A Passion for Ignorance

When the cultural history of the period following World War II is written, I suspect one of the most interesting (baffling) questions will be, "Why did our country, in the midst of the unprecedentedly successful application of science, e.g. man on the moon, discovery of DNA, etc. undertake such a massive, deliberate, dumbing down of its culture in which more people knew less than in the preceding generation?

I believe there were a number of causes, e.g. the substitution of the image for print as in television, affluence itself, but I want to dwell on a primary source: religion.

To begin, why is it that "people of faith" is an honorable, respect-laden, descriptor? Why do we not hear "people of reason" as such? Faith is a form of ignorance. The fundamental necessity of faith occurs when we must act, but we have less than adequate evidence to do so. It should be noted that even then we would prefer evidence or knowledge, but the exigencies of life require action in its absence. However, as is so often the case, we humans transform necessity into desire. Because faith has sometimes seen us through some of life's exigencies it must have some efficaciousness. As I mentioned in an earlier post we abstract from a specific event or events to a general proposition. In consequence believing has become, in our time, more important than thinking.

At a time when society must think its way out of a complex multifaceted threat of global disasters, violence and indeed the continued existence of our species, we have the most pronounced calls to religious faith. Indeed, knowledge itself is massively opposed by people and institutions of faith. Evolution is not only denied, but replaced by religious dogma. Population reduction is vigorously opposed despite the evidence that its growth is a major cause of violence. Faith has become a threat to our continued existence.

In our society it is considered bad form to criticize religion. Why? Let me suggest at least one reason: the Constitution. The Constitution's first amendment, in addressing the relationship between government and religion, elevated religion to the highest prominence. I sometimes wonder what religion's place in our culture would be if the first amendment had read, Congress shall make no law abridging the citizen's freedom of conscience, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. By using religion, an organized body of great power, it incorporated a force that could and does oppose or manipulate the state for its own benefit. Had this right been framed in terms of individual conscience it would not have such political power. In any event religion has become a prominent political player and yet would hold itself above criticism.

As a result religion now has corporate-like power to influence our government. It is as adept as corporations at getting public funds for its own purposes. It pressures our public institutions, e.g. schools, to become vehicles for its propaganda. In so doing it introduces a dumbing down process into public education. I have witnessed courses in religion being introduced into a public school district on the premise that students could not understand cultural clichés derived from religion unless the religion was taught. There would, of course, be no proselytizing.

Because religion does not have to take the real world seriously as does science, e.g. there are no empirical tests, it can make outlandish claims, do anything to appeal to human emotions and still be followed by the thoughtless. Hence we have the barbarities of Mumbai, the spraying of battery acid on Muslim girls who dare try to get an education or the promotion of maximum birth rates on a vastly over populated planet. Even the most benign of religions has an element of irrationality to it, which makes it difficult for its adherents to condemn the barbarities of fundamentalist adherents on doctrinal grounds.

Religion has the temerity in most cultures to define and become the guardian of morality. With the Age of Reason an effort to divorce religion and morality began. So far this effort has not been a stunning success. It is even a philosophical maxim of secular Western philosophy that you cannot derive a moral proposition from a factual one. This has led to an unnecessary cultural bifurcation in Western culture. Immanuel Kant, in my estimation, provided a clue to how we might reduce this cultural chasm. As an instance, he argued that lying was not wrong because some religion or its deity said it was. It was wrong because if everybody lied society could not function. This is a factual, empirical, justification for not lying. Suppose we tested every so-called moral proposition in this manner. Those that had a deleterious effect on the functioning of human societies would be regarded as immoral those that did not were matters of personal preference. While some problems would obviously remain, e.g. how does one separate morality from prudence (To which I would respond that cultural prudence may lie at the evolutionary root of morality.) These problems would have far less adverse impact on human beings and their societies.

Considerations of this sort may have to be pursued if we are to minimize the enormities that passionate ignorance has and will increasingly inflict on society. It must become a maxim of society that faith is not knowledge and belief is not reason if we are ever to live in concert with the planet, the two edged sword that science has given us and the common plight we all share.

Bob Newhard