The
weight of belief is heavier than most of us know. Belief chains us to patterns
of thought and behavior. Despite lacking knowledge, we cling to our beliefs in
the attempt to give stability and security to our inner lives. I am not talking
about believing where you parked your car, what you mother’s name is, or the
existence of global warming. For all these things we have common or scientific
ways of coming to a reasonable set of beliefs. In some matters it is hard to
know how one could be wrong, for example, in believing that 2+2=4, that my name
is Jeff Mason, or that humans live on the planet earth. In other cases, our
beliefs are not so certain. To hold the former with conviction is reasonable,
and the latter with a lesser degree of certainty. After that, there are many
other things about which our beliefs are less and less certain.
One
of the main features of our beliefs is that they aim at the truth, and we hold
our beliefs to express true opinions. As pointed out long ago, it would be very
odd to say that one believes something, but not that it is true. So belief
implicates truth, without necessarily grasping it in particular cases. What
beliefs do, however, is to stick the mind to ideas as if they were true, and in
such a way as to render them inert. Questioning things takes mental effort and
discombobulates people who simply want to get on with their lives without
thinking too much. Indeed, if our minds were not so fastened to a set of stable
beliefs, it would be hard to navigate the world. We might end up like the great
ancient skeptic Pyrrho, who, it is said, avoided cliffs and charging chariots
only through the offices of his not-so-skeptical disciples.
Beliefs,
then, are ideas about what is considered true that remain relatively stable
through time and provide a compass for our lives. We act on our beliefs just as
surely as knowledge. Subjectively there is very little difference between them,
but, of course, it remains true that beliefs might not turn out to be true.
Nevertheless, we often forgot this, and confuse belief with knowledge. People
act on their beliefs as if they were certainly true, and indeed, as if
believing something strongly enough makes it true.
The
sources of belief are multiple, and not all of them are terribly respectable.
We are in the dependent position of coming into the world as babies, waiting to
be impressed by the sights, sounds, and, most importantly, by the people who
guide and protect us. Not being born with beliefs, but with a capacity, and
even a necessity to form them, we unquestioningly accept what others tell us.
As little children, we trust our elders because we have no choice. We are
praised or punished for our behavior according to the beliefs of the very local
culture into which, and out of which, we emerge.
So
what has this to do with skepticism and freedom? Skepticism, as we know, has a
bad reputation in many quarters. Habits of questioning cause discomfort in
those who have set opinions. Their attitude is one of “I know what I believe,
and I will stick to that no matter what.” Furthermore, to such people, the
skeptic appears as a threat to settled patterns of thought, action and
attitude. More to the point, skepticism allows and even demands the questioning
of all authorities, and authorities do not like such questioning. If everyone
started making up their own minds about everything, it is not clear how any authority
could maintain the uniformity of thought that it desires.
My
view is that the many beliefs that people hold without questioning are so many
shackles of the mind. Our beliefs hold us captive, and we do not even know it.
This is why the cultivation of a skeptical attitude is so important for the
advance of freedom in the world. The skeptic mind is a free mind. I am not
speaking of radical skepticism about the unreality of the world, our bodies, or
even the truths of mathematics. These ‘doubts’ are a strategic maneuver
designed to sharpen a theory of knowledge. Reasonable skepticism concerns the
opinions people hold with a strength that is not warranted by the evidence.
One
of the main obstacles to freeing the mind from its shackles of belief is the desire
for certainty. Give up this desire and it is possible to explore the universe
with an open mind. This is particularly true with religious and political
beliefs that are more a matter of sheer conviction than fact. Belief is a
choice, and a choice that rules out alternative views and ways of thinking.
Possessing too many beliefs prevents people from thinking outside the box, and
it is just this sort of thinking that skepticism encourages. No wonder, then,
that Dante, who was working with the closed mind of the Middle Ages, provides
skeptics with their own special place in Hell.
However,
when one gives up the desire for certainty and opens the mind to questioning
and inquiry, then one feels the exhilaration described by J.L.Austin when he
spoke of the thrill we experience feeling the firm ground of prejudice slipping
away beneath our feet. Skeptic freedom is a freedom of the mind to explore an
open-ended and inexhaustible universe without prejudice and blinkers. It may
not always be comfortable, and it may not always bring happiness, but, then,
neither does the straight jacket of belief.
No comments:
Post a Comment