Lies and Truth: why care?

I’m often conflicted when it comes to conspiracy theories (or whatever you may prefer to call them).  I have strong curiosity which causes me to always look at alternative views and there are many important issues that should be researched seriously, but I have limited time and energy.  Depending on the subject, I might research more or less.  I usually research any important issue at least enough to understand the relevant questions even if I don’t know the answers.   

Let me provide examples.  Two movements have formed around political issues.  Even though they’ve gained mainstream support and interest, many in positions of authority dismiss them as conspiracy theorists.   

The first example is the 2000 Florida recount.  I’ve looked into this in fair detail in the past.  I’ve thought of writing a detailed post about it, but there doesn’t seem to be much point.  The information is out there for anyone who wants to think for themselves.  The basic facts are:   

(1) Bush didn’t win the popular vote.   

(2) There were many suspicious activities going on in Florida which have been described in great detail in various articles and documentaries.   

(3) A full recount was never done.  Some claim that going by the data Bush wouldn’t have won if a full recount had been done.   

(4) Bush was made president by a court decision and not by election.   

(5) The mainstream news media in the US never did a thorough investigation of this incident, and politicians of both parties refused to state any major criticisms or strongly demand a full recount.

The only fact that some argue about is the issue of the recount itself.  Depending on how you define a full recount, it may or may not have been done.  If you define a full recount as being the act of counting all votes, then no full recount happened.  If you define a full recount more narrowly which means dismissing certain votes either because they appear “suspicious” or otherwise are deemed officially unacceptable, then a full recount did happen.   However, looking at the votes dismissed, it’s the fact that they’re dismissed that looks suspicious.  The voters who had their votes dismissed were of a demographic that mostly voted for the Democratic party.

The second example is 9/11, but I want to point out one aspect.  The WTC 7 building’s collapse is what caught my attention.  The following excerpt is representative of the type of info I’ve come across in my research.  

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/wtc7/index.html
 

Chapter 5 of the FEMA report goes as follows:

The official explanations of WTC 7′s collapse are problematic for several reasons:  

• Fire has never caused any steel-framed high-rise building to collapse in any manner, let alone with the vertical precision of Building 7′s destruction. ¹   Other steel-framed skyscrapers have experienced far more serious fires than Building 7.
• WTC 7 fell straight down, which necessitated that all of the load-bearing columns be broken at the same moment. Inflicting such damage with the precision required to prevent a building from toppling and damaging adjacent buildings is what the science of controlled demolition is all about. No random events, such as the debris damage and fires envisioned by the official reports, or explosions from fuel tanks proposed by some, could be expected to result in such a tidy and complete collapse.
• WTC 7 fell precipitously, at a rate closely approaching the speed of gravitational free-fall. That necessitated the sudden removal of structure near ground level that would have impeded its descent.
• The collapse of WTC 7 exhibited all of the features of a standard controlled demolition. To suppose that a cause other than controlled demolition could produce an event with all of the features uniquely characteristic of controlled demolition defies logic.

Chapter 5 of the FEMA report goes as follows:  

FEMA on Building 7

Despite the inescapable logic of the above, the official theory for the collapse, as published in  

• At 9:59 AM (after the South Tower collapse), electrical power to the substations in WTC 7 was shut off.
• Due to a design flaw, generators in WTC 7 started up by themselves.
• Debris from the collapsing North Tower breached a fuel oil pipe in a room in the north side of the building. (This means the debris had to travel across WTC 6 and Vesey Street — a distance of at least 355 feet — penetrate the outer wall of WTC 6, and smash through about 50 feet of the building, including a concrete masonry wall.)
• This, and other debris (that also made the journey across Building 6 and Vesey Street), managed to start numerous fires in the building. (Unfortunately, this event did not prompt anyone to turn off the generators.)
• The backup mechanism (that should have shut off the fuel oil pumps when a breach occurred) failed to work, and the fuel oil (diesel) was pumped from the tanks on the ground floor to the fifth floor where it ignited. The pumps emptied the tanks of all 12,000 gallons of fuel.
• The extant fires raised the temperature of the spilled fuel oil to the 140 degrees F required for it to ignite.
• The sprinkler system malfunctioned and failed to extinguish the fire.
• The burning diesel fuel heated trusses to the point where they lost most of their strength, precipitating a total collapse of Building 7.

The last point is the greatest stretch, since it asks us to believe that an event that would be expected only to cause the sagging of a floor instead led not only to total collapse, but to such a tidy collapse that directly adjacent buildings were scarcely even damaged. This is surprising behavior for a steel-framed skyscraper designed to survive fires, hurricanes, and earthquakes.

After laying out this highly improbable scenario, the FEMA report authors conclude:  

“The specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time. Although the total diesel fuel on the premises contained massive potential energy, the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence. Further research, investigation, and analyses are needed to resolve this issue.”

Unfortunately for investigators hoping to resolve this issue, nearly all of the evidence had already been destroyed by the time the FEMA report was published. 

If you want to see an overview, check out the Wikipedia article on demolition theories.  Steven E. Jones is a physicist who had a laboratory analyze material from the WTC site.  He points out that there are chemicals detected which are what one would expect with thermite or superthermite.  He also points out that video footage show that there was extreme heat which wouldn’t be found in a normal fire.  The further argument is that the way the building collapsed is only ever seen in controlled demolitions. 

