Purpose

I'm trying to do my bit. I really am, that's supposed to be what this blog's all about*: despite my desire consume as much as possible, despite that desire being fed and encouraged by virtually every aspect of the world in which I live, I want to do the right thing; I want to be a good citizen of the world. Yeah, sure, you know all this, and I'm always agonising over the best way to do this, going on and on like a stuck record. But hey at least I'm consistent in striving for my goal. Except recently I've been thinking a bit more about what that goal should be.
Obviously on a personal level it should be to have as little negative impact on the world as possible, but how we measure negative impact is not always clear. Of course I should be guided in this by ideologues and policymakers, but both appear a little thin on the ground. There are no end of idiots like me all too keen to point out what's wrong, and no end of politicians willing to arrive at policies via the path of least resistance. However, there is virtually no one who says "this is the world we should strive for and here's how". I understand the second part of that statement is the sticking point, but we shouldn't shy away from it because it's difficult. Maybe if we understand why it's difficult, we might be able think more about how we address it.
Firstly, and most simply, the world is an incredibly complex place and therefore even attempting to tackle its issues is a daunting task for any one person. There are theories that the level of complexity of many of the systems that govern our lives is now such that it is not possible for the human mind to comprehend in its entirety. This is a fundamental problem, as it means we are reliant upon simplified models for our understanding of the problems we face.
An appendage of this issue is the sheer volume of data available to us. We're overwhelmed by data, including many contradictory 'facts' generated by one stripe of vested interest or another. It would take a lifetime to sift though even one subject: requiring us to rely further on the summaries of experts.
All of these are mitigating factors, excuses for the budding policymaker should their policies turn out to have been based on unsound logic. Unfortunately, we can't fall back on excuses anymore, as we don't have massive room for error when it comes to many of the problems the world currently faces.
So our policymakers and ideologues face an uphill struggle even in gaining all of the information that they require to take a position on anything, and there will always have to be a degree of faith behind whatever position they take. However, having gathered all the relevant information or beliefs, they must then decide on a future vision, a reason, a goal for their particular ideology. This sounds ridiculous: of course they'll know what the goal of their ideology is, it's their ideology, it's what they believe is right. Except for all the reasons detailed above, it's not that simple. Many of the traditional ideologies from which we might want to form our own are self-conflicting.
If we take Socialism for example. A traditional socialist viewpoint would be that in order to ease the burden on workers and small businesses, fuel prices should be subsidised. However, this policy would have the supplemental effect of maintaining fuel consumption, leading to increased global warming and ultimately an increased cost in many goods and services, with the associated detrimental effect that will have on quality of life for the people the policy was originally supposed to help. It is perhaps not the best example, but it illustrates the problem with traditional ideologies, or at least traditional short-termist applications of such ideologies. The problem is that democracy works on a short-term basis, with absolutely no incentive for genuine investment in the future. In such a climate, vested interests take over and push policy in any number of directions. The traditional points of the political spectrum are merely measures of which set of vested interests one associates with.
I was discussing some of these thoughts with a friend recently, when he said that the current health and education reforms could not be anything other than ideological. But I would argue that even these are simply the representation of a vested interest: pure capital, a market obsessed that everything should have the potential to turn profit. This is not an ideology, it is simply a manifestation of short-termist greed.
Reading back over what I've written, I see that what I'm saying could be construed as an assertion that being accountable to a constituency is a bad idea, indeed so is the rest of democracy, but this is not my point. Democracy should be an exchange between a politician and their constituency. People can only form an opinion based on the information they are presented, and if that information is merely the reflection of self-interest, then people get no real options, they get nothing to aspire to ideologically, they get no inspiration; they can only reflect self-interest back. In contemporary society, democracy can easily tend towards this lowest common denominator. It should be the job of our politicians and ideologues to make sure that it doesn't. Of course the rest of us could help by being a bit less short-termist in our outlook, or greedy in our expectations.

* that and photos of bad footwear.