Really interesting article. Glad I stumbled upon it thanks to Mr. Magoon.
I have two observations. First, I would start with the premise “I don’t know” rather than “I am wrong.” Why should one assume a priori that one is wrong? This makes no sense to me. One could be right, for example, but for the wrong reasons. Assuming one is wrong forecloses this inquiry, it seems to me.
The second observation is the utility of Bayesian reasoning, which is the unnatural and highly difficult antidote to confirmation bias--an affliction that gets worse with intelligence. One of the most deluded friends I ever debated with was Glenn, who had a Cambridge mathematics degree. But he just couldn’t accept the possibility that he might be wrong, even when confronted with new compelling evidence. Just didn’t have the humility. Humility is absolutely essential to intellectual progress, and the smarter one is,the less likely one is to possess it.
Appreciate your contribution Mr. Carini. I cut my teeth as a high stakes appellate lawyer, where one is potentially humiliated by error brought to you by your worthy adversary. Keeps you humble. So does good scientific method.
You know, I was surprised by that phrase from Gurwinder myself. I took it to be a version of the Socratic "I know not." Instead of it being, "I am incorrect about the view I currently hold," I think it's intended to indicate, "My current model of the world cannot be complete. It must be lacking in some dimension. Now I need to go locate those gaps between my model and reality."
I'd love to explore the Bayesian element, assigning probabilities to our beliefs, instead of believing everything 100%. It's popular in analytic philosophy to assign different levels of "credence" to different of our beliefs.
Thanks for jumping into the comments and for reading!
I am coming from a background of social science and history, so I do not have the philosophical background that you do. I primarily write about human material progress.
The title of your article caught my attention as I think a great deal about the dangers of ideology. In fact, I believe that it is the single biggest threat to our progress.
I believe that a key means to cut through the ideological thicket is to focus on results. Virtually everyone in politics acts as if they know what the results of a public policy should be, so all they need to do is implement a policy and then move onto the next one. Any failure is deemed as not having tried hard enough, so you should just double down.
When you start with the assumption that we do not know which policies work (a variation on your quote above) then this opens the possibility to scale-scale experimentation. I guess that this is the equivalent of Empiricism in politics (although I tend to associate philosophical empiricism with Blank Slate thinking, which I disagree with).
But experimentation is not Rationalism. It is an acknowledgment of the great difficulty of even the most intelligent person to understand the outcome of actions in an incredibly complex world.
Thanks for these thoughts! Yes, my use of “empiricism” is supposed to be more the idea of looking at the empirical evidence and science, as opposed to ideological or armchair philosophical thinking.
This is great! I must confess I am very drawn to this as I am working on and fascinated by the exact same subject.
What are actionable ways that we can think and act to deprogram ourselves from fanatical or ideological beliefs?
It’s the most important question that no one seems to be asking or answering.
Empiricism and rationality are the answer IMO but those ideas alone too abstract and are concepts that can take years, if not a lifetime to truly grasp and apply. Not to mention ideological capture is designed to resist those ideas in the first place. The average joe simply does not go about his day thinking of the world in formal empirical models.
The escape from ideology must begin with simple behaviors or questions that can be applied by anyone. Hopefully overtime those behaviors lead us to new ideas and force us to upgrade our narrow ideologically driven models.
It’s not a simple subject to get at but you have done a nice job here. Hopefully these strategies can act as tools in people’s mental toolkit.
Thanks, Benjamin! That's why I'm cultivating a broad idea of empiricism, of being willing to receive new input from experience. This can include talking to people we disagree with, putting our ideas to the test and being willing to be wrong, etc.
Most people will not follow this path; it's an aristocratic path. Don't join the masses. Cultivate virtues while our society and technology encourage vice. But it really is a superior way to be.
When I was young, it was helpful for me to move my thinking from "black and white" to "greyish, but with very small black and white pixels". This helped me avoid relativism and while leaning into attentive nuance.
