Ideology...

is Theft. Selections from Howard Bloom's 'The Lucifer Principle'. Pure brilliance:

pg. 171 - Humans rally around ideas because they solve some of our problems, because they offer the biological blessings of the illusion of control, and because they are the threads that hold us together in the vast network of a superorganismic mind, weaving scattered individuals into a cooperative beast of awesome power and size.

pg 178 - Humans grab at ideas because ideas knit them together in groups of folks who agree with them. They provide the comfort of companionship and mutual aid. That's one way memes [a cluster of ideas] seduce humans into their power.

pg. 182 - Superorganisms [like the amoeba] are hungry creatures, attempting to break down the boundaries of their competitors, chew off chunks of their opponents' substance and digest and redistribute it as part of themselves. Human conglomerations have an advantage over those of other species, for in their voracity they are driven by two henchmen: the meme and the animal brain.

Egged on by its co-conspirators, the ravenous voice of a superorganism calls out to charismatic men and women. Disguised as revelation or inspiration, it has spoken to humans as diverse as Mohammed, St. Paul, Moses, Hitler, Joan of Arc, Mahatma Gandhi, Saddam Hussein, Lenin and the Ayatollah Khomeini. Its message varies. But under the many disguises is one imperative: gather a group together and awaken them with my words. Take all those who find themselves in the condition which I describe and weld them into a mighty force which will impose its dominion on a large swatch of the world.

pg. 183 - Hans Morgenthau, the political theorist, has said that men don't willingly accept the truth about human nature, and especially about political nature. The aim of politics, Morgenthau says, is not to make people better or to alleviate their misery. It is to increase the power of one man or group of men against the power of another man or group of men. Morgenthau says our enemies are never as bad as we make them out to be, and we are never as good as we think. We're convinced we're moral. And we know damn well that our enemy is only out for power and resources, but has no morals at all. Yet we, too, are out for power and resources. And our enemy, like us, has a moral sense. He uses that moral sense just as we do, says Morgenthau, to narrow the aperture of his consciousness and ignore his lust for power.

pg. 184 - Ideas do more than merely bond a group together. They justify that group's expansion. Like the hungry amoeba, the superorganism is anxious to grow. It is anxious to feast on the flesh of its neighbors. Ideas dress the act of cannibalism in the garb of rectitude.