...And Doubt Shall Set You Free

stalfithrildi · Street Demonstrator

The main issue which caught my attention in the run up to the BUECU ‘Truth’ week was the fact that BUECU offer us 'The Truth'. It shall, presumably, set us free? Questioning beliefs will be far more profitable in attaining mental freedom in the long run, not just those of others but of ourselves. Mental freedom and concept of an external 'Truth' are completely contradictory because once we live in a self-built world of 'Truth' then we never question what we think and stop mentally progressing. I do not refer only to religious but also political and philosophical ideologies. Once I sit proudly and accept everything that the Bible, Marx, or Chomsky says then I may as well stop trying to learn.
This leads onto exactly who is to blame for everything bad that has happened ever, a lovely argument that will never die. The Crusades, the (unexpected) Spanish Inquisition, Stalinist purges and the fatal consequences of the world trading system all share one thing in common; a rejection or ignorance of alternative arguments which result in an extremism. Hitler, Stalin, Torquemada and Bin Laden are all extremists in this sense and such a focus upon ‘The Truth’ robs them of the humanity and compassion which makes a rejection of a questioning spirit such a dangerous thing.
I personally believe that evolution exists and it cannot be blamed for such distasteful theories and Nazism or Social Darwinism (the original version of Nazism in a suit and tie). It’s like blaming gravity of breaking your nose on the concrete when there is an agent out there who pushed you. Evolution itself gained such infamy within social and philosophical circles because people did not fully understand it after Herbert Spencer gave birth to the bastardized phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ and continued to build a social theory of the future as an inevitable ‘progression’ towards an individualistic society of atomized Egoists. The progression of Humanity does not have a predetermined endpoint that we can perceive, but a constantly changing set of humans trying to become more suitable to a changing social and ecological context which requires individual and social action. Neither the Aryan ideal nor any other groups have an inheritance or manifest destiny to come into.
Similarly religion is not the all pervading evil which Richard Dawkins imagines it to be. Dawkins is another extremist I have lost all respect for after watching his unbelievable attack on religion in ‘The Root of All Evil’. He may well have a firm grasp of evolution but pluralism seems beyond him. Professor Dawkins does not realise that he himself is betraying the ‘root of all evil’ whenever his face mists over at the prospect of giving children a Christian moral education and telling them about Intelligent Design. This evil is once again a close minded rejection of what we don’t like and clinging to our ‘Truth’ based upon what happened hundreds of years ago. As an evolutionist I would not want my children to believe in an Evangelical Intelligent Design but would rather they heard about it. Moral Atheism was much easier for me to handle once I had been grounded in Methodist morality from an early age. Dawkins contests that for good people to do evil things they need religion. I say that for people to become good people they need the influence of religion with other moral philosophies, and for good people to do evil things they need ‘The Truth’.
A little socialism, traditionalism and religious morality are indeed a good thing and we should all seek our own balance between these, and any other categories which you can come up with which have been blamed for atrocities that are really the fault of closed minded extremism which clings to ‘The Truth’ like a comfort blanket.
Brains of the world awake; you have nothing to lose but your chains.

Ben Bebbington, Political Economy II

steven · Black Bloc

How do, Ben? Excellent article, I was worried we were getting into more BUECU bashing, but this is nice and balanced. And yes, Dawkins is a bit of a c**k, although his utterly unshakeable conviction in his own superiority (and his inability to realise this makes him as bad as the religionistas) did amuse me on The Root of All Evil.

Steven

Dear Prudence · Black Bloc

stalfithrildi · Street Demonstrator

Thanks guys.

Indeed saying that ther is no objectivity is an absolute claim, but lets not get TOO post-modern here otherwise we'll sit in a fully deconstructed world without being able to blame anyone for amything (not even humans...) and not much will have been acheived.

Secondly I use my claim of no absolute truth as a Meta-theoretical claim based upon the assumption that no one person can possibly hold the full truth in their heads. The day i get presented with someone whose brain can comprehend the entirity of the universe i will change my mind.
I hope you don't wish to argue that there is a theoretically justifiable absolute truth out there? That isnt contradictory but it is completely wrong (in a lovely piece of circular reasoning that I will never ever defend isnt the fact that my argument is contradictory a sign that I at least can't perceive the full truth and I'm at Uni)

As for my views on beleifs perhaps the phrase 'blind belief' would be better but in escence I'm afraid I just think it takes a hell of a lot to convince someone that things are a bad idea once they've become their idea. And anyone whose ever had a conversation with me about Thatcher will know I am as guilty as all other humans on this one.

