Belief is the death of intelligence
January 16, 2008
An odd synchronicity this week. I’ve been thinking about the difference between merely holding an opinion or belief and accepting that opinion or belief as part of your identity. Robert Anton Wilson said in Cosmic Trigger:
My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence. The more certitude one assumes, the less there is left to think about, and a person sure of everything would never have any need to think about anything and might be considered clinically dead under current medical standards, where absence of brain activity is taken to mean that life has ended [ Preface to Cosmic Trigger ]
And now we have this article in the New York Times discussing the science of morality:
Moralization is a psychological state that can be turned on and off like a switch, and when it is on, a distinctive mind-set commandeers our thinking. This is the mind-set that makes us deem actions immoral (“killing is wrong”), rather than merely disagreeable (“I hate brussels sprouts”), unfashionable (“bell-bottoms are out”) or imprudent (“don’t scratch mosquito bites”). [ The Moral Instinct ]
According to the research discussed by the Times, if something offends our opinions we behave one way. If something offends our moral sense, however, we have quite a different result: revulsion, anger, and the desire for retribution. Interestingly, though, our moral sense appears to be fairly mutable. New subjects become moral issues (they are “moralized,”) while others lose that status (they are “amoralized.”) In this way does homosexuality become no-one’s business, but neglecting to recycle an aluminum can may cost you a lengthy, angry lecture.
Once a concept becomes “moralized” in the mind of someone, that person apparently ceases to treat the issue rationally and instead responds in a knee-jerk manner. Thinking has been replaced by belief, opinion by taboo. And then a different kind of thinking — a more close-minded and reactionary kind of thinking — takes over.
The problem with attaching oneself to another group — whether it’s Christianity or the Skeptics Society or the Society for Creative Anachronism — is that you accept into yourself a whole host of moralized positions. The more you value your identity as a member of the group, the more hardened you allow these moralized positions to get. Tie yourself too tightly and you stop thinking about anything that group addresses. And you respond to the slightest challenge with moral outrage.
This is the “fundamentalist impulse.” I’ve seen it in just about every group. I’ve identified it more often than I would like in myself. Sometimes it’s trivial, but sometimes it’s very, very destructive.
So the interesting question is how do you change the mind of someone who’s convinced him or herself not to think about an issue? How do you change it in yourself if you discover you are holding a position too tightly? How do you switch the morality switch off?
Posted in Redirect
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January 16th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Without, I’m assuming, becoming a sociopath…?
January 16th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Now that I’ve had more coffee I see I could have phrased that better. Probably much better.
Yes, without becoming a sociopath. I’m assuming we leave the “rational” switch turned on, otherwise the answer “PCP” would probably be sufficient.
January 16th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Well, I was pretty sure you weren’t advocating sociopathology or behavioral modification through PCP as societal virtues, or anything like that. I was just kidding around. But it’s an interesting question. Clearly some kind of shared morality is a necessity for a stable society — but so too is our continual questioning and re-evaluation of that morality. Belief is not the enemy, so much as unwavering devotion to belief. If a belief does not allow for the possibility that that belief might be wrong…
January 16th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Now that I work in reproductive rights, I have to deal with this pretty often - having to argue a point in such a way that it could lead to someone changing their mind.
Sadly, facts do not work most of them when it comes to this - because facts wreck the worldview. You have to use emotion and it has to be gradual.
January 17th, 2008 at 1:02 am
I don’t think certainty is antagonistic to thinking. Clearly Wilson is certain of his position, and yet I wouldn’t accuse him of being dogmatic.
January 17th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Mac, I think that’s probably at least one method. I understand Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine” also describes another method.
Fred, the idea of using drugs in general to achieve this kind of end isn’t that far out though (PCP being an exactly bad example). IT was one of the advantages RAW saw in LSD. Be believed it created the kind of personality disruption that allowed for a radical re-assessment.
Diesel, on this point he’s remarkably unwilling to budge although that position does make him less dogmatic than most. It’s not that *any* certainly makes you a dogmatic person, it’s that enough belief — and, as Fred points out, enough degree of belief — can make you quite dogmatic. RAW certainly believed things (at least in the softer sense).
At least, that’s how I read it.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I think Wilson’s ideas are spot-on. Add to them the point that objectivity becomes increasingly unreachable once a person’s beliefs have cost him/her something. If I go on TV, expound a doctrine and take all kinds of arrows for it, I have a huge stake (ego, if nothing more) in keeping up that belief. Otherwise the price I paid was in vain.
Looking at the other side of the coin, though, is it really desirable to be sure of nothing? Isn’t that extreme wishy-washiness?
January 18th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Right; once personal identity gets involved, it becomes very difficult to shift.
As far as the flip side is concerned, I not only think it’s undesirable not to be certain about some things, but it might actually be impossible. You have to believe something about something in order to function; at times, you may even have to be quite certain of yourself indeed.
The trick, as near as I can tell, is to only be certain about those things you need to be certain about; and to do your best not to be so dedicated to your certainty (that’s a weird phrase) that you can’t change your mind if new data comes to light.