Invincible Irrationality

I'm not much of a fan of Nietzsche.  I've come to refer to him, perhaps unkindly, as Frantic Freddie.  I quote him nonetheless, and in doing so include thereby a picture of him wearing a mustache not quite as foreboding as the one we see him with in other photographs, and in caricatures, looking somewhat demented.

He has something of a point in this particular quote, at least.  I ask myself how the irrationality of a thing would be an argument against its existence, I confess, but it can be maintained easily enough that it is a condition of ours, at least.  Not necessarily what we lawyers like to call a condition precedent, perhaps, but a condition at least to the extent a characteristic can be one.

It was Aristotle I believe who wrote that we humans are rational animals, meaning that we are capable of reason.  The Stoics thought that capacity was what made us, in small part at least,  participants in the divine intelligence of the universe.  Reason was long honored with the highest place in the history of human thought, and then replaced (or supplanted) by faith when reason was thought to be inadequate, only to reappear during the Renaissance and then explode during the Enlightenment.  Since then it has been dying a slow death; slow, because the achievements of the methods of science cannot be denied entirely, but dying nonetheless because it seems not to satisfy what we want, because what we want now is to be irrational.

That seems obvious enough given the fact that apparently thousands if not millions of people not merely accept that the world is flat (according to CNN) but wish others to do so as well.  This belief requires that a good deal of what seems obvious be ignored or explained away, and this is done with fascinating ease by the conviction that the government or someone or other having great power and influence wants us to believe otherwise and so fake a landing on the moon, the apparent curvature of the Earth, and much, much more.  Thus do we cycle back into ignorance.

There is currently an obsession with conspiracy.  To an extent this is understandable, as there can be little question that our politics is corrupt as are our politicians.  We've grown accustomed to deceit and combinations entered into to benefit the interests of a small and perhaps shrinking group of people who care about nothing but themselves, ultimately.  We see this every day.  We see it most clearly in the impeachment hearings, courtesy of someone who is intent on self-gratification and his minions.  But we see the appeal of the irrational in the response to the hearings as well.  It is assumed that others share the same proclivity for self-gratification and so do what they do to advance their own interests by thwarting efforts by others to do so.  There is a presumption of selfishness that must be overcome, but, curiously, it cannot be rebutted because selfishness is the rule, the standard by which all is judged.

It isn't rational for Republicans, for example, to not merely protect but encourage an executive who seeks merely to satisfy his own concerns.  A Democrat may soon be in the same place, and do the same things, and Republicans will then be faced with the same arguments supporting such conduct they used to support it when it benefited them.  It's hard to believe any rational person would be so short sighted.

But it isn't just in our politics that we see this invocation of the irrational, but everywhere.  The more that science, or statistics, or reason, or the learned recommend certain actions or support certain conclusions, the more those actions and conclusions are thought to be fake, or deceitful, or to result from some wrongful motive.  Thus the return of the flat earth theory.

When the inclination is to disbelieve what is credible and supported by the best available evidence, there is a serious problem.  It's a problem which will become increasingly significant as the attitude is encouraged and fostered, as is being done now.  Soon enough the irrational will become invincible, impervious to reason, impervious to argument, impervious perhaps to fate itself.  We'll slide into chaos and self-destruct, unthinking.

Thinking about the Unthinking

 

 

 I'm unsure whether this is a photo of an actual billboard nor do I know, if it is one, whether it still is up displaying its oddly worded message or has now been replaced by some advertisement or another sign making a similarly bewildering statement.   I found it on (where else?) the Internet. 

 

I'm not convinced a syllogism was intended, and hope that my lack of conviction has some basis.  If it was intended as a syllogism, despair may be appropriate.  I suppose it can be deciphered as saying "anti-God is treason", and therefore those who are "anti-God" are traitors.  That seems easy enough.  But the basis for the claim "Traitors lead to Civil War" is lacking, and certainly that claim is not clearly accurate.  One may be a traitor without causing a civil war; two, in fact, may be traitors without doing so as well. 

 

I'll admit I take some delight in the fact that it is addressed to "Lunatic Atheists & their Lawyers."  The reference to "lunatic atheists" naturally implies that there are some atheists who are not lunatics, though that may not have been the author's intent.  But why single out the lawyers of those atheists who are lunatics?  Are lawyers who have sane atheists as clients less reprehensible in some sense?  Perhaps they don't require the stern warning made in the billboard.  Do all atheists who are lunatics have lawyers?

 

Regrettably, though, what the author of this message meant to communicate and why he or she meant to do so isn't the subject of this post.  What I'd like to remark on here is the great task or quest with which I think we're faced.  That is, to get the unthinking to think; to render the thoughtless thoughtful.

 

I've noted before that I believe the ability to think critically is--well, critical--especially in these times, when thought itself is discouraged even by our technology.  When a person accepts a world in which the need to think is limited in time to, e.g., that needed to read and respond to a text or tweet, and in space to what might be expressed in a limited number of words or letter, a person has in effect given up on thinking of the kind which requires real study, or consideration of alternatives, or consequences, or discretion, or analysis.  Thinking on one's feet is considered admirable, but thinking with one's fingers is not, at least not yet. 

 

I think this limitation is beginning to show itself in such things as our acceptance of conspiracy theories and of the opinions of those who, for no clear reason  as far as I'm concerned, are held up as knowledgeable and intelligible or hold themselves out as being experts, from those looked to by the media to those who earn their bread and butter by pontificating on talk radio.  Even our president seems inclined to accept as true what he sees or listens to on TV, God help us all, regardless of what experienced professionals tell him is the case.  And, unfortunately, he himself is prolific in his confabulations and the purveying of misinformation.

 

What would seem to be necessary is the teaching of practical reason, or logic, or perhaps rhetoric as a therapeutic study, from an early age.   That may well be an impossibility, though.  We have difficulty enough teaching our youth how to read and write and do simple arithmetic.  But in dreams I think of a course in logical fallacies, in ascertaining the tricks of salespeople and politicians in playing on our fears, desires and  emotions.  Perhaps even more important would be a course of study which would teach how to express objections and formulate arguments.

 

Perhaps through the use of practical examples derived from our day to day lives it would be possible to demonstrate the problems which result from thoughtlessness.  It might even be an interesting course of study.  But the problem with critical thinking is that it leads to questioning of the settled; customs and norms and the various shibboleths on which so many things are based, and the one thing we may be sure of when it comes to educating children is that their parents won't tolerate any teacher or course of study which might lead their children to ask difficult questions.  In this way, we propagate our ignorance and leave ourselves open to those who manipulate us.

 

We're in sad shape, as is demonstrated by the venal, self-serving, ignorant, inarticulate and mean Sad Sack we've elected to be our leader.  It's true he will pass, much like a kidney stone, in time, and we may take comfort in that.  But there is the potential that he'll be replaced by someone even worse, and we should try to take steps to lessen that possibility.