I don’t know if this is true or not.  That is the problem.  For the most part, the media has ignored these theories (with CNN being a bit of an exception).  A few people have claimed to debunk these theories, and others have claimed to debunk the debunkers.  What the 9/11 truth movement wants is simply to have an investigation that actually looks at the all of the evidence.  Is that too much to expect from one’s government and from the mainstream media? 

This all brings a few questions to my mind.  Why do people believe what they do?  And why are certain topics acceptable and others not? 

For example, Bush jr constantly claimed and hinted at Saddam Hussein being responsible for 9/11.  Along with his claims about WMDs, this was blatantly false.  Essentially, our president believed in an unfounded conspiracy theory.  For the most part, the media didn’t initially challenge this false belief and so many Americans believed it to be true (and many still do).  There was an interesting research paper on why people believe false information.  The interesting part was the ability people have when it comes to doublethink. 

“There Must Be a Reason”: Osama, Saddam, and Inferred Justification     

The first surprise in our findings is that several interview respondents denied believing Saddam Hussein was linked to Al Qaeda, even though they had indicated such a belief on the survey. In the following example, a respondent denies thinking that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks, despite answering that this was the case on his survey. In the interview, he first states that he did think Iraq was involved, but then corrects himself and says he had thought it was Afghanistan all along. When the interviewer shows him his survey response, he indicates that it was a mistake and he had never actually believed Iraq was involved with 9/11:RESPONDENT: So I went to watch it [coverage of 9/11 in immediate aftermath] and a little bit more on the news, watching ’em burn and all that. But I thought maybe we was gonna go to war over that.

  

INTERVIEWER: Who’d you think we’d go to war with?
RESPONDENT: Iraq?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah. You thought it was Iraq that was behind it?
RESPONDENT: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: What made you . . .
RESPONDENT: Well, they’ve, they’ve kind of been hintin’ about that on the news and stuff
before that, so I just, right away I just kind of presumed it was Iraq and, or, not Iraq, Afghanistan.
INTERVIEWER: Oh right, right. Yeah.
RESPONDENT: Get things straightened up here then. But I, they’d been having a lot of trouble
over there and everything, especially the way they was treatin’ people and everything, so I
just, kind of thought we’d go to war with them right away. Well, we ended up sending off a
lot of troops over there right away. But that, for the next 2 or 3 days, that was about all that
was on the news.
INTERVIEWER: You said on your survey, if I can find it . . . You said on your survey that you
thought that Saddam Hussein had helped the terrorists.
RESPONDENT: Have what?
INTERVIEWER: You said on your survey that you thought Saddam Hussein, Saddam Hussein
of uh Iraq had helped . . .
RESPONDENT: No, what on that 9/11?
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
RESPONDENT: No, no. If I said that, I probably did. Just like I did right there, I meant
Afghanistan.
INTERVIEWER: Oh oh oh, ok, ok.
RESPONDENT: No, I meant Afghanistan, not Iraq. I probably, I probably did say Iraq.
INTERVIEWER: Mmhmm. It says Saddam Hussein.
RESPONDENT: Yeah, well . . .
INTERVIEWER: Well, some people say . . .
RESPONDENT: You can change that or something if you want to . . .
INTERVIEWER: OK [laughs].
RESPONDENT: . . . but, yeah, no I meant Afghanistan, not Iraq.
INTERVIEWER: Mmhmm. Well, some people think he was behind it, Saddam Hussein, in
Iraq.
RESPONDENT: Well, I know they keep saying that and everything but they’ve never come
up with any kind of proof or something, so ’til they get some kind of proof or anything, I’m
not gonna say one way or the other. . . . But right now, the way things are right now, I think
Afghanistan was in on it all and just, just them.

 

This “denial” category provides one clue to the survey findings of high rates of belief in a link between Iraq and 9/11: some respondents may make a mistake on the survey because of a general unfamiliarity with the region, even if they do know the current state of the evidence. By engaging in a dialogue with the respondent, we were able to show that he had a clear sense of the state of evidence, but slipped in his more general knowledge and mental classification of Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a finding that is not possible using simple survey methods. Seven interview participants out of 49 (14.3 percent) fell into this “denial” category. This suggests that polls asking about a link between Iraq and 9/11 may overstate the true level of belief in the link.            

It’s hard to determine what people actually think and believe.  There are so many reasons polls can be biased.  Most people give contradictory responses because human nature isn’t essentially rational.  For example, did Bush jr actually believe his own lies?  I suspect he did to a degree.  He seemed to have convinced himself.  Sometimes a particular belief is just convenient.

Also, big lies can be more successful as propaganda than small lies.  If a politician takes a bribe or has an affair, people are less likely to have their emotions strongly polarized.  However, if one’s worldview becomes entangled with a large lie, people will go to great lengths to rationalize it.  There is also a cognitive bias I forget the name of which causes people to believe something is a majority opinion simply because they see it repeated such as by the media and the government.  But polls sometimes show extreme difference between public perception of majority opinion and actual majority opinion.  Those in power don’t need to control the majority opinion if they control the majority preception.  Basically, people want to believe those in positions of authority.

As Hitler said in the Mein Kampf:

“In the simplicity of their minds, people more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have such impudence. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and continue to think that there may be some other explanation.”

