Great idea. Please prepare an opening statement that offers usable definitions of "ideology" and "danger." Of course one person's danger is another's salvation. Just kidding about the opening statement. -- actually not kidding. IRC is such a zoo of public and private conversations that nothing ever gets seriously said, but ideology is a topic worth understanding. How can we live without an ideology of some sort -- or is "ideology" much more than just a set of guiding principals? “Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them."
Vaclav HavelThe danger of political zealotry was recognized by William
Graham Sumner in 1934, a few years after Hitler published Mein
Kampf. Sumner said, “If you want war, nourish a doctrine. Doctrines
are the most frightful tyrants to which men are ever subject,
because doctrines get inside of a man’s own reason and
betray him against himself.”