I really appreciate the multi-tribe part, which is better than anti-tribe (the typical modern individualist response), in part simply because it is descriptively true! We can't rid ourselves of group identification/influence.
Yes, it can. The problem is that relativism undermines all truth, saying that no one is grasping a truth about the way things are. This is itself ideological in its absoluteness.
My own view is that ideology is seeing one truth that is inappropriate in one context and generalizing and absolutizing it. The Marxist poet working at Starbucks, for instance, sees a disparity between his or her capacity and the artistic value of the humane work of poetry and the economic situation society has assigned to poets. This is then absolutized, arguing that all income should be redistributed evenly or more in accord with human value and potential. The original insight was *correct.* The generalization to all situations is mistaken.
This means that the right way to have multiple tribal memberships and to learn from different ideologies is to see the *truth* in all of them, and not only to dispute their claims to exclusive truth. To the extent that one's original beliefs were ideological and absolutized, they *should* be diluted. But the extent that one's core beliefs can be separated from the ideological husk, they shouldn't be diluted but supplemented by other perspectives and insights. In fact, participation in other tribes and groups seeking after truth is often how we become able to distinguish core beliefs and insights from their ideological husk.
I would recommend the exercise of trying to find the truth in each ideology and forming a wholistic perspective on the world that receives and incorporates all these insights.
Zan, you're welcome! Yes to the first. We see that there's a problem or a solution in one area, so we generalize and absolutize that to the rest of life. We have induced that, if it works here, it works everywhere. For capitalism, it might be, that economic freedom is important for the small-business owner, therefore we should have absolute laissez-faire. Then the large corporation takes advantage of it, and instead of restraining them, we say, "Laissez-faire. It worked for small business; it should work for big business and GDP as well."
On the second, I don't want to imply that there's just one truth, one elephant that we're all groping at. Rather, there are a multitude of truths, like all the things the different sciences discover, and often different communities due to their different interests and contexts have a better handle on different truths. We need to combine the insights of each with reducing the world down to a single story or explanation.
Wonderful, and for me a timely essay. Thank you. Very good list of techniques.
If I meet someone who honestly believes in God, they immediately lose credibility with me: it disqualifies them from me conferring any credibility upon them in almost any subject matter requiring critical thinking. I immediately place them in the same category as people who believe in astrology, tarot, new age, theories, conspiracy theories, etc. etc.: all of those things are fun to entertain, but they are not provable.
If believers in God do have credibility or expertise in any given field then I credit their belief in God to a psychological disorder, such as a personality disorder, or just the primitive brain at work.
Am I depriving myself, or protecting myself? Conversations about God are a non-starter for me. I choose not to engage just as if a Trumper approached me and wanted to discuss why Donald Trump is the best thing that’s ever happened to this country. (Yes, I have heard that said aloud with great sincerity.)
I’ve arrived at the conclusion that ideology is bad, and that religion is an ideology.
The concept of God, and the morality that goes with that particular religion/ideology, is wielded by bureaucratic, ideological institutions that use it as a cudgel to beat people into mental submission and keep them from thinking for themselves. I see God/religion as a controlling mechanism used by religious institutions and governments.
I can’t even think of the word God without thinking of the cruelty, inhumanity, and barbarism that’s been used in the name of God throughout history continuing to this very day.
I suppose I should feign more empathy and compassion and tolerance, but I would simply be feigning it so to protect delusional peoples feelings.
I had a friend who got angry and began yelling at me and pounding on the table because I told him I thought people who believe in God are delusional. That was right after he told me he was a devout Catholic. I guess it was OK for him to tell me about his beliefs, but it was not OK for me to tell him what I believed.
I guess he was shocked and angry at what I said, thought it was rude and inconsiderate, but I was just reacting to what he said and was equally shocked that my beliefs would upset him.
These God people are just God awful in my opinion.
JT, thanks for reading and commenting! The "Theologian" in my title is not ironic, but a major element of my inquiry is whether the religious individual can avoid the ideological patterns that you detected in your Catholic friend!