This may be why incorrect information (whether an intentional lie or not) can persist even when later it is disproved.  Here is from the conclusion of “There Must Be a Reason”:

Our study was conducted in October 2004, after almost 2 years of debate and discussion on Iraq in the public sphere. Therefore, it is possible that we are only showing that interviewees wanted to believe in this link at this late date; their original reason for believing in the link may have been misinformation. If this is the case, then our study shows not theoriginsof the belief in the link, but the reasons for its resiliencethrough the 2004 presidential election, after the administration had admitted that there was no such link.

People just need a reason and often it may not even matter what particular reason gets accepted.

In this case, when presented with the fact of a president going to war, respondents do not begin from an open-ended position, determining their own belief from first principles and available data and then comparing it with the decision to go to war. Rather, some respondents simply assumed that there was a reason why the president wanted to conduct this war; and because many respondents were either not fully informed of or confused by the actual reasons the administration gave for waging war in Iraq, 9/11 seemed to them to be the most obvious justification. In essence, by invading Iraq the administration presented the public with the equivalent of a forced-choice survey question of whether or not Saddam was responsible for 9/11; in answering this “question,”
some respondents concluded that as we had invaded Iraq, it must mean that those in a position to know had concluded that Iraq was behind 9/11. The main theoretical implication of our research is that “knowledge” as measured on surveys is partly a by-product of the attempt to resolve the social psychological problem of cognitive dissonance. The practical implication of this is that, although scholars have shown a correlation between the perception of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda and support for the war in Iraq, we cannot conclude from this correlation that misinformation led to support for the war. Rather, for at least some respondents, the sequence was the other way around: support for the war led to a search for a justification for it, which led to the misperception of ties between Iraq and 9/11. This suggests a mechanism through which motivated reasoning may bestrongestwhen the stakes arehighest. It is precisely because the stakes of going to war are so high that some of our respondents were willing to believe that “there must be a reason.”

These biases in thinking apply to everyone.  They apply just as much to politicians and news reporters.  People become polarized and personally identified with specific beliefs and views.  This can happen to whole sectors of society.  Just look at the news.  Most reporting isn’t original investigative journalism.  Reporters tend to simply repeat what others have said which often means reporters talking reporters.  Following the line of references back to a source can be difficult and so few reporters even go to the effort.  Besides this, there are a million other ways a person becomes biased and filters out what they don’t want to see.

Self-deception and biased thinking is easy to do even when one is well informed and not emotionally polarized.  Unfortunately, that is rarely the situation when it comes to important issues about morality and politics.

Worse still, various people in power are constantly trying to manipulate the public’s opinions and choices.  Advertising, of course, is highly successful.  It’s quite amazing how much research has gone into manipulating people simply for the sake of making a profit.  Then there is the manipulation done by corporations for other purposes.  Corporations create astro-turf front groups that appear to be grassroots organizations and this is an effective way of influencing public opinion.  Also, media corporations have their agendas which leads them to bias their reporting and put messages into their entertainment.  One example is that of Fox news where memos were given out everyday telling reporters what to report and how to report about it.  Roger Ailes who is the president of Fox used to work for past Republican administrations.  One propaganda technique he used was creating fake townhall meetings where the entire crowd and all of the questions were staged.

I suppose that is the type of thing we expect in our society.  We assume that businesses will do anything make a profit and outmaneuver competition.  Actually, we not only assume but we cynically expect that companies should be devious and amoral in their dealings.  We see it as the role of the news media and the government to keep companies in check.  However, news media is owned by megacorporations that have numerous interests and so we no longer can trust reporters.  But can we still trust our government?  Besides the example of Bush jr and his evil cronies, is the government overall capable of acting as a disinterested party to ensure the public good?

There is the obvious problem of the revolving door policy between big business and big government with Roger Ailes being a very clear example.  But, ignoring that, is the government able to keep itself in check which is the purpose of having separation of powers.  For example, are psychological operations truly for the good of the public or are they for the good of those in power?

The CNN and NPR Interns Incident

In the 1990s it came to light that soldiers from the 4th Psychological Operations Group had been interning at the American news networks Cable News Network (CNN) and National Public Radio (NPR). The program was claimed by the Army to be an attempt to provide its PSYOP personnel with the expertise developed by the private sector under its “Training with Industry” program. The program caused concern about the influence these soldiers might have on American news and the programs were terminated.

National Public Radio reported on April 10, 2000:

The U.S. Army’s Psychological Operations unit placed interns at CNN and NPR in 1998 and 1999. The placements at CNN were reported in the European press in February of this year and the program was terminated. The NPR placements will be reported this week in TV Guide. ^[23]

Toppling of Saddam Hussein Statue

Arguably the most visible image of the 2003 invasion of Iraq was the toppling of a statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square in central Baghdad. While the event, at first glance, gave the impression that the act was a spontaneous action of the citizens of the city, it was actually an idea hatched by an Army psychological operations team.^[27] Allegations surfaced that the group of people surrounding the statue and cheering was in fact smaller than it was made out to be in the official story, and that the group were by some accounts not local to the area but were instead brought in by the military for the specific purpose of watching and lending credence to the planned toppling.^[28][29][30]

And these psychological operations dovetail with false flag operations with the most famous example in US history being the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.

