Tag Archives: group-think

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Epistemic closure and close-mindedness has been one of my “obsessions” in the six years I’ve been blogging. There is no doubt that this is because I have spent my life in that prison and this “blathering” is my feeble effort to talk/think/write my way out of it. But this effort is teaching me that there is no escape…or as Sartre put it in his short story, “No Exit,”…for we are confined to live in the world of appearance where we can only at best, “see through a glass darkly,” trusting that there is some, “Divinity that doeth shape our ends, rough hew them how we may.” And I do have faith in that Divinity but the “faith” and the “Divinity” itself is of a different stripe than the one I was presented with by the happenstance of birth. Accepting this world of limitations is slow and tedious and one is always dragged there kicking and screaming, for the ego wants to cling to the illusion that it is completely in control. Accepting life in this world of incomplete knowledge…”seeing darkly”…is what I think the Biblical “fall” was about, the “fall” from the Uroborous of innocence into the world of cognition.

In the following quotation from Vaclav Havel’s 1986 book of essays, “Living in Truth,” we see his description of the, “post-totalitarian state” that he lived through in Czechoslovakia in the late 1980’s, leading to the Velvet Revolution which he led in 1992. By the term, “post-totalitarian state” Havel was referring to a subtle form of totalitarianism which purports to no longer be totalitarian but only because the system of bondage has become systematized so finely that it is not readily recognized. It brings to mind an observation made by psychologist B.F. Skinner who, in his book, “Beyond Freedom and Dignity,” declared that the most pernicious form of slavery is one which is so subtle that it does not breed revolt. In Havel’s description we find a description of epistemic closure on the group level which closely parallels the epistemic closure of the individuals who have been consumed by “group think,” a dark cloud with whom they have a symbiotic relationship. (I will address the individual dimension of this problem in my next post.)

The post-industrial system touches people at every step, but it does so with its ideological gloves on. This is why life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies, government by bureaucracy is called popular government, the working class is enslaved in the name of the working class, the complete degradation of the individual is presented as his or her ultimate liberation, depriving people of information is called making it available; the use of power to manipulate is called the public control of power, and the arbitrary abuse of power is called observing the legal code; the repression of culture is called its development; the expansion of imperial influence is presented as support for the oppressed; the lack of free expression becomes the highest form of freedom; farcical election become the highest form of democracy; banning independent thought becomes the most scientific of world views, military occupation becomes fraternal assistance. Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing. (pg. 44-45, Vaclav Havel, “Living in Truth.”)

Confessions of an Hypocrite

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When “god talk” is bouncing around in your head–words like “Jesus”, or “Holy Spirit” or “humility” or “the Bible”– it is really intoxicating! I know, been there, done that. It provides one the exquisite delight of feeling pious and righteous, knowing that one is “saved” and, very importantly, knowing that so many others are not. This cognitive experience allows one to live in a narrowly defined, safe world of “like minded souls” who are subject to the same cultural bondage, all of which have signed an unconscious bond to never question the premises of their mindset that would bring the “light of day” to their darkness and expose them to their hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is subtle. Once again, been there and done that and technically still am! Hypocrisy is being trapped in performance art, a performance which is carefully scripted by the “song and dance” of one’s spiritual tradition which is very comforting as long as one does not allow that cursed “light of the day”, aka “the Holy Spirit” to intervene and show them that their faith was only a perfunctory performance in compliance with those lofty notions cavorting about in their head. What is missing is the wisdom of the Apostle Paul who noted that the Spirit of God, if allowed to, will cut into the depths of the heart and there serve as, “a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” But if that dangerous and damning insight is permitted, one would have to recognize the sham of his faith which would then allow the “performance art” of faith to dissolve into meaningful expression. But this is very painful as it requires the disillusionment, the anguishing experience of realizing that one has not been as pious as he imagined himself to be and then recognize and experience the grace of God which covers even that duplicity! But if you “know” you are humble, the thought itself will deter you from allowing the experience of humility to wash over you. T. S. Eliot realized this when he noted, “The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility. And humility is endless.” Eliot recognized what I like to call the experience of “humility-ization” being operable in one’s life, as “humility” is nothing that can be acquired. If you think you have “acquired” it…as I once thought I had…you are up to your halo in hypocrisy!

