The Wise do at once what the Fool does at last. Both do the same thing; the only difference lies in the time they do it: the one at the right time, the other at the wrong.
Baltasar Gracián - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)
Here’s an imaginary situation. Suppose you are arguing with a person we’ll refer to as X. You and X are arguing about a media report. The report is so obviously misleading that you describe it as indistinguishable from a lie but X does not even agree that it is misleading.
A common enough situation, so suppose we focus on why X is so unwilling to identify the obvious lie. One simple explanation is that X is not so only unwilling, but also unable to identify the lie. Spotting media lies is an ability which X may not have sufficiently developed. Maybe X lacks a level of analytical ability analogous to the ability to solve crossword puzzles. Unwilling or unable? Unable is often simpler.
Usually we put this issue down to different attitudes or viewpoints, but it is worth exploring a simpler idea – X may be unable to do the sceptical analysis. This ability-based scenario seems arrogant of course, but it is simple and fits what we frequently have to deal with.
We navigate through life by avoiding surprises, which are anomalous situations requiring brain work to resolve them. It is more energy-efficient to avoid such situations so we evolved to do just that. Suppose we look at one common anomaly well worth avoiding - being wrong. Usually, being wrong about something is socially negative and best avoided, so we do avoid it.
We could push this along by crudely dividing the population into two general outlooks, the orthodox outlook and the sceptical outlook. We all possess both of course, but years of browsing the internet suggest to this observer that sceptical ability is far from being evenly distributed through the population. There are some incisively sceptical minds out there, but only other sceptics appear to be listening.
The orthodox tend to give their allegiance to power, majority, authority and virtue.
Sceptics tend to withhold their allegiance in favour of analytical scepticism.
Both of these general outlooks go some way to avoid being wrong and in that respect both are successful. Ironically, the orthodox have a greater likelihood of not being wrong than sceptics because they have the power to deny that wrong really is wrong. The power of perception does the rest.
Sceptics also have an effective avoidance strategy. They put a greater emphasis on the importance of uncertainty, on a wider range of possibilities, on avoiding the possibility of being wrong at some future point.
Inevitably, the orthodox always have too much power and too little sceptical ability. Psychological manipulators such as the Nudge Unit have an inbuilt tendency to downgrade this ability even further, and in so doing, make things even worse. It’s in the system.
A common enough situation, so suppose we focus on why X is so unwilling to identify the obvious lie. One simple explanation is that X is not so only unwilling, but also unable to identify the lie. Spotting media lies is an ability which X may not have sufficiently developed. Maybe X lacks a level of analytical ability analogous to the ability to solve crossword puzzles. Unwilling or unable? Unable is often simpler.
Usually we put this issue down to different attitudes or viewpoints, but it is worth exploring a simpler idea – X may be unable to do the sceptical analysis. This ability-based scenario seems arrogant of course, but it is simple and fits what we frequently have to deal with.
We navigate through life by avoiding surprises, which are anomalous situations requiring brain work to resolve them. It is more energy-efficient to avoid such situations so we evolved to do just that. Suppose we look at one common anomaly well worth avoiding - being wrong. Usually, being wrong about something is socially negative and best avoided, so we do avoid it.
We could push this along by crudely dividing the population into two general outlooks, the orthodox outlook and the sceptical outlook. We all possess both of course, but years of browsing the internet suggest to this observer that sceptical ability is far from being evenly distributed through the population. There are some incisively sceptical minds out there, but only other sceptics appear to be listening.
The orthodox tend to give their allegiance to power, majority, authority and virtue.
Sceptics tend to withhold their allegiance in favour of analytical scepticism.
Both of these general outlooks go some way to avoid being wrong and in that respect both are successful. Ironically, the orthodox have a greater likelihood of not being wrong than sceptics because they have the power to deny that wrong really is wrong. The power of perception does the rest.
Sceptics also have an effective avoidance strategy. They put a greater emphasis on the importance of uncertainty, on a wider range of possibilities, on avoiding the possibility of being wrong at some future point.
Inevitably, the orthodox always have too much power and too little sceptical ability. Psychological manipulators such as the Nudge Unit have an inbuilt tendency to downgrade this ability even further, and in so doing, make things even worse. It’s in the system.
8 comments:
You can make an argument that the virtue of the herd is the resultant civilization. But when there are so many people living in close proximity the sceptics stand out from the herd and attract unthinking criticism.
You can also argue that 'civilising instinct' is running out of control and typically ends in totalitarianism, left inclined or right inclined but eventually deadly.
DJ - yes, the 'civilising instinct' is running out of control and only sceptics seem to have some notion of what it might be. Too many people seem to be unaware of any need to examine what it might be and if they did they would come up with useless platitudes.
I think a lot of 'orthodox' thinking people are, as you point out heard instinctuals. Even someone as thoroughly sceptical as I, can be sometimes. And as you also point out, it can be extremely difficult to question everything that you are told or learn, otherwise progress through life would be treacle slow. Also, as you say, it really would be much better if some of our political decision makers could be sceptics, (like me) with fewer of them heard animals. Who but a heard animal like James Brokenshire, could have fired Roger Scruton, immediately when hearing allegations from a New Society journalist that he wad a racist, without even checking?
Also interesting is the way that sceptical people tend to reach a ceiling of scepticism and then grasp onto the new orthodoxy they have arrived at.
Some people were sceptical of the idea that high energy consumption and living comfortably like the people in the adverts is sustainable. So they thought for a bit, and came up with an alternative narrative.
And then...
But we know what happened then. I think it's a fairly universal trend.
Tammly - and Brokenshire should have known that a New Society allegation had to be checked carefully - or preferably ignored completely.
Sam - some people seem to have become particularly sceptical about the sustainability of other people living comfortably like the people in the adverts. I think the upper middle classes have always been sceptical about that, but it has trickled down the social scale.
The Scruton article, authored by George Eaton, was in The New Statesman.
Mr Fisher - thanks for the correction.
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