Voegelin on Ideology and Jihadism

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You're going to see more from me on Voegelin and ideology in the next couple of days, in relation to a contemporary issue, but in the meantime, enjoy this. A sample:

"It seemed characteristic of ideological system-builders to want absolute certainty about the world and to try to achieve that certainty through airtight, simple, and yet supposedly all-explanatory systems of ideas.[2] Voegelin found it helpful to understand these systems in terms of “second realities.” The “Second Reality” (Voegelin borrowed the term from Heimito von Doderer) is the dream world reality created by the ideological system-builder, in which he and those who embrace the system live as if it were the actual world (the First Reality)."

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