In this column, I want to establish that the mature Christian mind is best protected against propaganda.
Last year, as I watched in disgust as so many Americans were mesmerized by Obama's frighteningly dark drivel, I read Jacques Ellul's 'Propaganda'. Much rang true, but I didn't have much background to question his evidence.
As I've mulled over how people choose to believe what they believe, I was reminded of some passages in his book. He describes modern man as such:
Above all he is a victim of emptiness-he is a man devoid of meaning. He is very busy, but he is emotionally empty, open to all entreaties and in search of only one thing - something to fill his inner void.
The main point to my four part series on rationality was that people choose to believe the most emotionally satisfying answers. Furthermore, I believe that our ability to ascertain the true nature of reality is when we have little emotional stake in the answer. If we emotionally need an answer to be true we will rationalize and even lie to ourselves to satisfy those emotional needs. In general, if we are emotionally needy people, our ability to adhere to reality is diminished.
What I propose, and it will be left unproved until later posts, is that Christianity provides the ultimate path to emotional satisfaction because it prescribes optimal human behavior. This optimal human behavior is what I call morality. Reality, as described by Christianity, I will call the Truth.
If one rejects the Truth, one must be accepting a disreality, a non-truth, or more simply, a set of lies. By pursuing a path that is suboptimal, one will inevitably suffer. The pain we suffer because we have chosen to believe a disreality while living in reality wounds us emotionally. The inevitability of pursuing a disreality is emotional emptiness. This emptiness, as Ellul points out, leads one to believe more lies and more propaganda.
Empty people will fall prey to propaganda. Inevitably they will be ruled by the propagandizers. The emptier they are, the more brutal the rule over them will be. They will be imprisoned by the lies they have told themselves to assuage their emptiness. It truly is a hell of their own making.
Only the emotionally satisfied mind can see reality as it is. And, as I propose, only the Christian mind can be fully emotionally satisfied.
Showing posts with label Rationalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rationalism. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
A Series on Rational Thought - Part IV
Rationality was born as a tool to satiate our wants and desires. Ideas, as units of rationality, are tools within the whole. Ideas are like any object. We grab ahold of those ideas that satisfy our wants and needs, and discard those that do not. When we choose to believe something, it is because it satisfies an emotional need.
I explicitly reject the notion that we can limit our beliefs to rationality. Rationality is why we choose to believe some things, but it is not how we have come to believe most things. We only stick to rationality when the subject major has no emotional incumbrances. In some areas of human though, rationality can reign, such as physics, but in economics, psychology, and sociology, emotions prevent us from more objective analysis.
The final implication is religious. I recently had an interaction with a very smart atheist friend of mine who told me that he thought that a belief in the after life was ridiculous. I got him to concede that the evidence provides no light on its existence. He asked why then I did believe, to which I replied, "Given the lack of evidence, it's the most emotionally satisfying answer." He was unsatisfied with this reponse, still wedded to rationalism. We left the discussion at that point.
I returned a few days later to continue the discussion after concluding the ideas in this series I blogged. He followed my reasoning that all beliefs are emotionally born, and that rationalism is merely a particular method of choosing beliefs. He conceded my point and admitted that my choice was justifiable. The discussion was obviously much longer, but this was the final outcome.
I explicitly reject the notion that we can limit our beliefs to rationality. Rationality is why we choose to believe some things, but it is not how we have come to believe most things. We only stick to rationality when the subject major has no emotional incumbrances. In some areas of human though, rationality can reign, such as physics, but in economics, psychology, and sociology, emotions prevent us from more objective analysis.
The final implication is religious. I recently had an interaction with a very smart atheist friend of mine who told me that he thought that a belief in the after life was ridiculous. I got him to concede that the evidence provides no light on its existence. He asked why then I did believe, to which I replied, "Given the lack of evidence, it's the most emotionally satisfying answer." He was unsatisfied with this reponse, still wedded to rationalism. We left the discussion at that point.
I returned a few days later to continue the discussion after concluding the ideas in this series I blogged. He followed my reasoning that all beliefs are emotionally born, and that rationalism is merely a particular method of choosing beliefs. He conceded my point and admitted that my choice was justifiable. The discussion was obviously much longer, but this was the final outcome.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
A Series on Rational Thought - Part III
Where does rational thought come from? Somewhere between ape and man, child and adult, our thinking went from wholly irrational to mostly rationality. We don't see any other animals exhibit the same ability to grasp the world around them like humans. Perhaps glimpses, but nothing quite to our scale.
