C=
onventional
Wisdom
October 9, 2005
Rev. Paul Beckel
First
Universalist Unitarian
Church
~ www.uuwausau.org<=
/i>
<=
o:p>
One Source of Bad Information, by Robert Bly<=
/span>
There's a boy in you about three
Years old who hasn't learned a thing for thirty
Thousand years. Sometimes it's a girl.
This child has to make up its mind
How to save you from death.
He says things like: "Stay home. Avoid elevators. Eat only elk.&qu=
ot;
You live with this child but you don't know it. =
You are in the office, yes, but live with this boy
At night. He's uninformed, but he does want
To save your life. And he has. Because of this boy
You survived a lot. He's got six big ideas.
Five don't work. Right now he's repeating them to you. =
\ ] [ Z Y X
...putting an old truth in a new form, and m=
inor
heresies are much cherished. And the very vigor of minor debate makes it
possible to exclude...any challenge to the framework itself....<=
/span>
...origi=
nality
remains highly acceptable in the abstract. ...the conventional wisdom often
makes vigorous advocacy of originality a substitute for originality itself.=
...
=
John
Kenneth Galbraith, in The Affluent Society
&nb=
sp;
&nb=
sp;
READING &=
nbsp; from T=
he
Gospel of John
Early in the morning he came again =
to the
temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them.=
The
scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; =
and
making her stand before all of them, they said to him, "Teacher, this
woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Mos=
es
commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?"
They said this to test him, so that=
they
might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with=
his
finger on the ground.
When they kept on questioning him, =
he
straightened up and said to them, "Let anyone among you who is without=
sin
be the first to throw a stone at her."
And once again he bent down and wro=
te on
the ground. When they heard i=
t,
they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left a=
lone
with the woman standing before him.
MESSAGE
I recently read a marvelous book ca=
lled A
World of Babies
-- a collection of imagined childcare guides. It’s written in the
advice-giving style of Dr. Spock, but based upon anthropological study of
diverse cultures from the Puritans to aboriginal Australians.
For example, in one east African so=
ciety,
parents are advised that, when it’s time to name a baby, someone shou=
ld
slowly call out the names of all the ancestors... until the baby smiles. The
smile is an indication that this baby is a reincarnation of that ancestor a=
nd
he or she wishes to go by that name.
On the tropical island of Bali, par=
ents
are to treat their babies as gods for their first 210 days. During this tim=
e,
babies tends to be addressed as those of the highest rank, and may not be s=
et
on the ground or the floor for any reason.
Beng parents, those from a West Afr=
ican
society, are advised to discourage their children from walking before age o=
ne.
Parents must do whatever it takes to keep the children from walking, even
spanking if necessary. But -- the child should walk as soon as possi=
ble
after her first birthday. After all, mothers are forbidden from having sex
until their child can walk.
Weaning is an important process, and
every culture has its special techniques. In Bali, if one must wean quickly=
, a
mother is encouraged to coat her breasts with hot and bitter herbs. In rural
Turkey, they use salty tomato paste. The Fulani, a nomadic west African tri=
be,
wean by giving the child to the grandmother to breastfeed. Usually the child
loses interest. But occasionally Grandmother will begin to produce milk!
In Fulani society, parents must alw=
ays be
on guard against greedy spirits who might steal a child. A common practice =
is
to fool the spirits into thinking the baby is not worth taking -- by giving=
the
child a nickname like “cow dung,” by rolling the child in cow d=
ung,
or by saying loudly, “Have you ever seen such an ugly baby?”
The first thing a Beng child should=
learn
is to greet everyone in the village every day. The next thing to learn is h=
ow
to tease their relatives. According to this imaginary but
anthropologically-correct baby care manual, “There is nothing cuter t=
han
a one-and-a-half-year-old shrieking out with delight ‘you red
balls!’ to her doddering grandfather...:” It’s a comfort =
for
children to have a relaxed and teasing relationship with those they love.
(We’re teaching these same skills to the toddlers upstairs even as we
speak.)
Balinese children, in contrast, are=
encouraged
never to express either positive or negative feelings -- neither anger nor
fear, pride nor pleasure. For in always remaining calm, one will experience
physical well-being, personal satisfaction, and self-respect. Is there any
greater gift one can give to a child?