For me, I have to say, if God doesn't exist, then what *is* going on when I believe in him? Projection, delusion, Hyper-active agency detection - these would be probable explanations. In fact, I do think a lot of what passes for religion can be chalked up to these.
The next step after this article on ideology would be for me to attempt to distinguish religion from ideology; and I see why you think that can't be done. But as long as I'm a "God person", I've got to seek for a way not to be "God awful," as you say. :)
You also said that believers in God lose credibility with you. That is a reason why I have made a big emphasis in my writing on believers speaking in terms and on the basis of scientific evidence and common human experience. The religious group of which I have been a part often urges that Christians only speak on the basis of Christian presuppositions, which to me is the definition of ideology. It will involve basing politics on biblical statements and never saying anything that someone who doesn't share the faith can agree with. So, that's one way that I'm trying to avoid ideology, even while religious. But I'll leave you to judge if I escape your critique of religion.
My one other caution is that atheism can function ideologically. It's a reason to try to see what is good in various religions, to look for the "smarties" in each religion and the best forms of it, and not only its worst forms - "the cruelty, inhumanity, and barbarism that's been used in the name of God." As a believer, I'll make an effort not to whitewash the dangers of religion and ideology. As a non-believer, I'd encourage you not to be too harsh on religion. Alain de Botton calls it atheism 2.0: "Of course, there's no God. Now let's get on to learning the best that religion has to offer without any worry that it might be true." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Oe6HUgrRlQ&t=93s&pp=ygULYXRoZWlzbSAyLjA%3D)
I'm glad you enjoyed the essay, and hopefully it can be an indication that not all religious believers are completely subject to the mind-control and ideology that often comes with religious faith. Go... - I almost finished with "God bless" - how about, All the best to you!
Really interesting article. Glad I stumbled upon it thanks to Mr. Magoon.
I have two observations. First, I would start with the premise “I don’t know” rather than “I am wrong.” Why should one assume a priori that one is wrong? This makes no sense to me. One could be right, for example, but for the wrong reasons. Assuming one is wrong forecloses this inquiry, it seems to me.
The second observation is the utility of Bayesian reasoning, which is the unnatural and highly difficult antidote to confirmation bias--an affliction that gets worse with intelligence. One of the most deluded friends I ever debated with was Glenn, who had a Cambridge mathematics degree. But he just couldn’t accept the possibility that he might be wrong, even when confronted with new compelling evidence. Just didn’t have the humility. Humility is absolutely essential to intellectual progress, and the smarter one is,the less likely one is to possess it.
Appreciate your contribution Mr. Carini. I cut my teeth as a high stakes appellate lawyer, where one is potentially humiliated by error brought to you by your worthy adversary. Keeps you humble. So does good scientific method.
You know, I was surprised by that phrase from Gurwinder myself. I took it to be a version of the Socratic "I know not." Instead of it being, "I am incorrect about the view I currently hold," I think it's intended to indicate, "My current model of the world cannot be complete. It must be lacking in some dimension. Now I need to go locate those gaps between my model and reality."
I'd love to explore the Bayesian element, assigning probabilities to our beliefs, instead of believing everything 100%. It's popular in analytic philosophy to assign different levels of "credence" to different of our beliefs.
Thanks for jumping into the comments and for reading!
Very interesting article.
I am coming from a background of social science and history, so I do not have the philosophical background that you do. I primarily write about human material progress.
The title of your article caught my attention as I think a great deal about the dangers of ideology. In fact, I believe that it is the single biggest threat to our progress.
I believe that a key means to cut through the ideological thicket is to focus on results. Virtually everyone in politics acts as if they know what the results of a public policy should be, so all they need to do is implement a policy and then move onto the next one. Any failure is deemed as not having tried hard enough, so you should just double down.
When you start with the assumption that we do not know which policies work (a variation on your quote above) then this opens the possibility to scale-scale experimentation. I guess that this is the equivalent of Empiricism in politics (although I tend to associate philosophical empiricism with Blank Slate thinking, which I disagree with).
