My Fellow Waccobites,
I warmly welcome you all to my new monthly column here at WaccoBB.net!
So many of the discussions I've seen or participated in generate more heat than light. Much of our communication seems to be driving wedges more deeply between us rather than bringing us together. So when Barry invited me to write a column, I started thinking in terms of what I can say to improve understanding between folks who are coming from very different beliefs and assumptions. In this monthly series of essays, I will attempt to do several things:1) I will lay out some basic assumptions about the nature of reality, evidence, and reason, and how we can best find truth rather than falling into illusion. After that, I will apply these principles to thought-provoking and entertaining essays on various topics of interest, including topics suggested by my readers.
2) I will attempt to convince you readers of my positions on these things, while being open to correction from you, as I may be wrong about anything at any time!
3) Regardless of what conclusions we arrive at, I expect that we'll better understand each other's positions, thus hopefully increasing empathy for one another and the cohesiveness of our community.
4) I intend also to entertain, making my pieces as concise, punchy and inspiring as possible, and occasionally including poetry, humor, or very personal memoirs as appropriate.
5) I expect my essays to trigger interesting dialogue, and that your ideas will somewhat shape my writings.
So relax, get comfortable, and join in the dialogue!
We live in, as they say euphemistically, interesting times. Not only are we faced with the usual vexing, often horrifying problems--war, bigotry, poverty, etc.--but in some ways our problems are unprecedented in human history, e.g., disastrous global environmental change and nuclear immolation.He that cannot reason is a fool.
He that will not is a bigot.
He that dare not is a slave.
~Andrew Carnegie
Simplistic solutions, such as counting on a supernatural fix (prayer, the Age of Aquarius, the Harmonic Convergence, the advent of 2012, the coming—whether first or second--of the Messiah, etc.); or uncritically following some tradition, religious or secular; or just trying to love everybody more; or expecting someone to come up with a wonderful technological fix to save us from the consequences of our folly are all sucker bets. Mostly they’ve been fruitless or have even exacerbated our suffering.
I propose thinking as a necessary response to our problems. And not just the plain old sloppy thinking we do every day. I’m talking about a special kind of thinking: reasoning, which involves forming accurate judgments about reality through logical processes. All of us, even those of you who like to think you’re too enlightened for mere logic, are pretty good at reasoning or we wouldn’t be alive. The process by which we learn to refrain from walking into traffic or touching fire comes nearly automatically to all of us. Reasoning comes naturally.
But unreason comes naturally to us as well. There are many, many sources of fallacy in our reasoning: social programming, lazy habits of thought, misunderstanding of probabilities, wishful thinking, egocentric thinking, the whole litany of common logical fallacies--the list goes on and on. Every single one of us is more fallible than we think; that’s part of the human condition. As with any skill—dancing, cooking, lovemaking, driving—we can improve our reasoning through learning and practice. The art of “thinking about our thinking while we’re thinking to improve our thinking” is sometimes called Critical Thinking.
In some circles, including Sonoma County New Age culture, reason seems to have become a dirty word. Many see it as, at best, just one in a number of equal sources of knowledge, citing, for example, spiritual traditions or intuition as equal or even superior to reason. Some claim to see all worldviews, rational and nonrational, as inherently equal, recognizing no objective standards by which we may separate the wheat from the chaff. Many even scapegoat reason and science for the evils of patriarchy, war, and environmental degradation.
Some seem to feel that logical critique is for emotionless robots, that precise, correct reasoning will make us heartless or joyless or less sensitive in some way. Nothing could be further from the truth. Becoming a heartless automaton, coldly calculating all the time, would be unreasonable, as it would deaden the joy of life. Reason is a tool which, used properly, can increase the joy of life for the whole world. Love is, in most situations, profoundly reasonable! So is the Golden Rule. Often, so are joy, play, sexiness and silliness.
Conversely, theft, rape, murder, bigotry, war--indeed, most sources of needless human suffering, are fundamentally unreasonable, and they continue largely because we don’t value reason enough to cure them. If we demanded of ourselves, as individuals and as societies, to root out fallacious thinking, to resist appeals to emotion and prejudice, to engage in mutual respectful critique with those in disagreement, to eschew armoring in favor of openness, and to embrace reasonable standards for what we’re willing to call “truth”, we could achieve as close to paradise on earth as we’re likely ever to get.