Reactions to the practices of other
cultures range from curiosity to disgust. Reactions tend to be particularly
intense around those practices which cut to the very core of a culture̵=
7;s
values. A good example is sle=
eping
arrangements. In U.S. WASP culture, babies sleep alone. Sleeping with paren=
ts
is considered impractical or even suspicious. But Mayan mothers consider
co-sleeping essential; they would consider it child neglect to do otherwise=
. At
their root, U.S. child rearing practices tend to emphasize independence, while those of many other societies stress interdependence. These values are =
so
fundamental -- and often unconscious -- that difference is not seen as
diversity, but as deviance.
=3D=3D
Social conventions persist because =
they work in a given setting, and as the
setting changes from one generation to the next, the practices are adaptive.
“Adaptive” means that the practices survive. They may not be id=
eal,
they might or might not evolve. But they survive -- perhaps even as their
setting changes. Even practices which do not “work” in any
practical sense, may have great staying power.
The term “conventional
wisdom” was coined by economist John Kenneth Galbraith in 1958.
He wrote: “...we associate truth with convenience, with what most clo=
sely
accords with self-interest and personal well-being or promises best to avoid
awkward effort or unwelcome dislocation in life. We also find highly accept=
able
what contributes most to self-esteem. [Economic and social behavior] are
complex and to comprehend their character is mentally tiring. Therefore we
adhere, as though to a raft, to those ideas which represent our
understanding.”
In short, conventional wisdom must =
be
simple, familiar, convenient, and comfortable -- though not necessarily tru=
e.
&nb=
sp;
Galbrait=
h is not
calling us fools, exactly. He’s simply acknowledging that we cannot know things that are beyond our
understanding. We have a hard time, obviously, changing our minds -- especi=
ally
if we’ve gone to great effort or great expense or great sacrifice to =
come
up with the truths we hold dear.
&nb=
sp;
So, idea=
s tend
to stay put. Ideas are inherently conservative. New ideas, even those which=
may
better describe, predict, or manipulate the world, can never beat out what =
is
familiar. Only reality itself -- “the
march of events” ...”the massive onslaught of circumstance̶=
1;
can possible shake our prejudices.
&nb=
sp;
For exam=
ple, if
your conceptions of the weather, government, or human nature have recently
changed, Galbraith would say it’s unlikely that new ideas just popped
into your head, or that you heard them on NPR. More likely, an accumulation=
of
events or something fairly catastrophic has occurred, and you’re find=
ing
that your old understandings no longer fit with reality. =
&nb=
sp;
Conventi=
onal
wisdom has its advantages. Continuity gives a community a certain measure of
protection. But “...there are also grave drawbacks and even dangers i=
n a
system of thought which ...avoids accommodation to circumstances until chan=
ge
is dramatically forced upon it.”
&nb=
sp;
I do some drug and alcohol counseli=
ng at
the Health Care Center. One of the biggest factors in addiction is denial.
Clinging to images of ourselves and our world that are simply untrue. Faili=
ng
to see how our behaviors are harming ourselves or others. Since we’re
much more likely to believe whatever contributes to our immediate feeling of
well-being, an addict may experience crisis after crisis without making
significant adjustments. Often it is only when she hits bottom that
she’ll recognize that her picture of reality is intolerably distorted=
.
Galbraith says that life is complex=
. So
is he criticizing the notion =
of
simplicity? No. True simplicity is great. But often, in the name of
“simplicity,” we fails to account for a complex reality. Or, we
like to think that our notions are “simple” when in fact
they’re laden with unspoken assumptions. Consider this story:
=
Two explorers came upon a clearing =
in the
jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explo=
rer
says: “Some gardener must tend this plot.” The other disagrees,
“There is no gardener.” So they pitch their tents and watch. No
gardener is ever seen. “But perhaps he is an invisible gardener.̶=
1;
So they set up a barbed wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol it with =
bloodhounds....
But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No
movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The bloodhounds nev=
er
give a cry. Yet still the Believer is unconvinced. “But there is a
gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible to electric shocks, a gardener =
who
has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after
the garden he loves.” At last the Sceptic despairs: “But what
remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisibl=
e,
intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener...=
or
even no gardener at all?”
The principle of
“Occam’s Razor” asserts that whenever there are two or mo=
re
theories that explain a situation equally well, the simpler theory is proba=
bly
better. The simpler theory is the one that requires the fewest assumptions.=
In
this story, the “simple” belief in a gardener turned out to req=
uire
a great many assumptions that were not only implausible, but ultimately
impossible to prove -- because they kept changing in order to protect their
conclusion.
