We are suckers for
narratives told by mainstream authorities. A large fraction of us
will tend to believe any nonsense they pitch, whenever we keep
hearing the same story told over and over again.
Let us imagine an
alternate history in which suspected presidential assassin Lee Harvey
Oswald was not killed by Jack Ruby. Imagine that most of the TV shows
and newspapers began telling us the same story: that Lee Harvey
Oswald was an innocent patsy set up by some dark conspiracy to
assassinate president John Kennedy. Imagine if Lee Harvey Oswald
became a popular celebrity, who went on lots of television talk
shows, talking about how he had been framed for the murder of John
Kennedy. Imagine if the mainstream media had nothing but nice things
to say about Lee Harvey Oswald.
Then on one dark and
rainy night, you might open the door of your house, and see on your
porch Lee Harvey Oswald pointing at you a Mannlicher–Carcano rifle.
What would you say? Given all the media brainwashing you had been
exposed to, there's a significant chance you would say something like
this:
Hi,
Lee! Oh, I see you bought me a rifle as a gift. How nice of you! Come
in out of the rain, and have a cup of coffee.
Our tendency to
believe any nonsense that is spouted by revered authorities was shown
in the prelude to the American invasion of Iraq in March 2013. The
government began telling us silly scare stories that were false.
President George W. Bush asserted again and again that Iraq had
terrifying weapons of mass destruction. A study found that Bush made 232 false statements about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, along with 28 false statements about Iraqi links to Al Qaeda. Some of the claims were
absurd, such as his February 6, 2003 statement making it sound as if
there was a threat of Iraq releasing aerial drones that would spray
biological weapons on the United States. The claim was utterly
laughable, because at the time the United States had the mightiest
air force in the world, and Iraq's air force was almost nonexistent.
Bush's claims on
Iraq's weapons were false, and some of his scare stories were
downright ridiculous. But the American people were pushovers for the
endless narrative repetition. By the time the war was launched, the
White House had persuaded most Americans that the toothless Iraq was
a terrifying threat. It was further evidence that large fractions of
the population will believe false or absurd statements as long as
they are dogmatically proclaimed by respected authorities.
It is amazing that
most of the American people fell “hook, line and sinker” for the
government's false claims about Iraq weapons of mass destruction. We
should have learned a lesson from the experience of the Vietnam war,
during which administrations (both Democratic and Republican) fed us
a steady stream of outrageous lies for more than 8 years. From such
an experience we should have learned to have been more distrustful of
authorities in high places.
It is interesting to
imagine an alternate reality in which astrologers were in charge of
astronomy departments at universities. Astrology is a belief system
based on the idea that the stars and planets exert some occult mystical influence on human affairs. You might think that
if the departments of astronomy at colleges and universities were all
controlled by astrologers, that most of us would shake our heads and
ask: what has gone wrong with our astronomy departments?
But here is how
things would probably work. Having abundant government and university
funding, the astrologer professors of astronomy would be able to
produce lots of papers trying to back up their claims. Such
astrologers would use expensive computers to examine historical data,
looking for particular events that were consistent with what
astrology predicted on such a date. Having all of human history to
search through, and tons of time to spend looking for matches, the
professors would no doubt find some matches. Such matches between
historical facts and astrological predictions would be described in
scientific papers published by the astrologer professors. Such
professors would triumphantly describe such evidence as decisive
proof of the claims of astrology, that the stars and planets exert a
mystical influence on human affairs. Almost any group with
enthusiastic adherents and large amounts of funding can produce
superficially persuasive evidence to back up its favored doctrines.
If such astrologists
controlled the astronomy departments at our colleges and
universities, and they were to get all their papers published in the
scientific journals, and the mainstream media reported extensively on
such papers, then probably most of the American people would believe
in astrology. We would be captives of the endlessly repeated
official narrative. Similarly, most Americans would believe in
homeopathy if homepathy enthusiasts controlled the medical colleges.
When a mainstream
authority holds the levers of powers and influence, it can
effectively use various ad hominem techniques to marginalize
the critics who point out gaps in the logic or evidence presented by
that authority. So during the run-up to the start of the Iraq war in
2003, there was a great chorus of establishment voices denouncing
critics of the unprovoked invasion as “peaceniks,” “pacifists,”
"anti-American," "appeasers,” and “unpatriotic.” Similar tactics are used by modern authorities who try to paint as “enemies of science” anyone
who questions some weakly established truth claim of a scientist.
It seems that almost
any nonsensical doctrine could achieve large-scale acceptance just as
long as it won large funding to push its message and got its
adherents to sit in positions of power and influence. If the
authorities today told us (as they did around 1500) that witches were
a grave peril causing all kinds of social problems, then many an
average Joe would now be arguing: hey, let's solve more of our
problems, by burning more witches.
Mainstream
authorities help to cast a spell on us by talking in dense jargon
that may sound very impressive and learned, even if it states ideas
that are poorly substantiated. But almost any nonsensical idea may
sound impressive if it is stated in very technical language filled with
jargon. A scientist would probably convince many that there is a
secret world of life inside a hollow planet Earth, if the scientist
stated the idea in a paper filled with dense jargon, twelve-letter
words, and esoteric mathematical equations.
Authorities prod the sheeple to parrot the official line
Two classic
psychology experiments have shown how prone we are to conform with
authority, “tow the line” and go with the herd, even when doing
such a thing makes no sense or contradicts the evidence of our own
eyes. One such experiment is the Asch experiment. In that
experiment a group of nine people were asked to judge which of the
three lines in a rectangle on the right was a match for the single
line in the rectangle on the left.
