by C. O. Jones
Presidential hopefuls eschew a stream of lies, falsely depicting our national reality — a reality readily observed by all — without the slightest reserve. Incredibly, these politicians — even with our national cynicism over “lying politicians” — proceed without fear of reprisal or relegation to complete irrelevancy.
In fact, our most noted proponent of this tool has taken it to the extreme, along with a cascade of insults, any one of which in election years past would have sent his candidacy to the dustbin; and he’s ridden it to the top of polls.
To those on the outside, the most perplexing quality of this phenomenon is our presumption that our fellow citizens are aware that these “truths” are false. We even have a word to describe it: “truthiness!” Truthiness, although a "stunt word", was named Word of the Year for 2005 by the American Dialect Society and for 2006 by Merriam-Webster.[7][8] The concept is endorsed, if not mocked, by our culture!
Still, in a culture where we nominally consider ourselves to be intelligent and “the greatest nation in the history of mankind,” how can that be?”
Most of our believers (on the right) who accommodate this phenomenon are Christian. Is this a co-incidence? We think not. It would appear that there’s a strong connection.
Picture a young person — 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 — growing up in a good, Christian home, especially in the fifties, even the sixties. Not only does he learn that Jesus loves him, but he learns to love Jesus. Who’s Jesus? From the time that he can understand the concept, he learns from his parents, church, school, media, relatives — maybe even friends — that being a “Good Christian” as an act of faith makes him or anyone a good person…. popular, respected. Beyond good, it delivers eternal happiness. The authority here, a “text” for this faith, is a tome that all but the most ardent acknowledge is filled with myth, contradiction, wild tales, parable and metaphor. Still, as the brain develops, lessons are learned and stored in our amygdala. These early lessons are extremely powerful.
Note that “faith” here means believing something implausible and unprovable. But it’s presented as a very good attribute. Sometime, oh maybe in our teens — long after Santa Claus and the tooth fairy fade into fancy, we may be exposed to doubt. But doubt comes with pejorative labels: Heathen, Infidel, Apostate. For an impressionable teen, preoccupied by the exigencies of chasing popularity, who needs this?
We can find joy and safety riding the cultural wave. We live in a Christian nation. All one has to do is believe what others want him to believe. He wants to believe. He’s a good person.
And here it is, my friends: From our youngest and most impressionable moments, our culture has taught us and stroked us — for believing what we want to believe. But what could be more personal than the essence of who we are? Against logic — in absence of evidence, we accept a fanciful notion of WHO I AM.
Wait a minute! Am I not the final authority on who I am? When we were MOST impressionable and vulnerable, our parents didn't tell us: “Here’s a popular explanation of where we come from and why we’re here. There are many other theories about this to explore as you grow up.” Instead, we were force-fed religion — as truth.
How much of a stretch is it, then, to accept as truth what we hear about other abstractions, that we realize we know practically nothing about. Politics! It’s a lot safer to accept the wisdom of those who study these matters. And their wisdom “feels good” coming in — all the better! The information, you see, comes with a continual stream of warnings — threats to our safety and to our world; but their society of saviors will protect me and my family, if I support them.
Most of all, these people know my pain! They understand how I am victimized by cruel circumstances. They realize that my problems are NOT because of the bad choices that I’ve made my whole life. OTHER PEOPLE have stolen my prerogatives. It’s convenient that these thieves don’t look or talk like me — oh, and they never seem to have political power. But this message feels g o o o d. I know the feeling, and I’ve had a lifetime of conditioning to accept this as truth.
So the next time you are stunned to find that people believe nicotine is not addictive, that lead is not poison, that burning petroleum is not making climate change, that YOU are threatened by Islamic terrorists, that our economy has not recovered, that President Obama has destroyed the prosperous country that President George W. Bush left us, realize that they — maybe even YOU — also believe the orthodoxy of some religion. We have been taught to accept as truth that which we want to believe.
C. O. Jones is a Robbinsense staff writer
On the near horizon lies change. Our children of the digital age — children of the internet — have a different reality. We will soon witness how this generation, over-exposed, under educated, berated by its elders, jaded by and unprotected from the harsh world they inhabit — takes to the concept of “truthiness.” By and large, this generation hasn’t bought into, as we did, the “very unlikely.” We are on the cusp of Future Shock. Stay tuned.
