The Truth
I will examine the topic of ideology through its paradigm [1], The Truth, and the metaphor of the mirror. The Truth is the paradigm for ideology because it is the perfect ideology, the only one that is perfectly consistent and complete. If The Truth were a mirror, it would have no flaws, cracks, or holes.
[1]I'm using the word 'paradigm' in its original sense, something akin to "the canonical example"
The Truth, however, is inaccessible to us imperfect beings. Our understanding of The Truth is comparable to a collection of mirrored shards. Our understanding is incomplete, it has flaws and holes, and when reality is reflected in our mirrors, it is flawed and incomplete because of that. The Truth is the only ideology, the only mirror, in which reality can be seen for exactly what it is.
Human ideologies are partially composed mirrors, assembled from fragments of The Truth. Though they can be large or small, and more or less flawed, we typically only reserve the term 'ideology' for the compositions that are relatively large, and relatively consistent [2].
[2]Relative when compared to each other, or to our own mirror. It can be very difficult to compare any two ideologies for their inconsistencies, because they each have an incomplete and fragmented view of the other. Only The Truth can show the full extent of an ideology, and we do not have access to The Truth.
Any ideology worth its salt pretends to be The Truth, because that is the highest ideology there exists. If this pretense is genuine and unfeigned, it is because the pretender is ignorant to the flaws and holes in the ideology. If the pretense is self-aware and forced, it is because the pretender wishes to ignore the flaws and holes in the ideology.
Ideologies naturally oppose being confronted with their own flaws. As mirrors, they get uncomfortable when presented with a reflection of their cracks and holes. For this reason, all human ideologies oppose The Truth: in its wholeness all flaws are revealed.
Likewise, ideologies clash with their competitors, other mirrors that shed different perspectives on the same reality. An ideology is totalitarian if it forbids the existence of its competitors, if it is not sufficient to spread its shattered pieces among the people, but will break the glass of anything that reveals its limitations.
When a person lives within the limitations imposed by an ideology, they become a slave to that ideology. The most perfect slavery is slavery to The Truth, because that is the ideology without limits. When reality is reflected in a person embodying The Truth, that person, like an image in a mirror, moves in perfect complement to reality. They are as surely enslaved to reality by means of The Truth as an image in a mirror is to that which it reflects.
Friction and suffering are the result of passing over flaws and holes in an ideology. When reality is reflected across the cracks, the resulting image that is expressed by the person enslaved to that ideology is similarly fragmented. Their actions become mis-matched to reality as reflected by The Truth, and so causes the person suffering, or leads to their causing suffering. Because The Truth has no flaws and no cracks, enslavement to It leads to no suffering. This is another reason why it is the most perfect slavery.
When we are borne into reality, our being is illuminated by the light of God as reflected in the knowledge of The Truth. When we first open our senses, that image is shattered into a cloud of kaleidescopic colored glass shards. Our eternal search for The Truth is nothing more than the deepest desire to assemble those pieces again, so that we may once more look at ourselves as exactly who we are: flawless and perfect.