Recently, I listened to a pundit opine about the wave of voter suppression legislation being proposed in Republican state houses. The tone was of bewilderment at the logical futility of these attempts, based as they were on thoroughly debunked claims of voter fraud. And I was struck (though I shouldn’t have been) by a congruence, in fact a deep consilience, in the pundit’s choice of words. “Unproven claims…,” “untestable beliefs about the election…,” “they just know, in spite of the lack of evidence…,” “convinced beyond all reason…”
These are phrases one hears in science/religion debates. They’re descriptions of blind faith.
Religion, especially Christianity, has always had an influence in American politics. Those old enough to remember the Reagan era witnessed the inevitable result of that previously somewhat veiled connection in the overt embrace by the Republican party of religious ideology - specifically evangelical Christianity. The relationship has only gotten deeper, and more co-dependent, in the ensuing years.
But I don’t believe religion - broadly understood - is the problem here. Religion is many things; community, moral instruction, spirituality, even existential comfort. But in many cases it’s more than that.
Religious ideology often (but not always) includes an unequivocal belief in something transcendent, i.e. a Faith. Not “faith,” as in confidence or trust based on experience, but “Faith,” as in knowledge of Truth that supersedes all doubt and scrutiny. This can offer a distinction between systems of belief that heal, guide and console, and systems that allow for dangerous cascades of illogic. The latter of which physicist Steven Weinberg characterized this way,
“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.”
As suggested earlier, I would substitute “Faith” for religion in the above quote, but the point remains. Any ideology that presumes, as an epistemological precept, that one can know something simply by dint of passion, by the force of belief unbound by evidence, emboldens risky irrationality. And that opens the door to “good people” doing “evil.” Consider the following from the New Testament,
“For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” - 2 Corinthians 4:18
Taken as a metaphorical exhortation to see ourselves in a wider context, to allow for something bigger than ourselves, this passage is barely objectionable. But taken literally, as is the custom of many religious
denominations, it’s an assertion that the content of our beliefs is more reliable, and far more important, than the evidence of our own eyes. More fundamentally, it is a direct claim that things can be known, even if they cannot be “seen” (discovered through rational methodology). This may function well enough in the pew, but in real world matters such as politics, science, and figuring out where you left your car keys, it’s a profoundly irrational approach to knowledge.
Blind Faith allows for a cognitive framework in which belief seeks out confirmation, contradictions are ignored, and passions rule reason. Given the inclination, it’s a short mental hop from there to fascism, bigotry, and anti-science attitudes. If we set aside imputations of malice (and admittedly that gets harder every day), this must at least partially explain the outsized influence of the Big Lie propagated by Trump that now infects so many Republican legislators. How else to understand the apparent insanity of avowed defenders of the Constitution recognizing changing political conditions, and scrambling to restrict the vote of those generating the change?
“Good people [doing] evil,” indeed.
This brand of ignorance may be self-imposed and willful, but, as I implied earlier, it’s too easy to blame it all on malice. That allows rational actors to avoid the hard work of finding a path forward, and it lets the irrational off the hook of self-correction. This doesn’t mean we have to put up with bad-faith restrictions of rights and foolish propagation of lies. But it does suggest that, despite my figurative use of the word ‘evil,’ demonization of these people is both imprudent and counterproductive. It also points to a way forward: education.
Humans reason well enough when disciplined (we did, after all, put a man on the moon). But we don’t always do so instinctively, especially when passions are involved. The question then becomes how to encourage more cognitive discipline. Fortunately, full immersion in theories of knowledge (epistemology) is not required. Informal education through simple exposure to logical fallacies and modest analytical tools such as Carl Sagan’s “Baloney-detection kit” can sometimes put recalcitrant but still receptive people on the path to more coherent argument.
More rigid ignorance, on the other hand, may leave some as a lost cause, which suggests formal education, i.e., making sure their children are not lost as well. The ability to think critically and rationally is something that should be taught from a very young age.
Certainly, comprehensive remediation of the kind of ignorance that allows for attacks on minorities, belief in lunatic conspiracies, and the storming of the Constitutional seat of power - while invoking the
Constitution, no less - is hard to imagine. Ignorance has always been with us, and Trump encouraged its more virulent forms to come storming out of the closet. This, bolstered by the nearly ubiquitous penetration of politics into conservative Evangelical churches, has left ideas like ‘common sense’ and ‘the wisdom of the average American’ in a somewhat battered condition. But I’m hopeful that there’s still plenty of it out there. It just needs to be nurtured and exercised.
Social science tells us that when engaging the contrary opinions of others the Stick hardly ever works. Telling people they’re wrong just forces them to entrench and resist. What we’re left with, then, is the Carrot. Some will refuse it, but many just don’t know how hungry they are.