But experimentation is not Rationalism. It is an acknowledgment of the great difficulty of even the most intelligent person to understand the outcome of actions in an incredibly complex world.
Any way, you earned my sub. Thanks.
Thanks for these thoughts! Yes, my use of “empiricism” is supposed to be more the idea of looking at the empirical evidence and science, as opposed to ideological or armchair philosophical thinking.
This is great! I must confess I am very drawn to this as I am working on and fascinated by the exact same subject.
What are actionable ways that we can think and act to deprogram ourselves from fanatical or ideological beliefs?
It’s the most important question that no one seems to be asking or answering.
Empiricism and rationality are the answer IMO but those ideas alone too abstract and are concepts that can take years, if not a lifetime to truly grasp and apply. Not to mention ideological capture is designed to resist those ideas in the first place. The average joe simply does not go about his day thinking of the world in formal empirical models.
The escape from ideology must begin with simple behaviors or questions that can be applied by anyone. Hopefully overtime those behaviors lead us to new ideas and force us to upgrade our narrow ideologically driven models.
It’s not a simple subject to get at but you have done a nice job here. Hopefully these strategies can act as tools in people’s mental toolkit.
Thanks, Benjamin! That's why I'm cultivating a broad idea of empiricism, of being willing to receive new input from experience. This can include talking to people we disagree with, putting our ideas to the test and being willing to be wrong, etc.
Most people will not follow this path; it's an aristocratic path. Don't join the masses. Cultivate virtues while our society and technology encourage vice. But it really is a superior way to be.
When I was young, it was helpful for me to move my thinking from "black and white" to "greyish, but with very small black and white pixels". This helped me avoid relativism and while leaning into attentive nuance.
I really appreciate the multi-tribe part, which is better than anti-tribe (the typical modern individualist response), in part simply because it is descriptively true! We can't rid ourselves of group identification/influence.
Excellent piece, Joel, really liked it and think your tips are gold.
A much needed set of antidotes to ideology!
Do you think adopting multiple tribal memberships could inadvertently lead to a form of relativism, where one's core beliefs become diluted?
Zan, thanks for reading and commenting!
Yes, it can. The problem is that relativism undermines all truth, saying that no one is grasping a truth about the way things are. This is itself ideological in its absoluteness.
My own view is that ideology is seeing one truth that is inappropriate in one context and generalizing and absolutizing it. The Marxist poet working at Starbucks, for instance, sees a disparity between his or her capacity and the artistic value of the humane work of poetry and the economic situation society has assigned to poets. This is then absolutized, arguing that all income should be redistributed evenly or more in accord with human value and potential. The original insight was *correct.* The generalization to all situations is mistaken.
This means that the right way to have multiple tribal memberships and to learn from different ideologies is to see the *truth* in all of them, and not only to dispute their claims to exclusive truth. To the extent that one's original beliefs were ideological and absolutized, they *should* be diluted. But the extent that one's core beliefs can be separated from the ideological husk, they shouldn't be diluted but supplemented by other perspectives and insights. In fact, participation in other tribes and groups seeking after truth is often how we become able to distinguish core beliefs and insights from their ideological husk.
I would recommend the exercise of trying to find the truth in each ideology and forming a wholistic perspective on the world that receives and incorporates all these insights.
Wow thanks for this really insightful response.
So in some ways, absolutizing is a pathological form of inductive reasoning.
And the truth is something like an objective, latent factor that sits underneath all the overlapping ideologies?
Zan, you're welcome! Yes to the first. We see that there's a problem or a solution in one area, so we generalize and absolutize that to the rest of life. We have induced that, if it works here, it works everywhere. For capitalism, it might be, that economic freedom is important for the small-business owner, therefore we should have absolute laissez-faire. Then the large corporation takes advantage of it, and instead of restraining them, we say, "Laissez-faire. It worked for small business; it should work for big business and GDP as well."
On the second, I don't want to imply that there's just one truth, one elephant that we're all groping at. Rather, there are a multitude of truths, like all the things the different sciences discover, and often different communities due to their different interests and contexts have a better handle on different truths. We need to combine the insights of each with reducing the world down to a single story or explanation.