We are all “actors on the stage of life, who with his fear have been put beside his part” and finding the courage to recognize this can provide an opportunity for spiritual growth. It requires, however, the relinquishment of the comfort zone provided by the cerebral “letter of the law” and a willingness to engage a heart which until this point has been dormant, “bronzed o’er so that it is proof and bulwark against sense.” Shakespeare knew that a heart which has been customized, or enculturated, into mere rote performance is one that is a rigid defense network against “sense” or feeling. In the same scene, he implored his mother to listen to him with a heart “made of penetrable stuff”.

Often persons of faith do not have hearts made of “penetrable stuff.” In my case I was “christianized”, or indoctrinated with Christian teachings so that there was no room left for an open heart to make the dogma of the Christian teachings meaningful in my life, to allow them to filter down from my head into my heart. In a sense, there was no heart as there can be no real heart until the circumstances of life have intervened and made in vulnerable, i.e. “full of penetrable stuff.” Now, certainly I have always had a heart but a “heart” is an infinite dimension of our human experience…if we allow it to be. It is so easy and convenient to allow it to ossify with the dogma that our tribe has provided us which leaves us as nothing more than the walking dead. In fact, in terms of developmental psychology, our “heart” must ossify for us to join the structure of the human race. But then in time to come there are opportunities to allow this ossification to break down under the influence of what my spiritual tradition calls the “Spirit of God.” But this is painful and disillusioning and so we usually decline to listen to that “still small voice” that is always whispering to us and therefore remain in the comfortable darkness of dogma. As W. H. Auden put it, “And Truth met him, and held out her hand. But he clung in panic to his tall beliefs and shrank away like an ill-treated child.”

In conclusion, you have just read something from the heart of an admitted hypocrite. For, as long as we are human, we will be an “actor” to some degree and what makes hypocrisy such a problem is merely the inability/unwillingness to acknowledge it. Self-reflection, that God-given capacity in our fore-brain is painful when our ego-driven identity is predicated upon disallowing it. If you want to see an example, pay attention to American politics right now.

Embedded in our Own Thinking

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Emily Dickinson noted in one of her poems the person who “is too near himself to see himself distinctly.” This is one way of describing the human dilemma of being embedded in a private, self-referential system of thought, which can also be described as “embedded in his own thinking.” This is best illustrated in someone who merits the term “delusional” and is, perhaps, wearing a tin foil hat to keep out the rays from “out there” which are seeking to influence his mind. But it is possible to find a group of people with the same delusional way of thinking which will then provide the validation to an individual who has just ventured over into the delusional realm. The only thing that makes this group delusional is that their shared delusion is different from the delusion of the shared reality of the larger collective in which they happen to be situated.

Yes, this smacks of the demon “relativism” that I was taught to eschew in my fundamentalist youth and, yes, carried to an extreme one can find himself without any grounding and without any sense of reality and come unglued in the dark abyss of nihilism. But taking that direction is not necessary and is actually merely the easy way out, avoiding the responsibility of finding meaning in the very complicated and mysterious phenomena that we call “life.” Self-indulgent nihilism is a delightful alternative though the “delight” usually proves short-lived and is harmful to the individual and to those around him. “Meaning” is gut-level work of the heart and most people avoid it, opting for nihilism or the ready-made escape into mindless dogma.

But, discovering that we are “embedded in our own thinking” does not mean that our way of thinking and perceiving the world is inherently invalid. The discovery of this “embeddness” only opens us to considering the limitations of how we see the world and the recognition that others might…and do…see the world differently. This insight is often very painful for it makes us realize, intellectually and emotionally, our existential plight of separateness which immediately subjects us to the anguish of loneliness which culture was contrived in the first place to avoid. But this discovery simultaneously makes possible a connection we did not know was possible, one that can best be described as one of spirit/Spirit. In this realm of the Ineffable we discover the interconnectedness of the whole of life– human, animal, and plant– and even Mother Earth herself. We are “dust of the earth” just as the Bible teaches us.

