolved. One way is for one ideology to absorb the other, mutating in the process, or for both ideologies to be forced into an alliance against a third ideology. Alliances can eventually lead to a unification of principles between the two ideologies as they adopt what is best of the other and discard what is not. Another possible resolution of a serious conflict is for the rivals to continue to fight but with less aggression, essentially providing each other with a "boogeyman" rival to use to build up preparedness in its members and blame hardships upon. In this way low grade warfare becomes mutually beneficial to both ideologies and such a relationship can continue on for centuries. Rivals can unite when faced with a common foe and then go back to infighting once the threat has been rebuked. Thus, even though conflict consumes resources and often destroys the lives of its members, it can be more beneficial to an ideology than it is detrimental. Aggression is often a survival advantage for an ideology.

Corruption

Ideologies will inherently become corrupted due to the unrealistic promises that they must make to their believers in order to win their support. The fact that an ideology must make such promises is due to a number of reasons. First, the growth of an ideology is dependent on it being able to appeal to people who are already under the sway of a different ideology and to do so it must promise more than what the other ideologies promises to deliver. Second, modest goals will render an ideology impotent if and when it meets those goals since the believers will become satisfied with what they have achieved and will no longer be motivated to help the ideology to grow further. And lastly, unrealistic promises, if believed, will motivate believers far more than modest, realistic goals, and having highly motivated believers adds to the power of the ideology and gives it a survival advantage over others.

Of course, no ideology can deliver unrealistic promises, but they can all claim that they can at some point in the future, and as long as they deliver sufficient rewards in the meantime to keep the dream alive in the minds of their followers they can sustain their believers' commitment and support. This seems to ensure that eventually the unrealistic nature of the promises will become clear to all and the ideology will collapse, but this point can be delayed by bringing more converts into the ideology which adds to its wealth and power base and provides enough rewards to satisfy the members of it who have been working for it longer. This is essentially how a classic Pyramid Scheme works but with ideologies the rewards can be anything of ideological value instead of just wealth. Of course, the end result is the same no matter what is coveted, but until the inevitable collapse occurs the ideology will have a growing number of highly motivated and aggressive believers supporting it and thus will make it a formidable force in any ideological conflict. And though an ideology's long term survival may be doomed due to its need to attain the unattainable, its short term survival is made much more likely, and it will often be able to conquer and absorb many other ideologies before it meets its end, especially those which put long term survival ahead of short term gains. This dynamic forces similar behavior from other ideologies because when one ideology sacrifices the long term for the short term and becomes aggressive, other ideologies must follow suit in order to compete, while makes the future uncertain and the present unstable. A study of the behavior of ideologies in both recent and ancient history suggests that short term survival, that being measured in terms of decades rather than in centuries, at the expense of long term survival is more the norm than the exception.

Thus, ideologies have a need for constant growth in order to compete with other ideologies. This growth can be in any realm: the Capitalist pursues greater profits, the churches send missionaries to gather converts, the militarist seeks to conquer nations, the Socialist gathers more workers to unite against the elites, etc. The form of growth which satisfies the believers is dependent on the ideals of the ideology. The ideology also convinces its believers that by achieving their own personal rewards, the rest of the world will benefit as well, and successful ideologies present their members with a utopian view of the world that would be brought about if everyone were to follow its edicts. For example, the belief that Capitalism will pull the world out of poverty and make the most efficient use of all resources possible is one such promise, and the belief that if the world is converted to one religion that its messiah will return is another popular one. The trouble is that there are physical limits on the growth of an ideology, imposed either by other ideologies competing for the same resources or by the lack of infinite resources in the world, and so at some point the supply of rewards for the believers will begin to run dry.