I see - thanks for the clarification! I assume your last sentence you mean "without reducing the world..."
Wonderful, and for me a timely essay. Thank you. Very good list of techniques.
If I meet someone who honestly believes in God, they immediately lose credibility with me: it disqualifies them from me conferring any credibility upon them in almost any subject matter requiring critical thinking. I immediately place them in the same category as people who believe in astrology, tarot, new age, theories, conspiracy theories, etc. etc.: all of those things are fun to entertain, but they are not provable.
If believers in God do have credibility or expertise in any given field then I credit their belief in God to a psychological disorder, such as a personality disorder, or just the primitive brain at work.
Am I depriving myself, or protecting myself? Conversations about God are a non-starter for me. I choose not to engage just as if a Trumper approached me and wanted to discuss why Donald Trump is the best thing that’s ever happened to this country. (Yes, I have heard that said aloud with great sincerity.)
I’ve arrived at the conclusion that ideology is bad, and that religion is an ideology.
The concept of God, and the morality that goes with that particular religion/ideology, is wielded by bureaucratic, ideological institutions that use it as a cudgel to beat people into mental submission and keep them from thinking for themselves. I see God/religion as a controlling mechanism used by religious institutions and governments.
I can’t even think of the word God without thinking of the cruelty, inhumanity, and barbarism that’s been used in the name of God throughout history continuing to this very day.
I suppose I should feign more empathy and compassion and tolerance, but I would simply be feigning it so to protect delusional peoples feelings.
I had a friend who got angry and began yelling at me and pounding on the table because I told him I thought people who believe in God are delusional. That was right after he told me he was a devout Catholic. I guess it was OK for him to tell me about his beliefs, but it was not OK for me to tell him what I believed.
I guess he was shocked and angry at what I said, thought it was rude and inconsiderate, but I was just reacting to what he said and was equally shocked that my beliefs would upset him.
These God people are just God awful in my opinion.
But they are all holier than thou.
JT, thanks for reading and commenting! The "Theologian" in my title is not ironic, but a major element of my inquiry is whether the religious individual can avoid the ideological patterns that you detected in your Catholic friend!
For me, I have to say, if God doesn't exist, then what *is* going on when I believe in him? Projection, delusion, Hyper-active agency detection - these would be probable explanations. In fact, I do think a lot of what passes for religion can be chalked up to these.
The next step after this article on ideology would be for me to attempt to distinguish religion from ideology; and I see why you think that can't be done. But as long as I'm a "God person", I've got to seek for a way not to be "God awful," as you say. :)
You also said that believers in God lose credibility with you. That is a reason why I have made a big emphasis in my writing on believers speaking in terms and on the basis of scientific evidence and common human experience. The religious group of which I have been a part often urges that Christians only speak on the basis of Christian presuppositions, which to me is the definition of ideology. It will involve basing politics on biblical statements and never saying anything that someone who doesn't share the faith can agree with. So, that's one way that I'm trying to avoid ideology, even while religious. But I'll leave you to judge if I escape your critique of religion.
My one other caution is that atheism can function ideologically. It's a reason to try to see what is good in various religions, to look for the "smarties" in each religion and the best forms of it, and not only its worst forms - "the cruelty, inhumanity, and barbarism that's been used in the name of God." As a believer, I'll make an effort not to whitewash the dangers of religion and ideology. As a non-believer, I'd encourage you not to be too harsh on religion. Alain de Botton calls it atheism 2.0: "Of course, there's no God. Now let's get on to learning the best that religion has to offer without any worry that it might be true." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Oe6HUgrRlQ&t=93s&pp=ygULYXRoZWlzbSAyLjA%3D)
I'm glad you enjoyed the essay, and hopefully it can be an indication that not all religious believers are completely subject to the mind-control and ideology that often comes with religious faith. Go... - I almost finished with "God bless" - how about, All the best to you!