The first eight
people would always give the same wrong answer, because they were
confederates of the experimenter, and had been told beforehand to
give such an answer. The only person really being tested was the last
of the nine to be asked about which line on the right rectangle matched
the line on the left rectangle. Even though it was quite obvious to the
eye that the answer by the eight was wrong, about one-third of the
participants (the ninth person to be asked) gave the wrong answer,
conforming to the other eight. In the control group, in which only a
single person was asked without the other 8 present, less than 1%
gave the wrong answer. The lesson of the experiment: large fractions
of us may judge or state illogically when we feel social pressure to
conform to some majority or authoritative opinion.
Another relevant experiment was the famous Milgram experiment. Participants were told to deliver electric shocks to an unseen person in another room, whenever the person failed at some verbal task he was given. The participants were told by a scientist figure in a white coat to deliver progressively more dangerous electric shocks to the unseen person in another room. If the participants objected to delivering such shocks, they were simply told something like, “Please continue” or “It is absolutely essential that you continue” or “You have no other choice but to continue.” Two-thirds (65%) of the participants delivered what they thought was a 450-volt shock to the person in another room, even though on the machinery they were using, that level was marked “Danger – severe shock.” The person in the other room wasn't actually being shocked, and the experiment was purely to test the obedience level of the person who thought he was delivering shocks.
Another relevant experiment was the famous Milgram experiment. Participants were told to deliver electric shocks to an unseen person in another room, whenever the person failed at some verbal task he was given. The participants were told by a scientist figure in a white coat to deliver progressively more dangerous electric shocks to the unseen person in another room. If the participants objected to delivering such shocks, they were simply told something like, “Please continue” or “It is absolutely essential that you continue” or “You have no other choice but to continue.” Two-thirds (65%) of the participants delivered what they thought was a 450-volt shock to the person in another room, even though on the machinery they were using, that level was marked “Danger – severe shock.” The person in the other room wasn't actually being shocked, and the experiment was purely to test the obedience level of the person who thought he was delivering shocks.
The Milgram
experiment is usually described as if it was only dealing with
obedience, but it also can be interpreted as telling us that most
people are pushovers who will believe something illogical when some
scientific authority asserts it. Those who delivered what they
thought was a 450-volt shock were apparently thinking things like, “I
don't have any choice but to continue,” or “Even the severe shock
won't hurt the person,” even though such beliefs made no sense
given the circumstances and the labels on the machinery. People who
heard about the Milgram experiment thought to themselves things like,
“So if there's ever some evil Nazi-like scientist who wants me to
do bad things, I shouldn't listen to him.” They should have been
making a much more general conclusion, such as, “People are way too
trustful of scientific authorities – we should question their
claims, and accept nothing on the basis of authority.”
Some may say: but
once something gets very popular in the universities and colleges,
then surely it is something we can believe in. But that's not
necessarily so. The 2016 book Imbeciles by Adam Cohen tells
the story of the forced government sterilization of Carrie Buck.
Carrie Buck was a woman of normal intelligence who was forcibly
sterilized by the government in 1927, on the claimed grounds that she
was “feeble-minded.” This was done under a Virginia law passed
when eugenics was extremely popular in colleges and universities.
Advocates of eugenics argued on Darwinian grounds that those with
inferior genes should be sterilized to preserve the survival of the
fittest. The book says this on page 4: “Eugenics was taught at 376
universities and colleges, including Harvard, Columbia, Berkeley, and
Cornell.” The book notes that many professors were ardent supporters
of eugenics, which went out of style after its ideas reached a climax
under the Nazis.
The case of Carrie
Buck went before the United States Supreme Court, which ruled 8-1 in
1927 that Carrie Buck (a woman of normal intelligence) should be
forcibly sterilized. Citing eugenics with approval, the
distinguished justice Oliver Wendell Homes Jr. wrote in favor of the
decision, in a decision that was quoted by a Nazi in the Nuremberg
trial, who cited it as a kind of legal inspiration. Thousands were
forcibly sterilized under the Virginia law, and the forced
sterilizations continued until 1972. The Buck case shows how there
can be diverse layers of authority that all are infected with the
same false idea (something also shown by the 2003 WMD-lies fiasco, where diverse types of authorities kept feeding us the same falsehoods).
The reason why we
should not trust a doctrine purely because it is taught extensively
in colleges and universities is that our academic ivory towers are
very prone to become ideological enclaves, where sociological
effects, tribal enthusiasms and groupthink may cause some dubious
doctrine to become enshrined as some “darling of the tribe.”
That's what happened with eugenics for decades, and the same thing
has happened to quite a few dubious doctrines that continue to enjoy
undeserved popularity in academic circles.
Part of the problem
is what I might call the “pinnacle perspective.” A person using
this perspective will regard our current state as being the pinnacle
of human progress. He may think: we can't be too far wrong,
because we're at the pinnacle of human progress. The problem with
such a perspective is that you could have thought in exactly such a
way 500 years ago or 200 years ago. We can imagine someone during the
witch-burning craze around 1500 reasoning: we can't be too far off
the mark, because we're at the pinnacle of human progress. Such a
person would have been very wrong indeed. To help cure
yourself of the pinnacle perspective, imagine some human civilization
100,000 years in the future. What will they think about our current
ideas about morality, life, and Mind? They will probably think that
our ideas are largely primitive foolishness. After taking such a
perspective, you may apply the proper scrutiny to the dogmatic claims
of today's authorities.
Do not believe
anything merely because a president, a preacher or a professor
proclaimed it, but subject all of their claims to critical scrutiny.
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