Corruption begins when there are not enough rewards to go around for all of the believers who need them. At this point dissatisfaction will set in among those believers who go without, but ideologies will often resort to spreading false hopes, half-truths, and using outright lies to keep their members believing that a great reward is not far off in the future and that they need to keep working hard in order to obtain it. In Christianity this can be done by proclaiming that every natural disaster, war, famine, or other major catastrophe is a sign that the end times are near and that Jesus will be coming soon, probably within the lifetime of the believer. In Capitalism this can be done by either increasing the money supply so that everyone can have more paper money (even though doing so makes each dollar worth less) or by convincing everyone that their long term investments will be worth even more than they expected when it comes time to cash out. With any ideology it works the same: the thing that the ideology holds most sacred, and which in the minds of its believers has been established as being a source of undeniable value and reliability after years if not decades of reinforcement, becomes bastardized and corrupted in order to make it seem as though the ideology is still growing. And while this corruption might appear to be a conspiracy led by a number of scheming individuals, it is more likely the case that those responsible are blinded by their own ideology or swept up in their own hubris and are either unaware that they are undermining their own faith or convinced that their actions are temporary measures which are necessary to support the ideology until better times arrive. In a world of ideological competition and conflict, the illusion is necessary for survival since appearing weak can demotivate the struggling ideology's believers as well as invite rival ideologies to attack. For a while these illusionary rewards work as well as the real ones and the ideology remains strong, but in time they too will fail to satisfy, and eventually the members of the ideology will become tired of all the sacrifice and begin demanding the real rewards that they feel that they have earned.

At this point force is often needed to keep the dissatisfied in line. Those with the most power and influence will use their power to continue to get their share of the rewards, or more than their share, in whatever way is necessary, and as long as they are receiving adequate rewards they will hold true to the belief that their ideology is working. It works for them after all. This reinforcement will skew their perception of the world and they will often see those who complain about their lack of rewards as suffering from some moral failing rather than seeing the ideology as being impotent. They will hold that the dissatisfied people simply need to be more devout and follow the rules of the ideology with more fervor, and that if they do so that they will be able to get their rewards too. Such rationalizations permit the powerful to turn a blind eye to the suffering of the less powerful, and to justify using force against them if necessary. It's for their own good after all. Such neglect and poor treatment of the dissatisfied serves to incubate new ideologies which will oppose the ruling ideology. In turn the emergence of conflicting ideologies will justify the use of more force by the ruling ideology. This can become a vicious circle and end up spreading deprivation and dissatisfaction to all members of the ideology. When the corruption gets past a certain point the game is over. The ideology cannot provide sufficient rewards and it can no longer stand as it was.

Mutation

Ideologies that collapse due to either losing an ideological conflict or falling victim to corruption, or which stagnate and lose ground to rival ideologies, often go through a period of inner conflict and turmoil before emerging in a mutated form. Mutation follows the principles outlined in the previous sections: that dissatisfaction gives birth to new ideologies which are similar to the original but with the problems which caused it to collapse possibly corrected, that these new ideologies will themselves mutate and grow within the collapsed ideology if they appeal to a broad range of supporters, that conflicts will develop between the inner divisions of the old ideology, and that those conflicts and their resolutions can follow one of many possible courses. There also exists the possibility that the mutating ideology adopts ideas from rival and other ideologies, especially successful ones, to replace the failed ideas within. However, during mutation, the ideology seldom changes its central ideals and tends to remain true to all or most of what gives the ideology its particular character. If collapse ends up changing the ideology's central ideals, it is probably more accurate to state that the old ideology has died and that a new one has taken its place.

Ideological mutation differs from biological mutation due to the flexibility of the human mind and its ability to switch ideas rapidly. Whereas biological mutation requires many generations of small changes to create a creature distinctly different from the original, ideologies can be formed within the time span of a single generation. If you think about an ideology, with its ideas and rules of behavior, as a strand of DNA, each part of the strand is a separate idea which is integrated into the larger whole. Making changes to an ideology is as simple and fluid as individual humans adopting new ideas and rules of behavior and discarding the old ones. As these ideas propagate through the believers of that ideology, which can happen quickly, the whole ideology mutates into a new form.

Just as with evolution the process isn't without occasional missteps, and natural selection is very much a powerful force in determining which ideas remain in the ideology and which ones do not. Sometimes seemingly good ideas, when put into practice, produce poor results and must be discarded, but because of the flexibility of the human mind, ideologies can rapidly converge upon workable collections of ideas and rules. But while the human mind is very flexible, ideologies may be less so, and some ideologies are more flexible than others when it comes to tolerating new ideas. Both flexibility and rigidity have their strengths and weaknesses since new ideas can be either good or bad for an ideology. Rigidity has the advantage of staying with something that is tried and true, but in a world of ever-changing rival ideologies, what is tried and true today may not be as effective tomorrow. Too much rigidity will inevitably lead to an ideology becoming inferior. Flexibility has the advantage of allowing an ideology to find better solutions to problems which help it to grow and compete, but all change is not necessarily good, even if it appears to be so at first since the full impact of an ideological change may not register for years or decades. Too much flexibility will inevitably result in an ideology making too great of a commitment towards a strategy that will fail, possibly catastrophically, in the future.