As for doublethink, I found a nice blog post that references George Orwell and uses an example from Alex Jones’ documentary Terrorstorm.

The term ‘doublethink’ originates in George Orwell’s 1984 and along with ‘newspeak’ (a constant process of slimming down language in order to limit peoples ability to communicate and ultimately think) is an essential part of the ‘Big Brother’ society. In the novel, doublethink is defined as “The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

One of the main reasons doublethink is so necessary is that it allows the masses to accept being slaves to the system and under total surveillance, while considering themselves free and independent. Party slogans from the book such as “Freedom is Slavery, War is Peace” are typical examples of this, convincing the characters that in order to have the freedom of a civilized society they are required to be slaves to their dictatorial regime. It enables Winston (the protagonist of the book) to work at the ‘Ministry of Truth’, the governments propaganda machine, doctoring old newspaper stories to support whatever the government is claiming while still believing the claims to be true.

In Alex Jones’ documentary ‘Terrorstorm: A History of Government Sponsored Terrorism’ the film-makers interview random people on the streets of London about their views on recent terror attacks and the war on terror in general. The amount of people that respond instinctively with classic doublethink-style logic is positively alarming. The most extreme example was a woman who believed “we should give up our liberty for freedom”, seemingly unaware that they are both the same thing!

In conclusion, any given incident or theory isn’t in and of itself important.  What is important is what all of this says about our society.  I want to believe that truth matters, but few people seem to care about truth.  Truth just becomes a euphemism for whatever is convenient to someone’s beliefs, someone’s particular agenda.

I often do immense research about certain issues, but what is the point?  A few people will happen upon this blog post, and what then?  If one of the few people who already values truth reads this blog post, then it will be just preaching to the choir.  And if one of the majority of people who couldn’t care less about the truth reads this blog post, then my arguments will fall on deaf ears.  Am I likely to actually inspire someone to do serious research for themselves and make up their own mind?  Why should anyone care?  Why should anyone waste their time?  The government is going to cotinue to lie and obfuscate, and the media will continue to focus on meaningless stories and do superficial investigations.

9/11: Government, Media, and Truth

The attack on 9/11 is an interesting example of where America is at.

First, several polls show that a majority of Americans doubt, mistrust or otherwise question the official government story about 9/11.  It isn’t that the majority of Americans are conspiracy theorists.  Americans are simply doing what they should always do: keep a critical eye on their own government.  But what is the government’s response?  Deny and dismiss.  And what is the mainstream media’s response?  Ignore or ridicule.  What do those in positions of authority refuse to do?  Look at the evidence and the expert opinions, and respond to the concerns of the public.

It’s strange.  If you only casually pay attention to this subject, you’d assume that the 9/11 truth movement is just a bunch of conspiracy theories from the lunatic fringe.  Even Glenn Beck dismisses the 9/11 truth movement… for political reasons as it’s ammo for him to dismiss the Obama administration by attacking Van Jones.  I find it rather ironic that Glenn Beck is a self-identified “populist” and yet on so many issues he is out of touch with popular opinion.

Anyways, my point is that the 9/11 truth movement is filled with many normal people along with many respectable people: firefighters, police officers, pilots, architects, scientists, professors, former CIA employees, politicians, foreign government officials, and of course various famous people willing to put their name on the line.  The 9/11 truth movement is mainstream, but you wouldn’t know that by what the mainstream media tells the public.

Part of it is that the American government has lost a lot of it’s respectability.  This was mainly caused by Bush jr’s administration and the propagandistic cooperation of the media.  People genuinely rallied around the flag after 9/11, but all they got for it was years of deception and manipulation.  By the time Bush jr left office, America had lost it’s moral standing in the world and the economy was collapsing.

Most Americans are still ignorant about the long and dark history of America covert operations, but they just feel something is wrong with the government.  Americans feel used and abused, feel that no one is on their side.  But they don’t know where to turn to or who to trust.  Some grasp onto the paranoid doomsaying of Glenn Beck or the righteous rantings of Bill O’Reilly who have only become major voices of dissent fairly recently.  Others turn to the charismatic libertarianism of Alex Jones or the intellectual libertarianism of Noam Chomsky who have been voices of dissent for many years and decades even.  And then there are those who watch Comedy Central and try to find some humor in dark times.  But where ever Americans turn, they’re looking for someone to explain to them what is wrong, to tell them they’re not fools for being worried.

Unfortunately, the ignorance of many Americans ends up making them fools… but can you blame them?  How can the American public be anything other than ignorant when they’re being lied to all of the time and can’t figure out what is true vs what is spin.  One person says one thing and another says something completely different.  How does the common person evaluate the vast amounts of contradictory data?  This is particularly a problem as the school system doesn’t offer much in the way of educating the public about how to think critically, how to determine the validity of info, and how to analyze complex issues from multiple perspecties.  I suspect the average person doesn’t even know how to effectively use a search engine.

So, I may call many Americans ignorant and I may laugh at Glenn Beck, but I don’t dismiss the genuine concerns… the fears and doubts.  I encourage everyone to question.  However, without critical thinking skills and trustworthy sources of info, questioning is useless or even dangerous when it leads to fear-mongering.  I feel Americans are going through a collective shift right now where they’re being forced to learn how to think for themselves.  It’s a whole new ballgame with the internet and cable’s 24 hours news/commentary.  Long gone are the days when people listened to Walter Cronkite and felt reassured when he said “That’s the way it is.”