Lastly, it is indeed humans who are responsible for the worlds atrocities but surely what they belive and how far they take this belief is the influence of the only structural factor, namely other people. A wise man once said "the intelligence of the creature known as the crowd is the square root of the number of people in it"

TheWitheredHand · Indymedia Hound

Jeremy Beadle

stalfithrildi · Street Demonstrator

My bit abolut Postmodernisty was pointed as much at myself as Dear Prudence really -- the thing about writing articles of the type i did is the fact that they get accused (often rightly, as in this case) of falling into the traps which unlimited postmodernism does, which i tried to avoid by having some kind of opinion.
Also please show me a position on truths which doesnt have some faults with it, and i shall readily accept it.

The thing about 'sound reasoning' is that it is a self confirming logic is that they often miss out on the truth by limiting where they search for it -- as a political theory the conservative and Marxist views on human nature are internally sound but because they are believed in all too often people who beleive that human nature is
1) given and exists now or is
2) entirely constructed by the structure we live in
follow these limited logics and can both draw on certain evidence to confirm it while ignoring other evidence which contradicts and often don't look beyond their belief system. (or so i beleive... which is where i enter my own personal subjective mess) I tried to say in my piece that its fine to beleive in things but when we become absolutists the we take the first step on the path to locking our beleifs in place.

Its hard being this postmodern folks. Also i do know that the above positions are stereotypical examples of caonservative and Marxist versions of human nature and please don't tell me what was written in Das Kapital that disagrees with it.
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The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head

Dear Prudence · Black Bloc

stalfithrildi · Street Demonstrator

The reason i don't want an argument about all this is because I have essays to write but instead spend all my time writing sodding great monologues like this because I just can't resist it!

its quite a leap there from 2+2=4 to saying God exists isnt it? And perhaps that is the dividing line between science and philosophy/theology/social theories, that its quite easy for me to prove that 2+2=4 using my hands, whereas how do you justify that God exists?
You don't have to and thats the point -- It's a belief. i think you've been assuming I don't LIKE belief but negotiating your way around the world requires belief of some kind. I beleive this can't be justified in terms of sound reasoning in the same way that a testable scientific theory can due to the limits we place upon our reasoning. Science (in theory!) opens what we think up to general scrutiny of the 'scientific community' who admitedly do play politicks with Science but don't suppress progress in the long run.

To me the ABSOLUTE truth positions were relegated to lesser status during the Enlightenment which is something that post-modernism is trying to get us to move on from precisely because of the assumptions of perfect rationality it embodied are flawed and allow us to hide our beleifs behind the veil of Scientism. There is, therefore, value in all three positions of belief, science and post-modernism to the way we live our lives.
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The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head

Dear Prudence · Black Bloc

I was using the 2+2=4 thing to illustrate that if 'truth' can exist on a mundane, day to day basis, why is 'the universe' and the concept of a supreme being suddenly put into a category where truth cannot exist? Postmodernism does not make sense on a daily basis. If I believe that the left side of the road is the right side of the road, I am going to kill people. It does not work, and therefore I choose to renounce it as a way of thinking.

In my opinion, just because the Enlightenment happened does not mean that absolute truth became any less of an unlikely reality, it just means another swathe of people came along who thought it wasn't. Just because someone believes something does not make it true, no matter how clever they are. If God does truly exist, then someone not believing in him does not make any difference to that whatsoever.

Everyone believes in absolute truth. It's just that some people believe the absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth... it's such a ridiculous theory.
_________________
'Men make their own history, but not of their own free will; not under circumstances they themselves have chosen'
- Marx, 1852

http://robertating.blogspot.com

stalfithrildi · Street Demonstrator

Only using postmoderism on a day to day basis would indded be fatal. If my job is a theoretically constructed part of reality then theres no point turning up is there? Similarly for food -- no need to eat as its a theoretically constructed part of reality.

Mind you anyone who thinks the above probably should beleive it for the good of the gene pool. But does this mean that it should be rejected in its entirity? Surely it has something to tell us about the claims to scientific neutrality which, for example, MNC's, the IMF and economics in general claim. I think I've got you on that one

How about I say that the can be a 'truth' out there but its impossible for anyone to get it because, being part of a fully integrated universe, its too big. Hence the truth out there is fine but assuming whats in you head is 'truth' is not. It may well be but theres no way of knowing that.

My absolute truth then is that theres no absolute truth inside one persons head
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The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head