Which is more important to the chain of events of history: selfish interests or ideology?
I used to think that selfish interests, like the desire for more resources, greed and money, would be the leading cause for revolutions, wars and the like.
Now however it has become clear to me that in fact, ideologies play a much bigger role. Most of the times, man will fight to defend what he believes in rather than to fight for his material desires.
Which is more important in history: ideology, or interest?
Discuss.
Nah fampai, it's all material at its core.
What makes you think otherwise?
>>796379
It's all class struggle, really.
>Which is more important to the chain of events of history: selfish interests or ideology?'
>Muh 'history as revolutionary movement and nothing else' meme
>>796379
If they could choose, America's ruling class would drop its ideology the moment it knew that it would lose its wealth and couldn't stop it from happening.
>>796401
>Nothing has ever changed in history everything was nice and peaceful
>>796379
The elites are driven by interest and they convince the common people into believing their ideology
This is true for the right and the left
>>796405
I don't know where you got that from.
>>796379
It seems they both go hand in hand
>>796432
Usually they do, sometimes they don't.
>>796386
italian, german unification
any of the french-german wars
relations between korea, japan and china to this day
USSR
american and french revolutions
the crusades
etc
>>796423
The fact that it was denied that history is synonymous with revolutionary movement when it very clearly is.
>>796450
Why do you believe that, though? I don't think that's a universally accepted definition of 'history.' I don't think j it's the goal of the disciple to catalogue revolutionary events and only revolutionary events.
>>796439
>italian, german unification
German unification was literally the most pragmatic thing ever. It's entire motive was to increase the power of the Prussian monarchy.
>any of the french-german wars
A-H had been chomping at the bit to snap up some Serbian territory forever. The Archduke's assassination was a nice excuse.
>USSR
The Revolution was caused because material conditions fucking sucked.
>american and french revolutions
See above. Though for America it was less that they 'fucking sucked', than that economic interests seemed threatened.
>the crusades
The Byzantines were threatened by Muslim expansionism.
Nobody has ever fought a war solely because of ideological or moral convictions.
>>796438
People dont seem to go along with ideologies unless it somehow benefits thir self interest,
>ideology or interest
Ideology dictates interest.
Take nazi germany for example.
They wanted "lebensraum", aka to expand and bring more lands to the empire. Another government with a different ideology would probably not have the same interests.
A mere interest by itself isn't enough to push people to war. Do you think that the nazis would be as effective in exterminating the jews and invading Russia if they truly didn't believe in their cause?
>>796393
>muh class struggle
back to /leftypol/
>>796463
So all wars are fought out of self-interest on every side?
If wars were indeed fought of interest alone, there wouldn't be any wars to start with, since the elite of all arround the world can easily realize that they're better off together.
>>796438
Name 10 times they didn't.
>>796463
>The Crusades
>Self-interest
Because the lords getting bankrupted, killed in bumfuck nowhere, lost lots of his men, away from his own realm, etc., means that they did all of it for material purposes, right?
>>799207
It was a pretty good way to boost your prestige.
>>796379
>implying ideologies, even when they are created by sincere thinkers, are not used as tools to rally people and justify selfish interests
Remember the way Saddam Hussein started using religious references during the Iran / Iraq war, even though he was a Baa'th (Arab nationalist / socialist) leader in the beginning
