5:58 AM Unknown
(This is a continuation of an essay examining the many ills of American society, as I see them, and hopefully some solutions to them as well).
What I have done so far is to attempt to write persuasively, to attempt to sway people to see the light, at least, the light as I see it.
To attempt to persuade people, I try to appeal to their sense of reason and their empathy for other people. The problem with that tactic is that the people I want to reach often lack reason or empathy for other people.
The lack of reason, or rationality, has already been discussed when talking about cognitive dissonance (see Part I of "America is Sick"). Why people lack compassion is complicated. Like with cognitive dissonance, it's often about values: Some value their personal freedom over the well being of others, for instance. And because people seem to be psychologically inclined to believe they are "good" or on the right side, few people consciously admit or even realize they lack compassion.
And truthfully, few people are wholly good or evil, if any are. The person who gave a nice donation to the local soup kitchen might also think they are the victim of theft if they pay taxes that help feed poor children. The person who lobbies for universal healthcare might walk to the other side of the street to avoid a coughing homeless person.
In both those examples, a logical argument can be made for the "evil" that was done. In the first, someone might believe in helping people but they don't want to be coerced to do it. In the second, the person might want to help the homeless person, but he or she isn't willing to risk getting sick to do it. All of us have some point at which our selflessness ends and our selfishness begins.
But the lack of compassion and empathy in America today is disturbing, and I've put a lot of thought into understanding it. I won't claim to have a full grasp of the whole picture though. Still, it doesn't take a highly analytical mind to notice that the more people have in common the more compassionate toward each other they tend to be, and with some people, this tendency toward compassion for the similar is more pronounced.
I call it a tribal mentality. Human beings have been around for about 100,000 years at least. Only in the last few thousand years have we had civilization. When people lived in tribes and small villages or camps with no nations or broad societies, tribal mentality made perfect sense.
Tribal mentality kept us suspicious of people in other tribes, people who looked different, who dressed differently, who had different religions and customs. This suspicion made sense because each different tribe was a potential threat. Whereas shared religion and customs created loyalty to each other and kinship and ultimately a better chance of prosperity, suspicion of those who were different was a necessary evil for the sake of survival.
But in a modern day, melting pot culture such as the United States of America, tribal mentality does not make obvious sense and instead harms our society in many ways. Suspicion of those who are different than us causes us to hate and fear our neighbors. In a mixed culture, tribal mentality destroys loyalty to each other, ruins kinship and ultimately, it sabotages our chances for prosperity.
Unfortunately, because we are a melting pot, people encounter different people than them all the time. These many clashes of culture activate those old tribal feelings, the us-versus-them attitudes. In the end, and somewhat ironically, America, with the most diverse society in the world, is also the most divided, tribalistic modern society in the world as well.
Because while I call it tribal mentality, most people call it conservatism.
(If you consider yourself a conservative and you find yourself right now searching your mind for ways to argue against my assertions about tribal mentality, know that you are suffering from cognitive dissonance and it may be standing in your way of learning something. Push aside those thoughts and ask yourself instead if you agreed with me before I revealed that I was talking about conservatism. Even if not, fight against your urge to refute me and instead continue reading, please. Then, afterward, don't react. Think.)
Of course, this tribal mentality, conservatism, is not meritless. Even today, we still face threats, and frankly, if I was in a fight, I'd love to have a bunch of conservatives on my side. Conservatives are often loyal friends, reliable, hard working, brave in many ways, and pragmatic.
But most tribalistic, conservative beliefs are, unfortunately, instinctual and emotional. They are often not based on facts or a logical examination of a situation but instead on pre-existing beliefs and emotional attachments. Worse yet, because humans are wired to believe we are rational, even when we're not, cognitive dissonance drives tribalistic people to rationalize their beliefs or ignore facts that refute their beliefs. Sometimes entirely new "facts" are created in elaborate schemes to support their beliefs.
Creationism is an example. Some conservative Christians believe that the Theory of Evolution is a threat to their pre-existing beliefs. Even though, objectively, a god could have used evolution to create humanity, that is not what creationists argue. They instead argue that almost 200 years of scientific study and the beliefs of the overwhelming majority of scientists in the world are somehow fraudulent. The science didn't suit the creationists' beliefs, so they created their own version of "science."