Cultural norms, religio=
us
beliefs, conspiracy theories, fables, urban legends, aphorisms and
clichés: they are often skewed by our need for comfort; they often p=
lay
to our deepest fears and anxieties and are therefore simple and familiar. T=
hey
are also often true – or at least useful.
Consider the boiling fr=
og
story, which suggests that if you try to boil a frog, and you raise the heat
quickly, the frog will notice and hop out of the pot. But if you raise the =
heat
slowly, the frog will be lulled to inaction until it’s too late.=
This is a true story. T=
rue in
the sense that it has a meaningful message -- or, like most truths, it has
multiple messages depending upon your perspective. If you’re institut=
ing
change, don’t move too fast, or you’ll lose people/frogs along =
the
way. But if you’re a frog, pay attention to gradual change because it
could lead to catastrophic loss. Biologists like this story because it̵=
7;s
familiar, widely believed, and it vividly explains the concept of global
warming. Unfortunately, it’s probably not true with frogs. The data a=
re
still out on people.
Another widely held bit of conventi=
onal
wisdom is that religion is good for people and for society. Prayer heals, b=
eing
part of a community helps us to live longer, religious belief makes societi=
es
function better, et cetera. Even many who think religion is nonsense will
affirm this conventional wisdom. “OK,” they may think,
“religious people are fools, but apparently it helps to keep them sed=
ated
or something.”
I’d like to share with you the
results of a recent study, from the Journal of Religion and Society, published
by my Catholic alma mater.
The study asserts that the assumpti=
on of
social benefit from religious belief is based upon anecdote and studies of
limited scope. It offers instead a massive cross-cultural comparative analy=
sis,
taking into account key indicators of societal well-being for 800 million
people in the U.S., Japan, and western Europe. The comparisons being made,
then, are between societies that are similar in most regards: affluent 1st
world democracies, for which extensive data are available. The question: is
there a correspondence between religiosity and social well-being?
The study does not claim to be a ca=
usal
analysis. It’s much more complicated to determine whether religion ca=
uses
social conditions or social conditions cause religion. But at least we can
examine the conventional wisdom that societies where people tend to practice
religion are healthier than those in which people do not.
Benjamin Franklin is qu=
oted:
“Religion will be a powerful regulator of our actions, give us peace =
and
tranquility within our minds, and render us benevolent, useful and benefici=
al
to others.”
And of course, ̶=
0;Tom
DeLay has stated that high crime rates and tragedies like the Columbine ass=
ault
will continue as long as schools teach children ‘that they are nothing
but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primordial
soup....’”
(Of course even liberal U.S. politicians fall over one other -- attempting =
to
prove their religiosity by waving their religious flags -- only to prove
Galbraith right: that advancement in our society is all about playing to the
conceits of our audience.)
But back to the study, =
which
reveals that the U.S. has experienced many more school shootings than all t=
he
secular developing democracies combined. And “in general, higher r=
ates
of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homici=
de,
juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and
abortion ...(Figures 1-9).=
The
most theistic prosperous democracy, the U.S., is exceptional, but not in the
manner Franklin predicted. The United States is almost always the most
dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so. The
view of the U.S. as a ‘shining city on the hill’ to the rest of=
the
world is falsified when it comes to basic measures of societal health.̶=
1;
And by the way:
“...Spending on health care [here] is much higher as a portion of the=
GDP
and per capita, by a factor of a third to two or more, than in any other
developing democracy. The U.S. is therefore the least efficient western nat=
ion
in terms of converting wealth into cultural and physical health.”
=3D=3D
So, if I’m reluctant to promo=
te
traditional religious beliefs... and if I’m skeptical of self-serving
conventional wisdom, what would I recommend as an alternative? <=
/span>
I’d like to share a little bi=
t of
the philosophy of science. Not because I believe science will lead to absol=
ute
truth, but because I think we should have some idea of what science is when we’re listening to t=
ruth
claims which purport to utilize the scientific process.
Science evolves. It does not evolve
simply through the accumulation of more and more data leading to increasing=
ly
accurate conclusions. Rather, a scientific theory is like a convention.
It’s what is generally accepted as true. The more data and the more
corresponding theories there are to support it, the more broadly it is acce=
pted
and utilized in everyday practice. But no theory is ever able to accommodate
all of the data. There are always exceptions, or anomalies. Year after year=
, a
good theory will survive if it does a good job explaining and predicting
reality.