C. O. Jones is a Robbinsense staff writer
Leave it to Charlie to pursue this controversial subject. While believers choose to believe, many non-believers would prefer to swing to the other side; but something prevents this. It may be genetic makeup that causes a person to carry “doubt” into action — leaving behind the comfort of “what feels good.” (See Robbinsense on ambiguity, and a 3-part series on belief.)
ReplyDeleteNeither science nor Robbinsense takes a stand on religion or belief. ed
http://robbinsense.blogspot.com/2009/04/evolution-science-or-fiction.html
http://robbinsense.blogspot.com/search?q=ambiguity
Interesting perspective, however, not sure I can agree with you on this one. There are a lot of rednecks who aren’t Christian who do believe in the conservative lies, and there are a lot of Socialist Christians who don’t believe in their lies.
ReplyDeleteIt is an overgeneralization in my opinion that Christians
believe in lies, therefore they believe in the lies of Republicans. It is like saying all black people are stupid.
Thanks, Ivan.
ReplyDeleteThe Republican Party has been courting “working-class whites” (rednecks) vigorously since the “Southern Strategy,” inaugurated in the sixties. This has paid off handsomely even thought the GOP offers no policy rewards to this group at all (That’s why they’re flocking to Trump.)
I think Charlie’s perspective is NOT a connection between Christian belief and GOP affiliation. Rather it’s the connection between an early indoctrination into the world of belief in the implausible because of the positive rewards that offers.
From that perspective this validates Charlie’s argument. ed.
We got a number of letters in response to this piece, generally critical of Charlie’s perspective. This is not unusual, for him. But perhaps the message is not clear.
ReplyDeleteEven though evangelical Christians have settled in the Republican Party since 1980, there is little in Charlie’s essay dwelling on that connection. Neither is there an implied connection between Christians, per se, and belief in false truth. The issue is parents, bolstered by society, family, tribe — indoctrinating their children to their own “truth,” whether that be religion, a political party, racism, hatred of homosexuals, or the Hatfields teaching their kids to hate the McCoys. The central issue is accepting “truth” based on tradition rather than facts. In our society, the predominant religious orthodoxy is Christianity; but it could be any other. Religion, as a body of lore, has been an early entry point for all cultures to indoctrinate the children. And until recently, even in this country it was very uncommon for parents to present “options.”
Charlie might have used the perspective of a Muslim child being reared in a Syrian family, and indoctrinated by Islamic beliefs. We would then agree with his thesis. But the point is to look into a mirror and realize that we tolerate these traditions in our own culture, and accept it as the norm.
During the 60s cultural myths began to explode. Boomers learned that their government lies to us. We learned that our parents were hypocrites. We learned that our country fought unjust and illegal wars, killing millions of innocent people. “Sex drugs and rock ’n roll” combined with the war and exposure of wide-spread racism to trigger an extremely powerful movement. And now we have the internet.
But still, on Boy Scout camping trips in the 1950s, Sunday mornings the Catholics were whisked off to church because they would go to hell if they missed one Sunday. They—their parents believed that, I guess!
At (liberal) Berkeley during the sixties, even though a person of Jewish heritage might be “accepted” into a fraternity, it was widely discussed — and understood that he belonged in a Jewish fraternity.
This is who we were in The United States of America, growing up as recently as 50-60 years ago. The lesson of accepting tradition, even contradicted by fact, as truth, for a young child has lasting impact. Many, probably most, adopt this for life, whether or not they hold onto their religious beliefs.
Believing what we want to believe is not necessarily stupid — ignorant, perhaps. Ignorance is bliss. ed.
Thanks CO. You're right in the information gathering. Millennials strangely enough gather more information from their peers than they do from their parents. In fact they do a form of collective thinking that is rather remarkable and they disseminate information en mass. They are less independent than boomers but at the same time less inclined to mob think, and more inclined to take apart information in small groupings. I find them the most intelligent group of young people I've encountered in awhile and when talking to them I feel better about the future. That is as soon as the boomers get out of the way.
ReplyDelete