Science Junkie-December 12, 2010
My first column focused on the delusions surrounding and
permeating so-called “complementary and alternative medicine,” which, in fact,
is neither complementary nor alternative, just plain wrong. But the bigger game
I’m stalking, and will be for much of 2011, is the human predisposition to
embrace ideology in all its varied and grotesque forms. Let’s face it, we
humans are natural-born ideologues who can’t help banding together and proudly
proclaiming the absolute truth and cosmic importance of just about any damn
nonsense you can think of. What makes this a problem -- arguably the major
problem -- is that ideology is no ally of truth. Enemy of reality and science
is more like it. And now that political and religious ideologies are once again
posing an imminent threat to the survival of civilization, it seems like a good
time to obsess about the problem.
Naturally, ideologues of all stripes vehemently dispute
being characterized as delusional enemies of truth, and they typically defend
themselves with all the rhetorical and political weapons at their disposal.
Among other cheap but effective tactics, their arsenal consists of passionate
emotion (in inverse proportion to facts), a litany of logical fallacies,
reducing complex issues to superficial slogans, blatant denial of mountains of
established evidence, and outright lies. (Wow, I just described Glenn Beck!) Oh
yeah, and propaganda, widely broadcast by their witting and unwitting allies in
the mainstream media. And of course one of their tried and true weapons,
character assassination.
The current plague of religious, political, alt-med, and new
age ideologues always seem to trust that a hodgepodge of non sequiturs and
distortions will somehow add up to a persuasive argument. And guess what? In
the United States, the hodgepodge works, repeatedly, thanks to the combined
power of money, advertising and public relations, and the unfailing complicity of
the ideologues‘ chief ally, a lazy, careless, incompetent, bought-and-paid-for
mainstream media that reflexively thinks it has done its job by giving equal
time to both sides of an argument. Hey, “fair-and-balanced” mainstream media,
here’s a simple take-home message: The truth does not automatically lie half
way between two opposing views; sometimes one side is right and the other side
is wrong, even criminally wrong. That’s why journalists in the best tradition
are critical thinkers and fact-finders, a role most of you seem to have all but
abandoned in the interest of pandering to your corporate masters and the
shallow, uninformed prejudices of an angry public -- the Fox News/Tea Party
demographic -- that increasingly resents “elite” expert opinion. So remember
this, media hacks, there are good reasons we don’t decide questions of fact at
the ballot box.
All this leads me to think that one of the strangest things
about us human mammals is our proudly professed respect for truth, which of
course is belied by our readiness to believe damn near anything. We incessantly
pay lip service to truth, jump on it to our advantage whenever we can, and
often claim to have privileged access to it. But we also aggressively deny it
when it conflicts with our ideological commitments. I suggest that the reason
for this is that ideology is, first and foremost, a powerful emotional
commitment shared by a group with an agenda. Ideology corrupts and blinds
people, causes them to waste their smarts defending the indefensible with
contrived and specious arguments (here’s a wonderful
example at PZ Myers’ blog). In contrast, determining what is factual is
usually a painstaking, rational, incremental process. And therein lies the
Achilles heel of science: Science is constrained by reality; it is difficult
and demanding, complex and nuanced, and does not yield absolute certainty but
provides only provisional answers couched in terms of probabilities. In a
debate with a cocksure, glib ideologue playing to an impatient audience looking
for reassuring, simple answers, the honest scientist, with her commitment to
accuracy and tolerance for uncertainty, is all but doomed. Unless the audience
is educated and scientifically literate.
So that’s ideology, the innate human tendency to embrace the
belief system of an identified group and passionately adhere to and defend
those beliefs, even in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence. It is
the curse of our age, and more so in this country than almost anywhere else
outside the Islamic world. And that’s what makes us so dangerous to ourselves
and others; that’s why the rest of the industrialized world breathed a huge
sigh of relief when Obama won but now fears a looming right-wing takeover of
our government. It has already happened in a majority of U.S. states, and right
now it is a very real possibility at the national level in 2012.
