Politics is a complex and controversial subject that deals with systems of governance and the power relations that emerge as decisions are made for large groups of people, so it understandably creates much strife with constant battles over power and public policy.

With the rapid politicization of the internet, there may be underage individuals reading this article who may feel pressured to attach a political ideology to themselves as if it were an identity label. I'd advise against “ideology shopping” because there's just so much bullshit in political circles. If you must, politics is a journey best enjoyed alone like getting fit: never attach a political ideology to yourself for other people.

The internet has grown into a dangerously powerful tool as more people connect to it, so we begin to see a lot of gamification as it becomes the perfect place to manipulate content, spread propaganda, weave people into echo chambers, and divide people into factions. Some methods include disinformation, use of logical fallacies (e.g. false dilemma, etc.), dog whistles in memes, and so on.

Political ideologies are a blueprint consisting of abstract ideas that one may have on how society should be run. There's been attempts to organize these on a political spectrum of sorts, such as the left-right scale or Political Compass, but you run into issues defining the extremes¹⁾ that adding axes can even end up miscategorizing ideologies²⁾ and end up ignoring how complex the material world actually is.

There is an extensive catalog of ideologies, so the definition and etymology of each one can easily get lost since you're left with a string of letters and can only ponder the meaning, unlike languages like Chinese where each character means something. That's how you end up with political parties that are misnomers. In order to avoid typing more than I have to, we'll only look at etymologies here:

• Anarchism - From “anarchia” (ἀναρχία), meaning “without a ruler”.
• Authoritarianism - From “author”, meaning “leader”.
• Communitarianism - From “communis”, meaning “for/of the community”.
• Communism - From “communis”, meaning “for/of the community”.
• Conservatism - From “conservare”, meaning “keep/preserve/retain”.
• Corporatism - From “corporare”, meaning “make into a body”.
• Democratism - From “democratie” or “demokratia” (δημοκρατία), meaning “the people rule”.
• Environmentalism - From “enviromental”, meaning “environing/surrounding”.
• Fascism - From “fasces”, meaning “bundle”, but chosen as a symbol of the Roman Empire.
• Liberalism - From “liberalis”, meaning “freedom”.
• Libertarianism - From “libertarian”, meaning “freedom advocate”.
• Nationalism - Recursive etymology.
• Populism - From “populist”, meaning “people”.
• Progressivism - From “progredi”, meaning “advance/proceed”.
• Republicanism - From “respublica”, meaning “public thing”.
• Socialism - From “social” or “socialis”, meaning “allies/companionship”.
• Syndicalism - From “syndicat”, meaning “labor union”.