Let me close with one simple illustration of how our language illustrates this embeddedness and how it shapes our view of the world. In some Eastern languages, if an individual wants to point out that he sees a book, for example, he will say, “I see the book.” But in the West, he will likely say, “I see the book.” For, here in the West, especially in my country the subject-object distinction is more pronounced which is because one of the fundamental things we learn as a child is that we are separate and distinct from the world around us. This “separateness” is important but its emphasis neglects often our inter-relatedness with others and with the world.

ADDENDUM
W. H. Auden on the “embedded thought” of the collective:

Heroic charity is rare;
Without it, what except despair
Can shape the hero who will dare
The desperate catabasis
Into the snarl of the abyss
That always lies just underneath
Our jolly picnic on the heath
Of the agreeable, where we bask,
Agreed on what we will not ask,
Bland, sunny, and adjusted by
The light of the accepted lie.

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A few days I in this venue I made reference to a Muslim terrorist gunning down shoppers in a mall as he kneeled from time to time to pray. There is a similar demonstration of religious lunacy taking place in many states in my country where laws exempt parents from homicide or murder charges if their children die because their faith did not permit them to use medical care, relying instead on “faith healing.” To make it worse, in these states the legislatures turn a blind eye to this issue because to address it with the firm hand of the law would be to turn the conservative, bible-thumping electorate against them. Therefore, my charge of “lunacy” can also be applied to these legislatures as they stand by and allow children to die because they don’t have the courage to confront group insanity. (See: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/11/08/in-idaho-faith-healing-may-have-killed-more-children-than-we-ever-suspected/ and http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/idaho-christian-faith-healers-12-kids-have-died-since-2011-and-nobodys-doing-anything-about-it/)

It seems like there is insanity in everyone’s religion. With everyone I meet, everything I read, everywhere I go I see people believing and doing stupid things because of their faith. And, yes, I fear that is the case with you also, my friend. Gosh, I’m the only one who is doing this faith “thingy” right and I wish the rest of you people would just wake up and listen to me. Or, as I often like to put it, “You know, I think you and I are the only ones who are right on this matter…and sometimes I have my doubts about you.”

Now, those who know me, or have read this blather very long know that I’m speaking in jest here. For, I see clearly that the lunacy I note in other people’s faith is very much here with me also. And, I don’t actually see “lunacy” everywhere; my point is merely that in our faith…and in the whole of our lives…lunacy abides and it is frightening to acknowledge it. Now to be fair, most of our “lunacy” does not merit that label and can best be described as not seeing things with the maturity we are capable of. This is because we tend to see things as we wish to and that self-serving dimension of our perspective, carried to an extreme will always be lunatic!

You might say “there is a fly in the ointment” in everything we do and this is especially critical in our value system; for our values are always sullied by this aforementioned self-interest. But the “true believer” is always incapable of considering this gut-level flaw and that is one reason why he is capable of such “true” belief.

But the real culprit in Idaho, the real “lunatic”, is the state legislature who see clearly that these “faith healers” are impoverished, poorly educated people and are permitting their faith to rule them even to the death of their own children. YET, these legislators will not intervene because of their moral and spiritual cowardice.

This stupidity…and I’m talking here of the legislators…is one of the reason that people like Bill Maher (and I love this guy!) so readily lampoon Christians for belief in their “imaginary friend.” Well, though I am a Christian, I agree with Bill Maher regarding this stupidity. Just because we have faith does not give us the freedom to be stupid and fail to consider the outside world and the relevance of our faith…or lack thereof…to this outside world. Mental illness is a reference problem and anytime when our field of reference becomes too private, a private self-referential system, we are in deep trouble. Paul Tillich called this an “empty world of self-relatedness” and that is always lunacy, regardless of the positive feed-back you might be getting from inside your echo chamber.

