The distillation of the world into its essential characteristics, and its reconstruction through their combination.
Each and every single one of us wanders through our lives, taking in the richness of the world in all its experiences, all its perceptions. As we go, we make sense of it in part by collapsing it, teasing out of the whole the patterns and rhythms that make up its very roots. The entirety, in all its glorious complexity, is reduced and refined to simple rules and theories. I like to think of the process as a sort of "distillation", since it turns a great mixture into its purified essences through the process of subtraction. The whole is constrained and confined; aspects are separated and drawn off; messy impurities are selectively filtered out; distracting noise is cancelled and removed. The result is an idea: a single insight through which so much of the whole makes sense.
From these basic ideas, ideologies are formed through selective mixing and re-combination, as ideas that have great chemistry with each other are carefully put together to yield a clear and cohesive image of the whole. The end result resembles that from which it originated, but with a conciseness that makes it easier to grasp, easier to understand and to talk about, and ultimately easier to work with.
In this perspective, each and every single one of us is an alchemist. We all are constantly going through the process of breaking down the world into its essences, and using these essences to better understand the whole. While everyone wanders through the same world, everyone wanders on their own path, and for this reason, the result of my distillation may be very different from yours. Some of the more common experiences yield more common ideologies [1], whereas uncommon experiences yield uncommon ideologies [2].
[1]For example, utilitarianism is a very common ideology, because its constituent experiences (pleasure and pain) are very common experiences.
Definition Utilitarianism (noun):
The belief that emotions that feel good (like pleasure, joy, and excitement) are good, and that emotions that feel bad (like sadness, pain, and suffering) are bad.
[2]In contrast, solipsism is a very uncommon ideology, because its constituent experience (disconnect from all others) is a very uncommon experience.
Definition Solipsism (noun):
The belief that you are the only truly conscious being in the universe and that all other subjects are figments of your consciousness.
In the alchemical perspective of ideology, ideological essences are understood to not exist to the exclusion of each other. Instead, they are more like Pokémon: the master alchemist is the one who has collected them all. All ideas start from the same unified whole; what separates them is not their origin, but the process through which the whole was selectively filtered and discarded to arrive at the end result. Each procedure yields its own end, and while not all essences are equally pure and useful, the existence of one procedure by no means eliminates the existence of other procedures.
One way to becoming a master alchemist is to have as many experiences as possible. Those who have traveled and traveled widely tend to have more well-rounded collections of ideas.
Another way to become a master alchemist is to try as many combinations as possible. Those who have spent a long time reflecting on what they know, and who have followed all their ideas to their logical conclusions tend to have more intricate and accurate ideologies.
In any case, an aspiring master alchemist never tries to close themselves off to new ideas, never ceases to open their eyes and ears to new perceptions, and is always willing to consider new procedures and combinations.
In the alchemical perspective, ideological diversity is a sort of bizarre bazaar, a place where recipes and experiences are shared. It is truly the most worderous of marketplaces, the market to end all markets:
The air reverberates with every chirp and twitter, all hoots and howls, and all manner of chanting and singing.
The light shines down on all the colors of the rainbow, patterns of the most mesmerizing and ecstatic variety draping over every surface.
Here the tongue can taste all varieties of spices, both near and far, and the nose delights to the smell of every aroma, is tickled by every perfume, and is assaulted by every pepper.
Note that an alchemist's collection is a personal collection. What essences I have gained are not the same essences that you have gained, whatever their (perhaps striking) similarities. For this reason, essences in themselves cannot be directly traded or shared. Instead, the medium of the bizarre is the spoken and written word, where alchemists from every corner tell of what sights they've seen and what noises they've heard. The share the logic that forms the basis of their recipes of distillation, the steps that they've taken to arrive at the understandings they now carry with them.
Ideological diversity is best captured in the alchemical perspective by the bizarre bazaar: diversity is created by the sharing of knowledge, by giving and receiving, by exchange of story without exchange of coin.
Like real-life alchemy, ideology in the alchemical perspective is preposessed by symbols of transformation, the magic rituals by which ideas are arrived at, and by which ideas are combined into wholes much greater than the sum of their essential parts. The power of ideologies lies all in how they're put together, what consequential insights they provide, what courses of action they recommend. New knowledge takes the mundane, and renders it extraordinary.
Like real-life alchemy, ideology is concerned not with outer transformations, but with inner transformations. The goal isn't to turn a block of lead into a block of gold, but to turn a leadened mind into a golden one. The essences live within the alchemist, and when combined, it is the alchemist which is transformed by the process.
Transformations can be tremendous and awe-inspiring. Some alchemists emerge from their new creations as if changed people. But alchemy is not without its risks; not all transformations leave the alchemist a greater person: some recipes result in great explosions. That said, the chemistry of the interaction of ideas is personal to the alchemist who performs them. What for one person may be a debilitating explosion may, for another, be resolutely contained within the thin walls of a glass vial. A part of becoming a master alchemist is to understand the transformation as it unfolds, and to not be overcome by it.