Intellectual PolarizationMany intelligent, forward-thinking people these days are falling victim to a term I’d like to just kind of throw out there…intellectual polarization.
An intellectually polarized person is basically a walking, breathing, self-replicating caricature; a mindless wind-up doll operating only in accordance to its programming as dictated by some arbitrary outpost of The Great Culture War.
While there have always been people who factor religious, metaphysical, or spiritual elements into their answers to life’s questions, lately there seems to be a growing rift between those who do and those who do not. Fundamentalists of any sort can be rather stubborn, and the writer of the Proverbs reminds them all, "It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way."
As history stampedes upon its fascinating course towards global unity it seems America is becoming an increasingly divided country. Once the land of untold opportunity and plenty for all, an overpopulated citizenry now struggles for ostensibly limited resources amidst deep socio-political and economic rifts under the psychological pressures of a glamorous and affluent culture. We find expressions of this division in a series of intellectual dichotomies: Rich vs. poor, Republican vs. Democrat, scientist vs. religionist, pro-life vs. pro-choice, peace vs. war, activist vs. apathetic, traditional vs. progressive, et al. The situation has deteriorated to the point that we can’t even mention the idea of God in class or utter the name of Darwin in seminary without some insecure citizen getting all up in arms.
In the false dichotomy of science vs. religion, the first and perhaps most major event concerning the separation clause and the origin-of-life debate was the famous Scopes “Monkey” Trial of 1925, whose intellectual poison was identifiable as early on as William Jennings Bryan’s polarizing opening statement that haunts us to this day: “If evolution wins, Christianity goes…” Unfortunately for those Americans who are not evolutionists or Christians, these words have tainted the context of the entire public education system ever since.
We can test gravity, measure electromagnetism and formulaically standardize the chemical composition of sulfuric acid, but the beginning of the universe was a one-time event and attempting to define its ultimate cause by simply studying the aftermath is not unlike attempting to define the exact attributes of a rock thrown into a pond by studying the outermost ripples in the water. Obviously, there are both inherent disadvantages in the situation, let alone the dwarfing magnitude behind the idea that perhaps Somebody threw the rock.
Despite the pervasive misconception that the two fields are mutually exclusive, science and religion actually represent complementary templates for human attempts at answering life’s basic questions. It is true that science deals with the realm of accessible, observable phenomenon, but a similar argument can be made for religion as well. Although genuine differences exist between them, science and religion do not deal with separate realms; rather, they are better represented as two branches of a common ancestor, and that common ancestor is truth. Of course it goes without saying that neither all science nor all religion is always true, and that some science and some religion is undeniably false.
A good general guideline is that the truth usually lays somewhere between two extremes, and in the final analysis the scientist and religionist are both in the same unsteady boat. After all, both are actively engaged in a search for answers, both work under the disadvantage of insurmountable difficulties and with the exception of the quantum physics department both believe in an objective reality that is what it is regardless of man’s opinions about the matter.
When taken to extremes due to intellectual polarization that is often emotionally-based, neither side wishes to yield, and as could be expected, religion generally demonizes science or any other field that disagrees with orthodox doctrine – and science is generally intolerant of religious, spiritual, or metaphysical explanations concerning the past, present, or future. On one end we have the dogmatic, intellectually polarized religionist, spewing subjective dogma that he or she doesn’t always necessarily know how to explain nor care to, and often embarrassingly attacking scientific discoveries that impart absolutely no challenge to their faith. On the other end we have the dogmatic, intellectually polarized scientist, refusing to acknowledge anything that cannot be tested empirically and often mistakenly basing an entire world view on the lack of testable, observable evidence for the religious, spiritual, or metaphysical aspects said to support material existence.
The history of science itself rests on a foundation of thinkers open-minded enough to embrace both religion and research. For many of these pioneers, the research was evidence of the religion. While another needless battle in The Great Culture War rages on, the important question is worth restating: Regardless of your education, your current belief system, your lifelong faith, your faith in reason or science or rationalism or religion or extraterrestrials or any pre-commitment to atheism or theism or agnosticism or whatever, are you intellectually polarized?
Joe, Bill, Sam and MeSo I’ve been thinking a lot the past couple days about the effects of belief on behavior, and what I mean by this is people don’t usually react to things in a vacuum, but through the lens of their own belief.
To give you an example, I have two friends, whom I’ll call Joe and Bill. In the event of any disagreement, what transpires between Joe and Bill should have no bearing between either myself and Joe, or myself and Bill; unless, of course, there is some sort of genuine conspiracy or other ulterior motive involved, which, in this case I can assure you there is not.
Joe and Bill, whom were decent buddies from high school to the early 30’s, had one of the most unfortunate experience friends can have, a landlord / tenant based falling-out, made worse by secondary elements of borrowed money that was repaid and an accusation of petty theft. The first I heard of the falling-out was just before Christmas of last year. Bill called while I was in a bookstore looking for a gift and told me about it. I demanded the abbreviated version as I couldn’t really respond much without pissing everyone else off, and besides, I had nothing to say. I just wanted the whole story, which I couldn’t get into any real detail about there.