If evidence arises that seems to
contradict the dominant theory, that will be noted, or the theory will unde=
rgo
some subtle adjustment. But science does not advance in a straight line thr=
ough
the accumulation of these subtle adjustments and fine tuning. On the contra=
ry,
science proceeds through long periods of stasis...and every so often, a fai=
rly
catastrophic revolution. Careers are built and billions of dollars of grants
hinge on theories being maintained. Scientists do not let go of their theor=
ies
easily. And they shouldn’t. A theory may remain very effective even as
evidence accumulates that it cannot explain. And often, there is not a bett=
er
theory available. But eventually, a sizable accumulation of anomalous data,=
along
with a better theory, will cause a seismic shift in one subset of the
scientific community. And a new theory will prove more adaptive.
This oversimplified overview is not
intended to suggest that the physical sciences are as vulnerable to the whi=
ms
of subjectivity as are poetry and religion. However, as in poetry and relig=
ion,
while everyone may have an equal right to present their point of view, some
views are more rational, reasonable, coherent, and consistent; some are mor=
e in
synch with objective principles and better suited to existing conditions. A=
nd
some views are appropriately judged as self-serving, sloppy, ambiguous,
irrelevant, or based upon layers and layers of unquestioned assumptions.
So I’m not promoting science =
as the
path to absolute truth. No matter how much we know about our world, scienti=
fic
knowledge can never tell us some important things, such as “what ough=
t we
to do with our knowledge, and what ought we to do the world we
have?”
Even very accurate data about what =
people
actually do...even very precise
=
formulas for predicting what will happen next... cannot lead us to necessary
moral conclusions.
For example: we know that if someth=
ing is
held in common by society, whether it’s a field that all of our cattle
graze on, or a stream that all of us can swim and fish and dump our sewage
into...eventually, if everyone simply seeks to maximize their own
self-interest, the common asset can become spoiled or depleted. =
History, science, and math do a pre=
tty
good job of predicting that one. But by themselves, history, science, and m=
ath
cannot tell us the solution as to how that common property ought to be divided or utilized.
We also know about triage. We know that if there is a big catastrophe and you are =
the
emergency responder you’re going to face three general kinds of
situations. There will be those who will die no matter what you do. There w=
ill
be those who survive no matter what you do. And there will be those who will
die unless you help them. So how do you divide up your resources?
The sciences of medicine and logist=
ics
and economics can help us to figure out how to efficiently utilize the
resources we have. But they cannot answer the crucial underlying questions
about what our goals should be in such a situation.
Simplistic ethical principles are n=
ot
magic bullets either. If we say “equality” is the key, try to a=
pply
“equality” to these situations and you’ll inevitably end =
up
with inequality. If you say that “everyone maximizing their self inte=
rest”
is the guiding principle, try applying that to these situations and
you’ll see that everyone loses.
The bottom line is that we have to =
make
judgments -- often very complicated judgments. We have to make choices. How to spend every day of our live=
s. We
have to make judgments about church and federal and state and local budgets.
How high to keep our thermostats, how much to give to the capital campaign,
whether it’s worth the trouble to come in to have our picture taken f=
or
the church photo directory just because that will make it easier for some
newcomer to get to know our names and feel more at home here.
=3D=3D
Our scientific and social knowledge
evolves, with periodic revolutions. Our conventional wisdom evolves, with
periodic catastrophic events. The water temperature changes gradually, or q=
uickly,
and we do have the capacity to =
pay
attention.
Perhaps the missing link between sc=
ience
and religion is that in both, we need to let go of results and allow the tr=
uth
to lead where it will.
Sometimes we err by judging too qui=
ckly.
Sometimes we err by pretending we don’t have to judge at all. Perhaps=
the
missing link between science and religion is the knowledge that, to survive=
, we
do have to make judgments, humbly, knowing that, so far, not all of the fac=
ts
are in.
CLOSING HYMN &=
nbsp; &nbs=
p; Wake
Now My Senses #298
BENEDICTION =
; &n=
bsp; =
; “Knowing”
by James Broughton
&nb=
sp;
I don=
217;t
know anything
any more=
that I k=
now of
&nb=
sp;
Once I k=
new
something
but what=
ever it
was
I forgot
everything
&nb=
sp;
At the t=
ime
it seeme=
d worth
knowing
whether I
understood it or not
&nb=
sp;
Takes a =
lifetime
to learn=
whatR=
17;s not
worth knowing
&nb=
sp;
Nowadays=
I am
getting to know
a lot mo=
re about
nothing<=
o:p>