Using Intellectual Fanatics to Discover the Flaws in any Ideology, Idea or Concept | Part 1 of 2
Anyone who thinks something is definitely TRUE most likely just believes it without quite realizing it is a belief - a handed down system of knowledge that ultimately becomes so convincing to us that we stop looking for the catch - because we are naive beings ;)
And we love holding on to things, even and especially when they hurt a lot.
The quest for truth comes in many stages of understanding, insight and discovery.
Moving through the stages requires us to eventually drop our old cherished beliefs, dogmas and paradigms once we find new evidence & have experiences that flat-out contradict what we have been taught as "the truth".
Among those stages there will come a point when the obsession with clinging to a fixed notion of reality drops away as it becomes apparent that spiritual and intellectual rigidness have become the biggest hurdles to further progress. And that there may be many more stages before we even get close to the truth. If we ever get there at all.
Many if not most people today believe strongly in something or other: Democracy, equality, heaven, the objectivity of the media, the value of the dollar, the effectiveness of chemotherapy, the looming threat of nuclear weapons, etc... No matter how certain you deem something to be... have you ever questioned it? Or have you simply taken it for granted because so many people seem to believe it as well?
Americans call this "drinking the cool-aid" - we pick up on an idea, make it our own and are now promoting and defending it against all those who disagree with us because we can't even fathom that it might be a falsehood after all. We identify with that idea. Every one of us has his holy cows in that way, some are more popular than others and have more "followers", but there is tremendous benefit in questioning any and all of them fundamentally.
Especially the "certain ones".
The question is how are we going to find out which of our cows are rightfully holy to us, and which ones are merely there to get hypnotized by?
Letting go of falsehoods can trap or liberate you
Once human beings have moved on from their initial paradigms there can come a point of frustration - a strong need to "find something true to hang on to" just to make the uncertainty stop. The danger of falling for a new "complete package of worldview" is greatest when one has just started seeing through the first major falsehoods of his own conditioning that were blindly accepted as truth until now.
So, we either move into frustration and hopelessness the more falsehoods we uncover and the more our old paradigms need readjusting, or...
We take a cherishing stance about our new discovery and decide to meet the old advocates of said lie as helpful allies instead of brainwashed enemies. Because they can help us dismantle the other side of the issue, which is most likely just as false but where we don't have any good insights yet.
Why would I want to see people who believe a provable lie as my ally?
Because they are your best and most committed eyes and ears out there when it comes to finding the catch in what they see as "their opponents' stupid beliefs".
Hypothetically, let us say you wanted to find out whether common ancestry of all life on Earth was actually true or just a neat story (for ease of reference I will use the words 'biological evolution' here). To most people it's a total GIVEN and obvious truth, but for the moment we will assume you simply wanted to find the best evidence against the idea that all life on Earth initially came from the same one-celled organism, and that all human beings share a common ancestor with the chimpanzee.
We should not care whether it turns out to be true or not, we just want to hear both sides present their best case and decide for ourselves, afterwards. I frankly don't care if I come from monkeys or not, but I would greatly appreciate knowing why that is supposed to be so... Instead of assuming anything, no matter how well 'established' it supposedly is ;)
Where would we start? Would we ask professors of evolutionary biology and public Science celebrities like Richard Dawkins - a so-called "expert" in his field?
If we did, we would be fools!
Why? Because we expect an honest and objective answer from someone with huge vested interests and decades of solidification of his own worldview.
Instead, we want to ask the other side about it and have them present their best evidence AGAINST it! Especially if we can find people who seem fair, balanced and evidence-based in their argumentation - listening to rambling fanatics who just spout insults at the other side without actually giving any arguments or evidence will just waste our time. And it's a nice hint to the quality of their arguments - if they had any great ones, why would they need to resort to arrogance and insults instead?
In turn, if we wanted to find the best evidence AGAINST the idea that the world is 'merely' 6000 years old and created by an almighty, vengeful and king-like ruler in heaven that kindly crafted the first woman out of a man's rip... would we ask devout Christians about it?