The principle of natural selection, applied to ideologies, is the driving force in determining which mutations "work" and which ones do not. Contrary to the opinions of believers, an ideology does not "work" because it is the truth, it works because the behaviors that it enforces upon its believers place the ideology at a survival advantage against other ideologies. While the truth, defined as being something that can be empirically demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt, can be an effective weapon in ideological conflict since ideologies which can embrace a truth which reveals a rival as being flawed are at a distinct advantage in a propaganda war, all ideologies must hold as a central ideal a set of unreasonable promises that they can use to motivate their believers to a greater degree than their foes. These unreasonable promises run counter to the truth, and thus all ideologies are flawed at their core, but these flaws are a necessary requirement for the survival of an ideology. These flaws allow the ideology to "work", at least in the short term, by promising its believers spectacular rewards which motivate them to work as hard or harder than their rivals. And thus a critical requirement for an ideology is that it must be able to convince its believers that its promises are not unreasonable and that they will come true.

Death

The death of an ideology occurs when either everyone who believes in it is dead or when it mutates to such a degree that it no longer follows its central ideals. In the latter case, the ideology may still bear the original name and carry with it many of the same ideas and rules as its predecessor, but if the central ideals have changed it is probably easier to conceptualize what has occurred by stating that the original ideology is dead and by giving the new one a different name.

An ideology will fall out of favor when it no longer "works", causing believers to try to alter it or abandon it altogether. This can be due to the ideology becoming too corrupt, by it losing a conflict with a rival, or by it remaining stagnant for too long and thus ending up inferior to other ideologies. All three cases will generate dissatisfaction among its believers and result in mutation, but to change the central ideals of an ideology the amount of dissatisfaction must be very great. Such deep changes don't come easily and inner conflict is usually the result with those who benefited the most from the original ideals and rules lining up behind the ideology and those who benefited the least demanding major changes. This inner conflict is generally fought between groups which can be called the Orthodoxy and the Reformers. The Orthodoxy are those who cling to the original ideals of the ideology and the Reformers are the ones who want change. In the beginning the Orthodoxy is in charge, but as the conflict rages the group which is more or less in control can change back and forth many times before victory for one side results. If the Reformers are victorious, or threaten to tear the entire ideology apart, the changes that result can be deep enough to essentially kill the old ideology, or move it far enough away from its original central beliefs that it is something completely new. If the changes are not so deep the ideology can stay reasonably true to its original nature, but if a number of such changes are forced upon an ideology over time then it is inevitable that it will move beyond its original central ideals. At such a point its distant predecessor can be declared dead even though some of its ideals are still in practice. An example of this is the polytheistic religion of ancient Greece. Although the Greek gods are no longer worshipped and their rituals are no longer performed, the impact of Greek philosophers on virtually every ideology today is significant and often profound. Their gods may be dead, but their influence is alive and well.

Ideologies can die a more violent death as the result of war where one ideology conquers the other, but it is not necessary to exterminate the remaining population to kill the ideology though, usually a catastrophic defeat is enough to convince its believers that their ideology is flawed and they will be open to accepting a new one or at least to accepting major changes to the old. In such a case the conquering ideology needs to swiftly replace the system of rewards which the former ideology bestowed on its followers with an equivalently satisfying system of its own. A conquered people are a very dissatisfied people, having lost their former rewards systems, and a conqueror risks giving birth to new ideologies which are opposed to it if it does not address the needs of the conquered. Such new ideologies can be very difficult to eradicate since their followers will see themselves as having nothing to lose and everything to gain by fighting and will be highly motivated to restore what had been taken from them. But if the conqueror is successful at getting its ideology working among the conquered people, is generous in handing out rewards, and is careful about abusing its new members and thus giving motivation to the resistance, the conquered people will work hard in support of the conquering ideology. If all goes well the conquered people will follow an ideology similar to the conqueror, but with elements very similar to how it was before mixed in, like a hybrid ideology, and the conqueror will be itself rewarded with a loyal and prosperous ally. The death of one ideology is often followed by the birth of another. And so the cycle continues.