A guide to ADULT thinking

A guide to grown-up thinking

A simple antidote to the infantile habit of 'believing whatever we want to believe' can be found in philosopher Karl Popper's theory of scientific logic. This states that scientific theories don't become set-in-stone facts that are no longer open to question. What becomes accepted as scientific knowledge are only those theories that have survived the filter of what he called 'falsification'. And even these remain subject to a self-correcting process of constant review.

In this philosophy knowledge becomes a process of traveling towards the truth, rather than truth being a final destination at which you arrive, and then stop moving. But it can only function with theories that can be falsified. Those constructed in such a way that there are no circumstances under which they can be shown to be false have no ability to 'move forward'.

Applying this view of science to our own political and cultural beliefs is effectively declaring an 'open season' on all intellectual certainty. It dares us to question and, if needs be, abandon those core beliefs that give us comfort or reassurance. Possessing a belief system that can never be shown to be wrong is immensely powerful and reassuring-but innately dangerous. Any kind of dogma is the enemy of radical thinking.

Infantile reactions are a habit the establishment is happy for us to acquire.

A population that loses its ability to think critically is one that's easy to manipulate-from the simple level of convincing us that brand x will achieve an enhancement of our quality of life it's not really able to supply, to the more serious level of convincing us that a regime our government wants to attack (for economic reasons) must be attacked because it harbors weapons of mass destruction.

1st democrats were Scientists/atheists

A strong and healthy democracy relies upon and benefits from a high level of critical thought to keep it functioning and growing. In this way it shares the same qualities as Popper's theory of science-the ability to remove an outdated theory echoes the ability to remove an unwanted government.

But who, it's fair to ask, actually wants to exist in an intellectual state of uncertainty? One in which we have to be constantly ready to question or abandon our core beliefs? An adult. A mature individual or society should be able to change their minds in the light of convincing evidence-creating a dynamic intellectual and political culture, rather than a stagnant one. Stagnation occurs when citizens accept the infantile role of passively absorbing a pre-digested, received wisdom handed down by 'authority' in all of its various guises: social, political or religious.

PARENT?

Being able to ask and answer the question 'Why do you believe what you believe, and under what circumstances would you change that belief?' is the equivalent of having a parliament of competing ideas inside your head, rather than a dictatorship of fixed dogmas.

Politicians who can appeal to our need for a reassuring, dogmatic, infantile certainty are tapping into a powerful force-the retreat into unreason that fascism so ably represented. The certainties of bigotry, and the comfort of abasing oneself to the alpha male authority figure regresses us back to a childish mass acceptance of received authority.

WHO ARE YOU TO TELL ME TO QUESTION AUTHORITY?

Questioning authority and reaching out for what is just and true is the move into an intellectual adulthood-away from the certainty of conforming to what others tell us is right. But it comes with an expensive price tag-the task of constructing and maintaining an ethical world view without the crutch of certainty. No wonder religion is such a powerful, virus like idea. It relieves us of the adult obligation of having to create a convincing moral and intellectual model of the world for ourselves.

CRUELTY/MACHISMO AS INFANTILE?

Ethics has roots in the ability to see beyond our own needs, and accept the inconvenient truth that other people are not objects, but have an inner life of their own. A huge step in a child's development is acquiring the ability to distinguish between itself and others-when it comes to realize that 'If I feel pain, then they feel pain'. The brutalization process of dehumanizing the enemy as a prerequisite for war is reminiscent of a retreat back into this childlike state-a denial of the reality of the pain of others.

Cynicism about human nature offers us the comfort blanket of believing that poverty and suffering are inevitable. It absolves us of the difficult adult task of trying to change the world for the better. Despite the complete lack of evidence to support it, and its impossibility to falsify, the privately-held belief that there's no point in trying to change anything remains a powerful crutch of the status quo. The belief that 'it's just what people are like' acts as permission to carry on with a selfish yuppie lifestyle.

The price of political optimism is to abandon our old ways of thinking. A loyalty to dogma kills dead our mental evolution as a species, and seeks to keep our culture in a fixed state. We need to be able to change and develop in an organic way.

Is our reaction to climate change a sign of our political infantalism? We ignore the problem, hoping our political mummies and daddies will make it better for us, instead of taking action ourselves? This retreat from reason is as childish as hiding our heads under the blanket and hoping the monsters will just go away.

The science writers Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan (1) suggested that the moral maturing of our culture represents a slow and precarious evolutionary path away from the blind obedience our prehuman ancestors felt towards the alpha male of the tribe-such an inbuilt urge remanifests itself in our deference to political and social leaders today.

What would a fully mature version of Homo Sapiens be like? One that thought independently, accepted its moral obligations to others, and had an adult ability to plan for a sustainable future..? Are we capable of evolving into 'Homo Ethicus'?

(1) Sagan, Carl and Druyan, Ann 'Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are' 1993

COPYRIGHT 2007 New Internationalist Magazine

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