Those of you who have demonized reason have created an imbalance within yourselves and, by extension, a disastrous imbalance in society. Some American Indian teachings map human personality upon a circular pattern called the Medicine Wheel, in which I see an ideal of well-roundedness, completeness. People who have free, smooth access to all parts of the Medicine Wheel, moving from one part to another, from hardness to softness, work to play, feeling to thought, as a situation requires, are functioning optimally, as is a society made up of such folks. People who have a blockage in some area—feelings, sexuality, sociality, action, reason—are unbalanced, out of tune with themselves and the world, and problems will ensue.
The unbalance I seem to see most often in my community is a blockage in the area of reason, a rejection of clear, precise thinking in favor of the false security of feel-good nostrums, faiths, fantasies, and whatever specious logic is required to bolster desired beliefs. Faith, intuition, love, duty, and good intentions aren’t enough; there will be no better world without better reasoning. We do not have the luxury of rejecting some argument, or rejecting reason itself, if it leads to conclusions we find uncomfortable. We must be willing to love truth above comfort and honesty above ego.
Those whom we view as archetypes of evil, such as the Nazis, are usually not psychotic, nor purposely evil. They’re normal people, fundamentally like you and me, who love and fear and struggle to survive. Their main flaw is their abandonment of reason in favor of fallacious emotional appeals to their greed, paranoia, self-righteousness, racism and nationalism. Out of ignorance, apathy and social pressure, they accept unreasonable precepts and fallacious arguments, which, piled one upon another, create bigoted belief systems and brutal, oppressive social institutions. Most of these folks think they’re defending themselves and making the world peaceful, just and free for their children, whom they love. But even good impulses such as love can be perverted by unreason, growing into some very dark, poisonous blooms indeed.
How many times have we heard or said “Be reasonable”, and what does “reasonable” mean as it’s commonly used? I think we all know the answer: “Be reasonable” nearly always means “Agree with me”, “Give me what I want”. It’s just another example of the old Critical Thinking bugaboo, egocentric thinking.
But my dictionary1 defines “reasonable” as “…having sound judgment; fair and sensible…”. We can also derive some commonsense implications just from looking at the word. To me, the word “reasonable” implies that we can be reasoned into or out of a position by a compelling argument, that we can articulate reasons for our position, and that those reasons are good reasons which will stand up under critical scrutiny, since a bad reason is no reason at all. Note that all of this further implies open-minded dialogue among those in disagreement, guided by well thought out standards of reason.
In this series of essays, I’ll start by explicating various facets of reason, with suggestions as to how we can better incorporate it into our lives. We’ll be looking more deeply at just about every issue I’ve mentioned in this introduction, and much, much more. I encourage discussion, pro, con and otherwise. Please note that this is not just a dry, abstract intellectual exercise. I’m passionate about reason because without it we have zero chance of achieving a world of peace, justice, freedom, truth, tolerance and sustainability. So it is love of those ideals, along with love of our sisters and brothers the world over, that can motivate us to reason heroically. Love directed by reason is our best chance.
Notes:
1. The New Oxford American Dictionary, 2nd edition, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005) 1411.
About Dixon: I'm a hopeful monster, committed to laughter, love, and the Golden Rule. I see reason, applied with empathy, as the most important key to making a better world. I'm a lazy slob and a weirdo. I love cats, kids, quilts, fossils, tornadoes, comic books, unusual music, and too much else to mention. I’m a former conservative Christian, then New Ager, now a rationalist, skeptic and atheist. Lately I’m a Contributing Editor at the Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form (That’s right!), and have been getting my humor published in the Washington Post and Fantasy and Science Fiction. I’m job-hunting too, mostly in the Human Services realm. Passions: Too many -- Reading, writing, critical thinking, public speaking, human rights and justice, sex and sensuality, most arts and sciences, nature. Oh, and ladies, I’m single ;^D