What is Intellectuality?

I’ve been thinking about the Fox pundits lately, but today I was thinking about the relationship (or lack thereof) between mainstream news and intellectuality.

I’m surprised when people try to defend Glenn Beck as an intellectual.  Even though he isn’t utterly stupid, he is far from being an intellectual.  His tendencies towards emotional melodrama and conspiracy theorizing show a lack of critical thinking skills.  And, as far as I can tell, his education is limited mostly to the research he does on the web… which is fine as far as it goes (I’m not dissing the web).

Bill O’Reilly is more of a genuine intellectual.  He has higher education in political analysis.  O’Reilly may not be the most profoundly insightful commentator and he may lack intellectual humility, but still he is an intellectual of sorts.  He is at least sometimes capable of calm reasoned analysis… when he isn’t shouting down opponents and righteously declaring his opinions.

Ultimately, O’Reilly is an ideologue just like Beck.  Whether one uses reason or paranoia to support one’s presupposed ideology, it’s not that big of a difference.  Intellectually respectable or not, O’Reilly and Beck seem to agree on a similar worldview which isn’t essentially intellectual in nature.

Anyways, that is just preamble.  The real reason for this post is my consideration of what defines intellectuality.

Real intellectuality isn’t just intelligence and it’s not even just critical thinking skills.  Both of those are part of it, but they mean little if they are simply motivated by non-rational impulses and used to rationalize non-rational beliefs.  A real intellectual looks at the facts before coming to a conclusion.  A real intellectual is reserved in their opinions and wary of biases.  A real intellectual is humble in their opinion, is willing to admit they’re wrong, and is willing to change their view to fit the facts.  A real intellectual not only looks at the facts but specifically looks for facts that might disprove their assumptions, seeks out reasons for why the may be wrong, considers all criticisms and all alternative viewpoints.

At this point, Beck has been left in the dust.  Pseudo-intellectual conspiracy theorizing does require a certain amount of intelligence and creates a facade of rationality, but it’s so far from being intellectually respectable that it deserves mockery.  O’Reilly, on the other hand, comes closer and yet still falls short.  He may sometimes play the role of an intellectual and may make some intelligent comments, but first and foremost he is an opinionator.

A real intellectual may be a hard thing to find.  Aren’t we all motivated by unconscious assumptions and impulses that bias our thinking?  Yes.  However, there are those who seek to look beyond their biases and there are those who embrace their biases.  A real intellectual may not be a genius and may not have any grand insights, but what is important is that they’re humble in accepting their limitations.  They know what they know and they know what they don’t know, and they don’t pretend to know more than they do.

More important than anything, a real intellectual has to either be fairly self-aware or else committed to a methodology that forces objectivity.  In science, peer review forces an approximation of objectivity in that personal biases tend to get filtered out over time.  In news reporting, fact-checking teams working behind the scenes to keep the reporting honest.  However, news reporting will never be as objective as science.  The fact-checkers are only as unbiased as the company that hires them.  Thusly, a news network such as Fox with a clear agenda will, even when using fact-checkers, promote biased reporting.  Furthermore, fact-checking has become less of a priority as news agencies have lost money and pundits have become more popular.

It’s hard to find real intellectuals on tv these days.  Even when they manage to sneak on for a few minutes, all that tv news allows for are soundbites.  To the average viewer, a real intellectual is boring.  People want to be entertained.  If people wanted to think, they’d read a book rather than watch the news.

An example of a real intellectual would be someone like Noam Chomsky.  He has some useful insight about why real intellectuals don’t make good tv talking heads.  I’ve never come across any other intellectual than sounds as calmly reasonable as Chomsky.  I actually get the sense that he has some genuine insight, that he actually knows what he is talking about.  He isn’t loud and bombastic.  Even in his strong opinions, he states everything with cited facts and clear logic.  He doesn’t slander those he disagrees with but simply analyzes why they are wrong.

Nonetheless, even Chomsky has an agenda.  His focus is politics and he wants to influence the world.  So, he isn’t simply stating facts.  He has biases, but he is open about his biases and he carefully explains the reasons for his beliefs.  He is what I would consider a real intellectual.  That is what he is and it isn’t just a role he is playing.  It’s just his way of viewing the world.  Chomsky’s intellectuality serves the purposes of intellectuality.  He doesn’t simply pay lip-service to it but rather genuinely believes in the value of the intellect.

Okay, that is my definition of intellectuality.  An intellectual can be an atheist or a theist, a scientist or a philosopher.  But, whatever he is, he combines rigorous critical thinking with humble open-mindedness.  As I already said, real intellectuality serves the purpose of intellectuality.

That said, I want to push this one step further.  Intellectuality itself is a bias.  It’s a way of viewing the world, a way of filtering out what one deems unuseful in order to focus on what one deems useful.

I consider myself an intellectual in that I often involve myself in intellectual activities and I try to be intellectually humble.  However, my intellectuality serves a profound sense of truth that includes but isn’t limited to intellectuality.  Intellectuality is just one of many perspectives which doesn’t mean I don’t respect intellectuality.  It may have its limitations, but it’s irreplaceable in the fight against pseudo-intellectuality.  If one isn’t capable of real intellectuality, then there is little hope for one having the clarity of mind to grasp even deeper truths.