HeCK no ;)
We would ask evolutionists and anthropologists about their best arguments AGAINST that sort of idea. Like Richard Dawkins for example, who would be delighted to explain it to you ;)
You people are smart, I think you see the point here <3
Fair critics are huge timesavers!
Whenever we want to find the best case AGAINST something we listen to the fairest and most sophisticated opponents of that idea.
Through their own belief and certainty in their view they will try and collect every argument, reason and bit of evidence that could even remotely be considered as strong proof against the other side, and after a while they will present their best arguments and often repeat them - simply because they are the best arguments they could find in all their years of study to counter what they think is BS.
They will quite automatically deliver you their findings in that way and attack that weakest part of their "opponents' ideology" relentlessly. Which is the perfect starting point for you to dig deeper on your own from there as a neutral inquirer.
Following the critic's pointing to the "obvious and outrageous flaw of XYZ" will give you the sweet luxury of starting with some promising angles, instead of endlessly studying both sides to ever hope to find a weak spot. It will also shine a light on their own assumptions that they use to discredit something and may have never checked for validity.
Gathering both their information and assumptions will soon create a sort of map in your mind, where you can actually sort the arguments into clusters. Through this you will be able to quickly discern what ideology someone holds as true, even if they have merely mentioned a few arguments.
Imagine it like becoming a bird: Being able to fly over all sorts of different lands of ideas and worldviews to get a sense of how it all fits together, while the people who live in each land have no idea that any other lands exist out there... or why there would ever be any need to travel abroad.
It simply gives you a larger scope of the possibilities and will make you stand in AWE as you discover the most amazing new things in what you always assumed to be an open and shut case.
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Thanks for stopping by <3
This is a hugely important topic at this point in culture. So many truths coming to the surface & so much disinformation, it is very important to stay logical & try to be aware of your own biases & emotional traps.
Logic is real
Logic can carry us VERY far indeed. It's still one of my main tools for discernment though I have experienced situations where logic will utterly fail and is just in the way. Discerning among ideas and biases is NOT one of those situations - logic REIGNS there and it seems funny that some arrive at a totally different conclusion regardless.
Guess the capability of using logic depends on the inner state, the conduciveness of the surroundings and of course the information available to make a determination.
Thanks for your feedback <3
"The danger of falling for a new "complete package of worldview" is greatest when one has just started seeing through the first major falsehoods of his own conditioning that were blindly accepted as truth until now."
I agree with this. I think this is what leads people to go off on the crazier conspiracy theories. I don't discount any of them out of hand but a lot of people learn that the government isn't their friend and then wrongly assume that it also means that every nefarious thing that it is accused of is absolutely true.
There are more than two positions on most issues but people love their false dichotomies and when they stop believing something, they are drawn to its opposite which is often just as untrue.
Agreed. There are many honeypots set out for those who get desillusioned with the mainstream narratives. And so they get caught up in those honeypots, alternative MAINSTREAM narratives of a lower order of magnitude. Been there myself many MANY times, which is why I write about this here in the post.
In a weird way, one really has to respect how they have pulled it off - whoever they are. The intellectual trap structure is just so incredibly vast. There's a trap for anyone and it is STILL holding up ;)
Thanks for your thoughts dude
Truth.
No problem.
Curated for #informationwar (by @openparadigm)
Relevance: How to Check if your Bias holds water.
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Hey thank you guys so much. I am thrilled to have open minded people on Steemit everywhere I turn <3
Interesting perspective on how to sort out much of the BS. I find myself using similar methods. I feel that I really only need to find one or two truths that prevent a given narrative from being true to know that I need to start looking somewhere else for answers.
Exactly! I have been thinking along these lines, even wrote a very similar post last night!
People sometimes think only they have all the right ideas, everyone else is full of it.
Nothing is absolute, each side has some truth in their views. We have to try to understand these truths of our ideological adversaries in order to really solve serious problems.