Hannah Arendt quote: “The third world is not a reality, but an ideology.”

“As soon as you look at the world through an ideology you are finished. No reality fits an ideology. Life is beyond that.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

"Assorted Landmines", p. 148
Awareness (1992)
Context: As soon as you look at the world through an ideology you are finished. No reality fits an ideology. Life is beyond that. That is why people are always searching for a meaning to life. But life has no meaning; it cannot have meaning because meaning is a formula; meaning is something that makes sense to the mind. Every time you make sense out of reality, you bump into something that destroys the sense you made. Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning. Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind.

“Psychoanalysis justifies its importance by asserting that it forces you to look to and accept reality. But what sort of reality? A reality conditioned by the materialistic and scientific ideology of psychoanalysis, that is, a historical product…”

Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer and philosopher

Journal entry (7 October 1965) as published in No Souvenirs (1977) later retitled Journal II, 1957-1969 (1989), p. 269.

“[T]hose who haven’t yet grasped the ideological realities of the [Korean] peninsula probably never will.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Portrait of the Ally as an Intermediary (March 2018)

“Reality and dream simultaneously, and myself makes a third in the party, completely at home here. This will be fine.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Diary-note, 7 April 1914; as quoted by June Taboroff, on 'AramcoWorld', May, June 1991 http://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/199103/travels.in.tunisia.htm
1911 - 1914, Diary-notes from Tunisia' (1914)

“Ultra-nationalism is an appealing ideology; the Third Reich fought to the end, even sending their children into battle... We should not underestimate its appeal.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Interview with Yonhap (August 2011)

“In the more sophisticated versions of the critics of ideology - that developed by the Frankfurt School, for example - it is not just a question of seeing things (that is, social reality) as they 'really are," of throwing away the distorting spectacles of ideology; the main point is to see how the reality itself cannot reproduce itself without this so-called ideological mystification. The mask is not simply hiding the real state of things; the ideological distortion is written into its very essence… the moment we see it 'as it really is,' this being dissolves itself into nothingness or, more precisely, it changes into another kind of reality. That is why we must avoid simple metaphors of demasking, of throwing away the veils which are supposed to hide the naked reality.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

24-25
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

“The fact that political ideologies are tangible realities is not a proof of their vitally necessary character. The bubonic plague was an extraordinarily powerful social reality, but no one would have regarded it as vitally necessary.”

Wilhelm Reich book The Mass Psychology of Fascism

Section 3 : Work Democracy versus Politics. The Natural Social Forces for the Mastery of the Emotional Plague;
Variant translation: The fact that political ideologies are tangible, active realities does not prove their necessity. The bubonic plague was an extremely potent social reality. But nobody would have argued that, because it existed, it was necessary and nothing should be done about it.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), Ch. 10 : Work Democracy

“Islam looks like a religion but in reality it is a dangerous totalitarian ideology which wants to bring the whole world under Shariah law. Islam means submission … It's either submit or die and I suggest that we will do neither of them.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

"Geert Wilders: I Won’t Stop Warning the West About Islam" by Matthew Vadum, FrontPage Magazine (5 May 2015) http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/matthew-vadum/geert-wilders-i-wont-stop-warning-the-west-about-islam/
2010s

“By definition, the conventional wisdom of the day is widely accepted, continually reiterated and regarded not as ideology but as reality itself. Rebelling against "reality," even when its limitations are clearly perceived, is always difficult.”

Ellen Willis (1941–2006) writer, activist

"We Need a Radical Left," The Nation (29 June 1998)
Context: By definition, the conventional wisdom of the day is widely accepted, continually reiterated and regarded not as ideology but as reality itself. Rebelling against "reality," even when its limitations are clearly perceived, is always difficult. It means deciding things can be different and ought to be different; that your own perceptions are right and the experts and authorities wrong; that your discontent is legitimate and not merely evidence of selfishness, failure or refusal to grow up. Recognizing that "reality" is not inevitable makes it more painful; subversive thoughts provoke the urge to subversive action. But such action has consequences — rebels risk losing their jobs, failing in school, incurring the wrath of parents and spouses, suffering social ostracism. Often vociferous conservatism is sheer defensiveness: People are afraid to be suckers, to get their hopes up, to rethink their hard-won adjustments, to be branded bad or crazy.

“Islam is the most antisemitic, genocidal ideology in the world.”

Pamela Geller (1958) blogger, author, political activist, and commentator

NY Times Con Job: "DAISY KHAN had never seen so many Jews in her life." pamelageller.com http://pamelageller.com/2010/11/new-york-times-con-job-daisy-khan-had-never-seen-so-many-jews-in-her-life.html/ (14 November 2010)

“The third world is not a reality, but an ideology.”

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