It is intellect that helps one to clear away the mud, but it won’t necessarily help one to see the gold and tell it apart from fool’s gold.  Intellectuality is just a tool, but as it’s a way of viewing the world it’s easy to get lost in this one perspective.  To probe the foundations of mind and thought, to question intellectuality itself demands a wider set of tools.  As such, I’m a truth-seeker and I use whatever helps me to ascertain the truth.  This necessitates the intellect because even non-intellectual truths require some intellectual ability to give them form and to communicate them to others.

The relationship between intellect and truth is hard to clarify.  An intellectual may or may not be a truth-seeker, and a truth-seeker may or may not be an intellectual… but more often than not the two go hand in hand.

Let me use an example to differentiate an intellectual from a truth-seeker.  In some recent articles, Karen Armstrong and Richard Dawkins each wrote an essay about religion and science.  Karen Armstrong argued for non-literal religious truth as separate from the scientific endeavor.  Richard Dawkins argued for a dismissal of religion by interpreting it literally and showing that it fails scientific literalism.  Dawkins is an intellectual, but not a truth-seeker.  Armstrong is an intellectual and a truth-seeker.  As for the literalist religious type, they are definitely not intellectuals even when they use intellectual-sounding arguments to rationalize their apologetics and for this reason they’re not likely to be truth-seekers either.  The materialistic atheist and the anti-intellectual theist both believe they have found truth and so have little motivation to seek it.

To be both a real intellectual and a truth-seeker is a difficult but worthy aspiration.  The two jostle against each other and create an unresolvable tension.  And this tension is what motivates all great thinkers.

Knowledge and Wisdom in the Information Age

The Glass Bead Game from the Red Star Cafe blog

I suddenly realized that in the language, or at any rate in the spirit of the Glass Bead Game, everything actually was all-meaningful, that every symbol and combination of symbol led not hither and yon, not to single examples, experiments, and proofs, but into the center, the mystery and innermost heart of the world, into primal knowledge. Every transition from major to minor in a sonata, every transformation of a myth or a religious cult, every classical or artistic formulation was, I realized in that flashing moment, if seen with truly a meditative mind, nothing but a direct route into the interior of the cosmic mystery, where in the alternation between inhaling and exhaling, between heaven and earth, between Yin and Yang holiness is forever being created.

Joseph Knecht, Master of The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse

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It’s been a long time since I read this book by Hesse, but I remember enjoying it.  I read a lot of Hesse in highschool and was highly impressed at the time.  This quote reminds me of a passage from Philip K. Dick’s Exegesis.  PKD was describing a mystical interaction with divine information.  Every thought, every question, every possibility led to infinity.  There was no final conclusion.  To read the this PKD passage, see my blog post PKD on God as Infinity.

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The Glass Bead Game Redux from the Red Star Cafe blog

Readers of blogs like this are witnessing a shift of intellectual authority from the traditional “expert” to the broader public. This is nowhere more tellingly illustrated than by Wikipedia, which has roughly 300,000 volunteer contributors every month.

What makes the mobilization of “crowd wisdom” intellectually powerful is that the technology of the Web makes it so easy for even amateurs to access a growing fraction of the body of human knowledge. The value of traditional expert authority is itself being diluted by the new incentive structure created by information technology that militates against what is deep and nuanced in favour of what is fast and stripped-down.

The result is the growing disintermediation of experts and gatekeepers of virtually all kinds. The irony is that experts have been the source of most of the nuggets of knowledge that the crowd now draws upon – for example, news and political bloggers depend heavily on a relatively small number of sources of professional journalism, just as many Wikipedia articles assimilate prior scholarship. The system works because it is able to mine intellectual capital. This suggests that today’s cult of the amateur will ultimately be self-limiting and will require continuous fresh infusions of more traditional forms of expert knowledge.

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I would point out that the intelligence of the internet age isn’t merely parasitic, but rather is a levelling of the playing field.  Instead of being passive receivers, people now interact with their media.

Two examples.

First, news media follows closely twitter and the blogosphere to catch new trends and breaking news.  Reporters aren’t usually the first people to be on a scene and with cellphones firsthand reporting can potentially come from anyone.

Second, bloggers often are very dedicated researchers who aren’t limited by the financial obligations of working for a media company.  Many bloggers are highly educated and trained in various fields.  Even if they don’t have the title of expert, they may act in that capacity.  Bloggers often do original analysis and uncover new data, and mainstream reporters do sometimes cite bloggers.  Bloggers don’t often get much respectability, but neither did the early muckrakers who were the earliest investigative reporters.

By being outside of the mainstream, bloggers have a different perspective.  Sometimes bloggers are reporting on issues and events that get almost entirely ignored by the mainstream media.

The value of traditional expert authority isn’t being diluted, but it is being challenged.  I would, however, argue that this strengthens expert authority by holding it to an even higher standard.

Objective analysis shows that Wikipedia articles on science and history are as reliable as encyclopedias (I would argue that they may be more reliable in some ways as they’re constantly being updated).  Also, Wikipedia cites many external sources that often are directly linked and so one can judge for themselves rather than solely relying on an expert.  In the long run, Wikipedia will on average become more reliable than a traditional printed encyclopedia.  Furthermore, Wikipedia has stringent standards and so acts as a training ground for any person to learn how to determine the validity of information.