And, Christians need to be aware that to some degree even their faith is guilty of becoming an echo chamber and will inevitably do so from time to time. If our religious tradition, including recitation of dogma, becomes merely a form of “self-soothing” it is not any better than someone who “self-soothes” with a substance addiction. Our faith…even the one we are so “sure” about…can become a means of escaping reality rather than empowering us to deal with reality openly. This is what T. S. Eliot had in mind when he noted, “Human kind cannot bear very much reality.” This is why Eliot also noted the importance of coming to a point in our life when we find the courage to “live in the breakage, in the collapse of what was believed in as most certain, and therefore the fittest for renunciation.”

Religious and Spiritual Addiction

Rush Limbaugh’s Specious Objectivity

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I occasionally venture into the dark side, just to recall how it used to be when I had my head so squarely up my backside and thought I viewed the world with objectivity. And it is abysmally dark in there; no light can get in for the light of day would crush the smug world of certitude. And, of course, I’m talking of my occasional venture into Rush Limbaugh’s radio show.

Let me illustrate. Earlier in the week he noted re one issue, “Now, liberal media won’t pick this up because it is not part of their narrative.” Implicit in that observation is that he does not have any “narrative” that he has subscribed to, a narrative for which he “cherry picked” information that would support bias. He thinks he is being objective and is reporting the news as it “really is” while “all those liberals” have an agenda. He vividly illustrates the smugness of those who feel they grasp reality in an objective fashion and seek desperately to maintain the status quo and repudiate anything which threatens the narrow prism through which they view the world. He even noted how the liberals “bend and shape the news, pushing their liberal agenda” without any suspicion that he has an agenda of his own which he is pushing. This is a classic example of the projection that Karl Jung wrote about, ascribing to others the faults that one is actually plagued with him/herself.

Rush proudly announced that he lives in “realville”, not in the “fantasy world” that liberals live in. Well, he does live there but his “realville” is the smug world view that once championed slavery, saw nothing wrong with the corporate excesses of the late 19th century, opposed giving women the right to vote in the early 20th century, vehemently opposed the civil rights movement in the 1960’s, and basically demands that our country lives in the past. His “realville” is merely a version of a template that he and his ilk daily impose on their world, a template that I describe as “the way things are.” They wake up daily and know assuredly that “this is the way things are” and do not consider that their viewpoint is very subjective…as is the case with all of us… and does not definitively describe reality. And their “way things are” is imposed in a tyrannical manner on the whole of their world, including those nearest and dearest to them.

They cannot have the humility to become aware of their own subjectivity, their own inner experience, and know that they can have a confidence in that subjective reality but not with the arrogance they once had. When their subjectivity is recognized, and experienced, they can respect their reality but at the same time recognize that other people have their own subjective world and that many times that subjective world is very different from their own. This is the phenomena of “difference” and “difference” is what makes the world beautiful and exciting.

But, one’s discovering one’s subjective world is a spiritual enterprise. And by “spiritual” I am here not talking of Spiritual (in the sense of God and such—that is relevant but must wait for discussion on another occasion). By “spiritual” I mean becoming aware of the complexities and ambivalences and ugliness of the human heart. Or, to put it differently, I referring to opening up to consideration of an unconscious dimension to the human heart. I am encouraging one to allow the “Spirit of God” (if I might employ that notion) to open up the heart and follow the advice of Shakespeare and allow that Spirit to make that heart “full of penetrable stuff,” no longer “bronzed o’er” with a culturally imposed template of how the world is.

Conservatism is a valid and critical dimension of any culture. But when its extremes are allowed to have undue influence, and the moderates are intimidated into submission, darkness will rear its ugly head. But the real evil is when these moderates do not have the courage to stand up and vote for their convictions, to vote for what they feel is the right, and therefore not worship the false god of “Re-electability.”