Mark Twain once said about a man that “he knows a lot, except that most of what he knows ain’t so.” (Paraphrased).
This accurately describes the multitudes among us who believe in various conspiracy theories, the birthers who “know” that Obama isn’t US born, the millions who “know” that immigrants cause the crime rate to rise, those who believe that 9/11 was a plot concocted by Israel and Dick Cheney, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that Jews control Hollywood, the media and American foreign policy, etc.
Humans have an innate need to reduce Cognitive Dissonance.
There is a long line of research documenting this, starting with Leon Festinger’s famous When Prophecy Fails in 1956. A small occult group had predicted that the world would end on a specific date, but that the group would be rescued by aliens. When this did not happen, the cultists, far from abandoning their beliefs, actually persisted in them with even greater vigor.
In other words, when confronted with facts which disprove our beliefs, many of us are more apt to deny the facts than to alter our beliefs.
If scientists find undeniable proof of life on earth 200 million years ago, creationists simply argue that those fossils were planted there by God 6,000 years ago, to fool us. In the face of irrefutable evidence of man-caused global warming, millions continue to quibble about minor scientific errors made while collecting the evidence, so as to deny the whole thing.
When Rush Limbaugh tells millions of hypnotized ditto-heads that the European middle class is poorer than the American lower class, they gullibly accept this as fact, even though it isn’t true.
When the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports prove that the crime rate is way down, millions continue to believe that it is out of control.
There are many established facts which should no longer be debated. The Solar System is heliocentric, not geocentric. We don’t need to cite Copernicus to support this assertion. Same with Darwinian evolution, global warming, and the fact that the American health care system is inferior to that of France, Germany, Canada and most other advanced countries.
It is tempting for a progressive such as myself to locate what I call the “triumph of belief over fact,” mostly on the right. And sure enough, sources such as Fox News are very guilty of the fraudulent and selective manipulation of facts for their nefarious political ends. Also, fundamentalist religious beliefs aggravate the reckless disregard of facts.
However, no part of the political spectrum has a monopoly on this. For one thing, the most virulent form of religious fundamentalism today is not conservative Christianity, but radical Islam. The belief in lunatic conspiracy theories is nowhere more widespread than in places like Pakistan.
And then there is another threat to scientific progress and to a rational, fact-based culture today:
Ever since I began teaching in the 1960s, the entire intellectual community has prayed at the altar of cultural relativity: Soon after the social sciences discovered this principle, it became dogma. Every 18-year old sociology freshman now came to the same conclusion: there are no absolutes.... And there is no such thing as good or evil.
....which means that there are no such things as facts. Post-modernism ran even further with the ball. Traditional math is sexist. We need to create a feminist math. History only consists of narratives, not facts.
For example: How did human life emerge in the Western Hemisphere? Archaeologists tell us that this happened when pre-historic tribes crossed the Bering Straight from Asia. But this is just one narrative. An alternative narrative is provided by American aborigines, who believe that humans sprang forth from the womb of mother earth. To the post-modernist, neither of these two narratives is more valid than the other.
So you see, the obstinate rejection of facts which contradict our beliefs is not limited to any group. It is rooted in our psychological make-up. The problem is, action based on belief over fact is likely to get you in trouble. Believing that you can fly doesn’t make jumping off a skyscraper any safer. leave comment here
3 comments:
Tom, Generally I agree with you as far as you go. But generally progressives often see the problems with fundamentalists by react rather than elevate their thoughts in ways that resolve the dissonance.
Too often for example, people that see the evils of concentrated corporate power, equally naively fail to see the same human nature at work in state power. So they lambast the fundamentalists on the right without seeing much of the left, while seeing the speck in their brother's eye, fails to take to log out of their own.
Ernst Troeltsch has a remarkable book on the topic called The Absoluteness of Christianity and the History of Religions.
I think some of the more academic conversations you describe here (e.g., feminsit matematics) may be driven mostly by the frustrations and boredom of some mediocre academics who hide in their books.
Certainly when a I tell young nephew to keep clear of the BBQ because Fire Is Hot, moral relativism doesn't enter the picture (accept, of course if he doesn't listen and gets burned.In that case, I have relatively failed in my moral obligation as a "good uncle").
I studied undergrad math at a University, under the guidance of many of the top mathematicians in the U. S. They definately were not concerned with how feminism relates to mathematics. They were into increasing knowledge.
I remember almost everything in math after the Freshman/Sophomore calculus based studies is about how seemingly unrelated "structures" are actually related to each other(e. g., the various "mappings and morphisms"in Group Theory). That doesn't sound inconsistent with any Feminist philosophy I have seen.
However when it comes to the important work of teaching math, then I believe feminist thought might help us understand overcome many High School girls' math issues.
Gordon:
I agree with you that concentration of public power is at least as bad as concentration of private (corporate) power. The former is called dictatorship. The Nazi and Soviet regimes, etc.
Right now, in America, the problem is one of (corporate) “plutocracy.”
Fundamentalism? I only use that term to denote extreme religious zeal, which I find to be threat. Not religion in general, and certainly not spirituality.
Steve,
Right. I only mentioned “feminist math” as one of the sillier things proposed in recent years, and certainly not a major trend.
You bring up the valid issue of many women having, in the past, been discouraged from entering math and science. Double standards, the undermining of their self-confidence, stereotyping, and many other well-known causes. Of course feminism helps to change this.
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