So, the web doesn’t result in “the growing disintermediation of experts and gatekeepers”.  Rather, it increases mediation and creates better methods of gatekeeping.  Traditional experts still play a part, but they no longer dominate the discussion.

The above blog linked to an article by Peter Nicholson.  The following blog is a response to that article.  The opinion of stated below resonates with my own sense of this emerging information age.

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Reducing Life to a Formula from the Ooops…I’m still here blog

What has led me to rant about this pet peeve of mine,  is Peter Nicholson’s, Globe and Mail article, “Information – rich and attention – poor” (09-09-12).  Blaming the digital age he declares,

“In becoming information rich, we have become attention poor… [E]conomics teaches that the counterpart of every new abundance is a new scarcity – in this case the scarcity of human time and attention.”

[...]There is nothing wrong with the abundance of information created by digital technology.  Yes, I realise some of it is slim, but that’s okay, because there are ways of accessing deeper knowledge as well.  I personally have not experienced an attention deficit as a result of the “knowledge abundance”.  What I have experienced is a thrill at being able to access so much information in such a short time.  I do not fear what Nicholson refers to as the “24-hour knowledge cycle”, the ability to access news 24/7.  I relish in it.

                    Nicholson writes about the changing market for knowledge.  He states:

“When the effective shelf life of a document (or any information product) shrinks, fewer resources will be invested in its creation.  This is because the period during which the product is likely to be read or referred to is too short to repay a large allocation of scarce time and skill in its production.  As a result the ‘market’ for depth is narrowing.”

When you look at what is happening in the publishing world you have to agree with the first part of his comment, that because a “news product” has a short life it’s not financially feasible to invest heavily in it.  However, I disagree with his conclusion, that the result is  that the market for depth is narrowing.  Hey,  I’m part of the market and I’m not narrowing, nor are my eleven year old students who’s thirst for knowledge is unquenchable.  The desire for “depth” is not diminished by the abundance of knowledge.  In fact, it is enriched by it.

Love of Truth: Discussing vs Arguing

It’s kind odd that I don’t like direct conflict but I enjoy debate.

I blame my parents.  Both my mom and dad taught me to idealize truth and honesty.  My dad gave me the debating skills to pick apart any argument and he taught me the love of wisdom.  My mom gave me an irritable disposition that leads me to being very upfront with my opinions.  Also, my mom gave me a non-intellectual interest in human nature.  Combined together, I have an equal ability to analyze both the argument and the person making the argument.  Furthermore, my mom gave me a stubborn streak that goes directly with an ability to obsessively think about something for endless hours.  To mix metaphors, when something gets caught in my craw I don’t let go until every stone is turned.

But I can’t entirely blame my parents.  The MBTI personality type that I am is INFP which is fairly different from my parents’ personalities.  INFPs are idealists to the extreme.  In a sense, I took too seriously the lessons my parents taught me.  If it wasn’t for the fact that I see every side to every argument, I could almost make a good zealot.  Sometimes when an INFP gets hold of an issue or idea that they consider of great value, they hold on like pitbulls.  We INFPs may look like fluffy teddy bears, but we often have sharp teeth.

My intellectual side is partly a genuine aspect of my identity and is partly learned behavior.  I have an inner sense of self that is sensitive and non-rational to an extreme.  I live more by imagination than by thought, but it’s thought that I often use to relate to the world.  Right or wrong, I tend to use my intellect to justify my existence.  I just want the world to make sense.  And because of this I’m hard on myself (and everyone else) for failing to make perfect sense.  It’s kinda sad, but it’s my life and that is just the way it is.

So, when I’m in an irritable mood or when a value of mine is challenged, I can be a tireless debating opponent.  However, I’m usually only aggressive to people who deserve it.  I call them like I see them.  If someone is being mean-spirited or if someone is flaunting their ignorance, then I’ve been known to clearly point it out to them.  As I see it, either discuss intelligently and politely or don’t say anything at all.  If you have nothing relevant to add but still feel you must throw in your baseless opinion, then I will tear your view apart until you either shut up or start crying like a little sissy girl.  But as long as your comments are minimally relevant and rational, I’m perfectly fine with disagreement.  In fact, I love disagreement of the intelligent variety because it means I can learn something new.  And when learning something new I’m in a very good mood.

I realize I should be nicer than I am sometimes.  But the fact of the matter is that I’ve always valued honesty above almost everything else.  I worship at the altar of truth.  And if you get in the way of my ideal of truth, I can’t be held responsible for my behavior.  Let me just say sorry in advance.  If you ever catch me in an irritable and defensive mood, just let me vent and afterwards I’ll quite likely be one of the most warm and understanding people you’ve ever met.  As long as you’re willing to be honest and considerate with me, I’ll do the same for you.  So, be open and upfront in how you express yourself and I’ll do my best to understand your view.  Talk straight with me and don’t play psychological games.  There is no point to it.  You’re wasting my time and your own.

