Ideology III: Legibility
12th November 2020
Severian continues his analysis.
People who look like us, and act like us, but are not us — that’s one of the most basic fears of any society with sufficient caloric surplus to take a day off.
Ideology, then, is a caste marker. In the absence of (unenforceable, even in the Middle Ages) sumputary laws, there has to be a different, reliable way to distinguish insiders from outsiders. Hence the Leftist mania for ID badges of all kinds (except when voting, of course), rituals, public performances of all kinds. How can you tell who really loves Dear Leader, without making everyone proclaim five (or ten, or fifty) hosannas a day to him?