In 2008 Candidate Barack Obama came across as a shining
inspiration to millions. He also encouraged millions of serious, well-informed,
and thoughtful people to believe something more prosaic but ultimately much
more important: He persuaded us that he would govern and communicate like an
adult and not like the blinkered, pandering, faux-patriotic, scheming,
right-wing demagogues we were used to. I, for one, was hopeful that
executive-branch decisions and policies under the Obama administration would be
based on evidence and reason rather than the tangled web of patently ridiculous
right-wing ideologies and lies that had recently come to define and dominate
U.S. politics and political discourse. I even entertained the hope that during
eight years of Obama, and then beyond, Democrats would rule, and a mature,
rational and transparent approach to governance and public communication would
spread to the legislative and judicial branches. I was audaciously hopeful,
along with Robert
Kuttner, that Obama would be a transformative figure, a role model leading
a renaissance of rationality, and that maybe the tide might begin to turn in
the direction of sanity and the U.S. would become a good citizen of the world,
no longer the neocon bully in the schoolyard.
Obama’s early appointments to science agencies and his
sensible approaches to education and climate change seemed to confirm my
expectations; but then there were those higher-level appointments that left me
wondering. Still, his election seemed such a breath of fresh air that I wanted
to give him the benefit of the doubt despite economist and Nobel laureate Paul
Krugman’s repeated warnings that Obama’s economic team was doing far too little
to mitigate our economic problems. Meanwhile, as the dogmatic braying and
belligerent obstructionism on the other side became a deafening roar, Obama
calmly went on pursuing the chimera of bipartisanship, when anyone with eyes
and ears realized that was futile.
Now fast-forward to the debacle of the midterm elections.
Kuttner and most progressives have lost all their early confidence in Obama’s
potential to lead us out of the ideological morass. What can he be thinking?
Why does he seem bent on trying to appease the coalition of right-wing
ideologues and their corporate sponsors? Granted, it’s important to be calm and
reasonable, but there comes a point when successful leadership demands standing
up to sociopathic bullies. Rarely, if ever, has such leadership been more
desperately needed, and all signs are that it is sorely lacking. Obama needed
to be engaging politically, fighting back, naming and shaming the liars, making
a compelling case for his agenda, building trust. What happened to the dynamic
communicator who won the election?
The great culture war that is tearing this country apart is
being waged on many fronts, and the good guys -- the reality-based community --
are at a tremendous disadvantage. The ideologues waging this war from the right
operate like a team of clever, unscrupulous lawyers employing every tactic they
can get away with -- which is just about anything -- to influence the jury
(body politic). The other side is still trying to engage in reasoned debate and
doesn’t seem to be aware that it’s losing the war, or even that it’s in a war.
Even scientific facts can’t stand up against the right’s relentless assault on
reason and our democratic values. At the time he was elected I thought Obama
was likely to be our last chance, and he seemed to offer a pretty good chance,
considering how badly the Bush thugs had messed up.
Now I see a glass that is half empty and leaking like a
sieve. What Republigoons are doing has been in-your-face obvious since Obama
took office, and their consistent, lock-step obstructionism is not only
despicable but treacherous. They have not been secretive about their goal: to
take over by destroying the president, and damn the cost in human suffering.
And this president, with his bipartisan delusions and creepy, untroubled,
above-it-all demeanor, seems oblivious. And the American people -- hell, they are
oblivious and spectacularly easy to manipulate.
I
have never experienced anything like this: one major political party
fanatically dedicated to rending the social fabric of a functioning nation.
Obama and his advisors could have prevented this, but they chose to try to
placate the monstrosity known as the Republican Party when anyone with two or
three undamaged brain cells could see that that course of action was futile and
self-destructive.
Okay, that’s enough for one rant. Next time I will discuss
and analyze several specific, illuminating examples of ideology in action and
show how and why it causes so much harm. I even plan to skewer the dumbest
ideology of all, young-earth creationism. Till then, here’s wishing you the
happiest of holidays and an epic and triumphant New Year, to quote my friend
Don Ardell, the Well Infidel.