If all you want to do is argue, I’ll sometimes concede to that way of relating… until I become too emotioanlly drained (which can take a long time as my obsessive persistence usually lasts longer than that of most people).  If you want conflict, I can be a worthy debate opponent.  Sadly, though, it seems to me that those who seek conflict the most are the very people who aren’t talented debaters.  Be argumentative if you must but at least be interesting rather than simply annoying.  In particular, I’d rather not deal with the condescending snarkiness of know-it-all intellectual wannabes.

I should add that what I love most in life is seeking and sharing knowledge.  When I get obsessed with some idea or topic, I can spend enormous amounts of time doing nothing but research. I dig deep to find every interesting connection and every significant detail.

If I don’t know something, I admit it.  But I’m not content to simply admit my ignorance.  If it’s important enough to voice an opinion about, then it’s important enough to inform myself about.  If you ever find yourself debating me, don’t pretend to know what you don’t actually know.  I will check every fact you claim and I will look up precise definitions.  I don’t care if you have a college degree and are an expert in your field, don’t try to bullshit me.

Most importantly, don’t present opinions as facts (and the same goes for beliefs).  That is just plain wrong in my book.  Opinions are fine.  I have plenty of my own.  Just be humble enough to admit that it’s just an opinion.  If you lie to me about a fact or simply talk ignorantly, I will throw it back in your face and will publicly humiliate you with glee.  Or if you try to hide your true intentions behind facts and logic, I’ll pick at them like scabs until your motives start to show.  Don’t mess with the truth and I won’t mess with you.

All that said, I’m a pretty easygoing guy.  You have to be trying hard to get me rattled.  Basically, I really really do enjoy a good discussion and I’d rather have a friendly exchange than a heated argument.  I get excited about exploring new possibilities and I’m happy as can be when I meet someone who knows something I don’t.  As I see it, the quest for truth is an endless quest because truth is a mystery best understood in terms of questions rather than conclusions.  If like me you are a lover of truth, then we shall get along like best pals.

The Love of Truth vs. the Sophistry of Apologetics

A major reason I blog now is because apologists annoy me.  I used to post on discussion boards, but the discussions tend to get dragged down to the lowest common denominator. 

Apologists are annoying in that they can often be anti-intellectual, but not always.  Sometimes they’re quite intellectually capable even when their focus is very narrow.  It can even take a while to realize you’re dealing with an apologist because many believers prefer to not express their beliefs openly.  That is even more annoying because I can sense that the person is filtering everything they think, but it takes effort to realize they’re not actually open to new viewpoints.  The most intelligent apologists have a knack for creating convoluted arguments and false herrrings. 

What is even worse is when they demand you defend your argument when they can’t defend their own.  I’ve spent years studying religion, and it’s a complex field.  Why would I want to deal with people who’ve only read very narrowly?  Why would want to try to spoonfeed information to those who have no respect for knowledge?  And apologists can be persistent, going around and around with the same tired ploys.

Beyond all of that, what really annoys me is that apologists are very talented at perverting the truth.  To me, truth is my faith.  When someone uses rational logic falsely or deceptively, then it pisses me off.  I just don’t understand how someone can act rationally while at the same time having little respect for rationality.

I’m not criticizing faith.  I’m all for faith, but faith and rationality are not the same thing.  Rationality limited by unquestioned beliefs is not rational at all.  Certainly, it’s acceptable for one’s faith to inform one’s rationality, but one is no longer in the realm of rationality when one’s rationality is limited to one’s faith.  As such, rationality should also inform one’s faith.  No belief should be held back from the gaze of curiosity, questioning, doubt and general intellectual inquiry.  Also, I’d even go so far to say that faith without doubt is no faith at all.

Apologetics has been a major component of our society for centuries that so much of our culture has been limited to the context of Christian assumptions.  It’s so subtle that we usually don’t even notice it. 

A simple example is a reference work such as a dictionary.  I have a Sharp electronic dictionary that uses the New Oxford American Dictionary.  It doesn’t have entries for Basilides, Valentinius, or Marcion.  These three were the earliest Christians to write commentaries on New Testament scriptures.  All of them had all or most of their works destroyed by later Christians, and the latter two were labelled heretics some decades after they left the Catholic Church.  On the other hand, there are entries for all of the later apologists and heresiologists.  Irenaeus has an entry and he was the very one who called Marcion and Valentinius heretics.

So, why is a mainstream scholarly dictionary limiting the information shown to the public according to the decrees of Catholic orthodoxy?  How did the Catholic Church gain such influence over secular scholarship?  Why would a scholar choose to follow Church orthodoxy?  Was there a Christian majority in the committee that decided what made it into the dictionary?

This is the same with all other references.  When you do an internet search about Christianity, some of the best sources of info get buried beneath the numerous apologetic sites.  When you go to Wikipedia, many of the articles have very clear religious biases.

Here are some discussions with and articles about apologists:

http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/art_paradigm_shift.htm
 

http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/ctvadvert.htm

http://forums.truthbeknown.com/viewtopic.php?t=2255

http://forums.truthbeknown.com/viewtopic.php?t=2349

http://forums.truthbeknown.com/viewtopic.php?t=2366

http://forums.truthbeknown.com/viewtopic.php?t=2434

http://forums.truthbeknown.com/viewtopic.php?t=2063

http://forums.truthbeknown.com/viewtopic.php?t=1502

http://forums.truthbeknown.com/viewtopic.php?t=1158