Another example is the American College of Pediatricians. The College was founded as a protest when the American Academy of Pediatrics decided to support adoption by gay couples. The American College of Pediatricians, which sounds like a reputable source, was founded to inject its "values" into science, while ignoring the science. Whether adoption by a gay couple harms or helps children should be decided by science, not political philosophy or religion. And now with organizations like this and the creationist groups, pointless confusion about what is real and what is actual science is sewn.
And here is an example of conservatives ignoring facts because they did not suit their previous beliefs that you can try out yourself. I recently learned that the idea of "going to heaven when you die" isn't really in the Bible. I've done some research and asked around, and apparently that's true. There are references to heaven and some similar ideas, but the belief that people's spirits go to heaven when they die sprang from old Catholic teachings, not the Bible. In fact, the Bible contradicts the idea that spirits go to heaven by saying people will stay in their graves until the judgment day.
"For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever." - Thessalonians 4:16-17
Of course, not surprisingly, you will find Bible scholars who rationalize that verse, such as one I read which said "the spirit goes to heaven, but the body rises when Christ returns." I guess that is literally a zombie Apocalypse.
Anyway, to a person who values rationality and things making sense, it seems clear that the Bible at least contradicts the idea that people go to heaven when they die, and it would seem, in a rational world, that those who claim to base their beliefs on the Bible would change their views when they learned one of their religious beliefs was not in the Bible. But go ahead and tell people that "going to heaven when you die" isn't in the Bible and let me know how many conservatives you convince.
Of course, all of us experience cognitive dissonance, and probably all of us rationalize irrational beliefs at some point or other. Many conservatives just take it to an absurd degree because too often, their pre-existing beliefs are based on what their parents taught them, religion and other traditions. And traditions, while comfortable and accepted, are not often based on rationality and even when they are, they are often based on a situation that no longer exists.
It's like a dog that waits by the front doorstep for its owner every afternoon after work, but even after the owner dies, the dog keeps waiting by the doorstep.
And even though the average middle schooler knows more about the world than many of the authors of our ancient texts, people continue to believe everything written in their particular favorite book is true. And this staunch belief not only stands in the way of compassion, in some ways it perverts what compassion is there.
For instance, those who use the Bible's opposition to homosexuality to endorse conversion therapy, which is when people try to "pray the gay away" and force homosexuals to not be gay, even though the science tells us that doesn't work. In their minds, proponents of conversion therapy think they are saving young people from gayness. Instead, the rest of us realize they are doing great harm to young people already dealing with a psychologically difficult situation.
And sure, there are Bible verses that oppose homosexuality, but people have used the Bible to justify their wrong and hateful beliefs for centuries. The Southern Baptist Convention was formed due to a dispute with its northern brothers over slavery, which the Bible is at least permissive of. When the Ten Commandments say "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's manservant or maidservant" it's not talking about butlers and French maids. In Ephesians 6:5, Jesus apparently commands slaves to obey their masters. In the 1800s Southern land owners routinely used the Bible to justify slavery.
Morality has evolved as society has evolved. We now know that slavery is evil. We now value women as equals instead of property. We are coming to realize that two people loving each other and harming no one should be accepted in our society, but we're facing opposition from the forces of tradition and tribal instinct. Eventually, beating children with belts and paddles will be recognized as child abuse in our society, but I guarantee you, the major obstacle to that realization will be people waving the Bible and saying "spare the rod, spoil the child."
And even though this seems like I am picking on conservatives and Christians, that isn't my intention. There are great people who are conservatives. Most of my friends are Christians, and many of them are great people. Religion can bring people happiness and fulfillment and greatly benefits the world in many ways.
But conservatism, and to a large extent its connection with religion, stand as a barrier to compassion and rationality, and it keeps us constantly divided between those lobbying for progressive values of compassion and reason against those standing by traditional and religious values. To some extent this is good, because it keeps us from progressing too fast, and that is a fact we liberals should not dismiss out of hand, especially when we stand on the precipice of descending into a state that is more similar to the brutal, tribal past than the shining, Utopian future of which we all dreamed.
And why are we so close to degenerating as a society? Because there is profit to be made in deepening our natural divisions and sharpening those edges where our conflicts meet.
To be continued.