Well I never really got much more than that out of BIll. I saw Joe Christmas night. Joe has, for the past few years, had Christmas and/or Thanksgiving and/or any other random occasion with us. In fact my family is a big fan of both Joe and Bill, more so Joe as he’s been able to be around lately. Christmas night I didn’t ask Joe for his side of the story, or about any of the details. Nor did I let on to the fact that I’d talked to Bill and gotten Bill’s brief run-down of the story. I didn’t want to bring any negativity into the chillest of holiday vibes.
I didn’t talk to Joe much if at all after Christmas. Maybe shot him a message on MySpace or left a voicemail message, but not an in-depth discussion involving the skateboard industry or whatever else the current scapegoat of the moment might be. That’s my fault, actually both of our fault.
Recently, another friend, whom we’ll call Sam, suggested that I call Joe. Sensing something, I asked Sam, "Why? Does he think I have some grudge against him ‘cuz of Bill or something? Because if so that’s bullshit…" Sam wouldn’t really comment one way or the other, he just quietly reassured me that I should call Joe.
So I did. And I could tell from the outset of the phone call that in fact Joe did seem to think I had a grudge. Or at least an imbalanced alliance with Bill. But neither was true. Joe used words for me that day that I know Joe only reserves for the most soulless of Orange County socialites. I had no choice but to laugh. I explained to Joe up and down that Bill hadn’t divulged much. I asked Joe for his side of the story and he gave it to me at length. Now I can’t take sides with anyone, because I myself have no idea what really happened. But being made to feel like a wedge between two lifelong friends was definitely not the feeling I was looking for.
The entire scenario illustrates perfectly how belief influences behavior. The whole time my friend Joe thought I was harboring a grudge with Bill against him, Joe himself was encouraging a grudge against me that I don’t think he was fully aware of. This belief of Joe’s influenced his behavior towards me, a lifelong friend.
So I guess the moral of the story is that if two of your good friends have a blowout, find out both sides of the story as soon as possible and establish your own neutrality with both of them, so they both know where you stand from the outset of their disagreement. The worst thing you can do is go silent with one or the other because even if your absence is inadvertent, as in this case, the silence can still mislead the person to think mistakenly that your disappearance from their life comes from taking sides.
Whatever happened between Joe and Bill aside, both are my homies, as is Sam, and I’m confident one day maybe things can work out again.
On Philosophical RelativismIt is common knowledge that certain behaviors we call ‘laws’ govern the physical workings of the universe and Earth. Water is always composed of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. Should this mixture vary, we no longer have water but something else. As long as we are under subordination of Earth’s atmosphere, anything you throw in the air will come down, hence, the law of gravity. Now be sure that if I am saying objective reality exists independent of humans, this is not the same as saying humans cannot influence objective reality. If I take a gun and kill somebody, I have just shaped objective reality. But try as I might afterwards, I could not ever shape or change the objective reality that I killed somebody. In these instances we easily grasp the concept of a reality that is what it is regardless of our beliefs, attitudes or assumptions, yet the minute we enter the realm of religion, morality or God all logic seems to go out the window.
Facts & Faulty ReasoningIt has been said that ignorance of the law is no excuse, and even that which we are unaware of or indifferent to is still applicable to us. We were all subject to gravity prior to its discovery. While going out to eat one night, I observed a situation that perfectly illustrates this principle. The following occurred at a restaurant where placing orders at the counter and seating yourself was the norm.
Wisdom from Sherlock HolmesThough we may believe in certain foundational truths we must never close our minds to the possibility that we may be wrong. Often a different perspective yields a different perception, or as the great Sherlock Holmes put it “…circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing…it may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different…there is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”
Is Truth Relative?If laws govern the physical universe independently of human belief, how absurd would it be to assume that if there were a spiritual realm it would operate on a dissimilar notion of randomness or individual interpretation? If our attitudes and beliefs cannot refute the fact that two hydrogens and one oxygen will always equal water, where does the idea come from that our attitudes and beliefs can define God, the cosmos or the afterlife?
Rethinking Religious LegalismIt’s said there is a letter of the law and a spirit of the law. The letter of the law is what a particular law actually says, for example, "No person shall cross the street on a red light." The spirit of the law is the behavior a particular law was designed to produce. The letter of the law should facilitate our understanding of the spirit of the law. In this case, the spirit of the law is to get people across the street safely.
It is possible to observe the spirit of the law while breaking some letter of it. Let’s say you’re at the corner of an empty intersection. After looking both ways, you don’t see traffic in either direction but the light is red and displays the obligatory "red hand" signal, which is the universal sign for "don’t cross this street." Reasoning that it is safe to cross an empty street, you walk. You have just broken the letter of the law, which states that no person shall cross the street on a red light, but you observed the spirit of the law, which is to get across the street safely.
On CommercialsSince I’m not an avid television watcher I haven’t been exposed to any candidacy commercials yet this season. However, I am very familiar with their typical format; they are usually along the same unethical lines as commercials from pharmaceutical companies endorsing the latest diet wonder drug, male enhancement product or sleep medication. With no specific piece in mind, I’d like to address a few of what I see as serious problems that are typical of political and pharmaceutical commercials in America today.