Now we approach very near to the root of the problem.
The Enlightenment thinkers (then and now) tell us that the human condition can be improved by general education and the general application of rationality. This programme seems to have stalled, resulting in observations on "the death of Modernity". After a century of gains in the dissemination of literacy and other knowledge, human rights and the average standard of living, these indexes have levelled off or are even declining.
from "a kind of Pontius Pilate feeling"
by Jay Hanson (04/01/97)
"What is man’s (sic) biggest challenge? Science, medicine, law, engineering -- these all have their little conundrums. But where human welfare is concerned, their potential payoffs are meagre. If technology doubles food production and conquers environmental threats, if the genome is sequenced and cancer cured, our society will still fall terribly short on the most basic measures of human well-being -- education, health, justice, poverty and crime prevention.
When it comes to our most important shared objectives, it is fair to say that all challenges but one are mere distractions from the central priority: the ancient, elementary problem of how to organize ourselves more effectively. How, in other words, to achieve good government. ...
Good government has everything to do with rationality -- a quality whose obvious benefits are often exploited by individuals in pursuing their self-interest. But somehow, when individuals aggregate into large groups, the usefulness of rationality is forgotten, and the gift of human intelligence is squandered. ...
Many adore unrestricted “free markets” and abhor “the heavy hand” of government but everyone should know this is an intellectually vacuous ideology. ...
Fundamental to the democratic ideal is another kind of free market -- the “marketplace of ideas,” where clashing ideas vie against each other and the strongest survive. (Well, there's a problem here, in defining "strongest". Wittenberg desires that the ideas most effective in leading to human happiness should prosper. In reality, those which are easy to understand, which seem plausible and which make the believer feel good will be more successful. Cf. Leo Strauss' critique of modernity. Education will help here -- maybe even a lot, but I don't know how sure we can be that this will be sufficient.) But that marketplace -- supposedly one of the major benefits of freedom of speech -- is not a very bustling place at all in our society. Of the few who study and debate public policy issues, virtually all represent special interests -- not the public interest. Most individuals applying mental energy to public policy problems, in other words, are paid for their efforts by biased parties.
That the core topic of good government (as opposed to specific issues or political contests) is virtually nowhere on the national debate agenda is a reflection of how little we even attempt to harness human intelligence to social ends. This does not simply reflect a bizarre inattention to the things that matter to us. Something more radical is involved, an idea that contradicts the principles of democracy and the very idea of “good government”: the view that intellect is not a useful guide for understanding the world.
The way our culture has come to be, many of us have adopted an outlook in which truth, right, wrong are not meaningful concepts. We no longer attempt to evaluate conflicting points of view. All opinions are considered legitimate. It is ironic that this point of view has long been widespread even in universities, where one would think the authority of intellect would be on relatively firm footing. ...
What is amazing is how intellectually easy it is to recognize feasible, practical initiatives that would upgrade the rationality of government, and thereby the social conditions under which we all live. A functioning “marketplace of ideas,” if only we had such a thing, might yield such directions. But as things stand, political debate is oblivious to rudimentary civic insights. Some are listed here:"
"... as the 17th-century English churchman and poet Henry Aldrich pointed out in his "Reasons for Drinking," often we make up our minds first, and find "reasons" only later:
... no matter how fashionable it may be to "diss" reason, let's not be carried away. Strong emotion can be wonderful, especially when it involves love. But it can also be horrible, as when it calls forth hatred, fear, or violence. In any event, one doesn't have to idolize Greek-style rationality to recognize that excesses of unreason typically have little to recommend themselves, and much misery to answer for. ...
The brain's purpose is to direct our internal organs and our external behavior in a way that maximizes our evolutionary success. That's it. Given this, it is remarkable that the human mind is good at solving any problems whatsoever, beyond 'Who should I mate with?', 'What is that guy up to?', 'How can I help my kid?', 'Where are the antelopes hanging out at this time of year?' There is nothing in the biological specifications for brain-building that calls for a device capable of high-powered reasoning, or of solving abstract problems, or even providing an accurate picture of the "outside" world, beyond what is needed to enable its possessors to thrive and reproduce. ...
Why is the second ("sociological") problem set so easy, and the first (abstract) so difficult? This question has been intensively studied by the evolutionary psychologist Leda Cosmides. Her answer is that the key isn't logic itself -- after all, the two problems are logically equivalent -- but how they are positioned in a world of social and biological reality. Thus, whereas the first is a matter of pure reason, disconnected from reality, the second plays into issues of truth telling and the detection of social cheaters. The human mind, Cosmides points out, is not adapted to solve rarified problems of logic, but is quite refined and powerful when it comes to dealing with matters of cheating and deception. In short, our rationality is bounded by what our brains were constructed -- that is, evolved -- to do."
"Just wanted to send you a note to say that if someone publicized that they were going to kidnap your wife, [name], and your kids [names], rape them brutally, kill them, throw them in a trashcan, and then laugh and brag about it, then you just might have just a hint of the outrage that you have caused many good people."Now then ... according to all objective tests, and for something over two-thirds of the world's people, the Host is just (in the impolite phrasing of various non-Christians in this discussion) a "cracker", and equating irreverant handling of said cracker with the violent murders of one's loved ones is bizarre, to say the very least. (I would personally go further and say that it represents a serious disconnect with reality.)
