How Ideologies Act
June 23, 2025
Summary: An interactive map of human conceptual systems’ domain of action (material -> immaterial) in relationship to its key strategies (prescriptive -> descriptive).
Discussion
The dominant ideologies of our culture have no fixed embodiment. They exist as a distribution of related ideas spread throughout the population.
If we want to know how any nominal idea–science for example–acts on a group we need to look at the actual distribution of beliefs they hold and how they implement them.
This activity’s Frame of Reference Map is a simple demonstration of the idea. Pariticipants pick ideologies to map at the following intersection (image), and share their personal relationship with how they believe those ideas act on the collective.
Maps of culture are like maps of a landscape in that they allow us to preview the terrain and plan the most fortuitous route. I’ve envisioning a conversation tool that makes this planning (for a journey of cultural transformation) a mutually beneficial exploration instead of an adverserial one.
Maps created through open mutual process can better hold the open and collaborative aspects of ideas. Living, adaptive maps can be continually refined to represent the fluid edges of an idea where they are adapting in response to change. Together I see the potential to generate new, higher fidelity concepts and thus build more dynamic relationships.