Rational thought had to have been developed. If anything like language, this was not a biological event, but a cultural one. Having had two children, I am a first hand witness to the slow growth out of instinctual infancy to the budding rationality of childhood. Rationality has to be learned.
Rationality is a tool to understand the outside world, which ultimately leads to our desire to satisfy our wants. Our emotions create these desires, and it is our rationality that allows us to satiate those desires. That is to say, our emotions tell us that we want the apple, but our rationality tells us how to get it. At the core, our emotions are driving everything we do.
Rational thought had to have been developed. If anything like language, this was not a biological event, but a cultural one. Having had two children, I am a first hand witness to the slow growth out of instinctual infancy to the budding rationality of childhood. Rationality has to be learned.
Rationality is a tool to understand the outside world, which ultimately leads to our desire to satisfy our wants. Our emotions create these desires, and it is our rationality that allows us to satiate those desires. That is to say, our emotions tell us that we want the apple, but our rationality tells us how to get it. At the core, our emotions are driving everything we do.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
A Series on Rational Thought - Part II
Having concluded that language is the expression and communication of emotion, the total sphere of communication needs to be added to complete this discussion. Verbal (oral and written) communication is only one of the ways that we communicate our emotions. The two other major forms are through music and aesthetics.
Certain music conjures up very similar emotional experiences in us. An ominous song comes across as such to most listeners. Whether there is some objective trait or subjectively created cultural understanding in music that makes it sound dark and ominous we seem to understand the intent for the most part. We match happy lyrics with happy tunes, and angry lyrics to angry tunes. Music is an additional layer of emotional communication. In Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”, the feelings of longing are significantly heightened by the melody of the music. We like those sounds that resonate with our own feelings and emotions. We like love songs, we like soaring anthems, but we can’t stand a tune that doesn’t match our emotional experiences (She thinks my tractor’s sexy, ugh).
The same goes for aesthetics. An American flag conjures up much more emotion in the patriotic individual than another piece of colored cloth. The image means something more. It is a communication of ideas, and it conjures a whole litany of emotions and memories. A swastika can cause repulsion. A rose can fill us with romance. We have learned that certain images mean more than the photons hitting our retina.
Neither language, music, or aesthetics is rational. It’s all emotional.
Certain music conjures up very similar emotional experiences in us. An ominous song comes across as such to most listeners. Whether there is some objective trait or subjectively created cultural understanding in music that makes it sound dark and ominous we seem to understand the intent for the most part. We match happy lyrics with happy tunes, and angry lyrics to angry tunes. Music is an additional layer of emotional communication. In Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”, the feelings of longing are significantly heightened by the melody of the music. We like those sounds that resonate with our own feelings and emotions. We like love songs, we like soaring anthems, but we can’t stand a tune that doesn’t match our emotional experiences (She thinks my tractor’s sexy, ugh).
The same goes for aesthetics. An American flag conjures up much more emotion in the patriotic individual than another piece of colored cloth. The image means something more. It is a communication of ideas, and it conjures a whole litany of emotions and memories. A swastika can cause repulsion. A rose can fill us with romance. We have learned that certain images mean more than the photons hitting our retina.
Neither language, music, or aesthetics is rational. It’s all emotional.
A Series on Rational Thought - Part I
In this series I want to display how rational thought is a mirage. How we actually make decisions in mostly rational ways, but not truly. What we believe is decided by those ideas that most fit our emotional needs.
First, let me explore language itself. A baby’s first words usually correlate to its most pressing needs. “Mama”, “Dada” or “my”. It learns to communicate its emotion by use of these first simple words. If it experiences desire for an object, the child says, “my.” If it experiences desire for physical comfort, the child says, “mama.” A child first learns to express themselves, and slowly learns words to describe the emotions they are experiencing.
Later on, the child begins to cross another threshold of language. Children have to learn that other people have emotions and respect those emotions. A child wants a toy and asks, “Can I play with your toy?” In this, the child expresses their own emotion, but they are also communicating to the other child that they realize that the other child may have an emotional attachment to that object (toy) as well. Realizing that the asking child recognizes that the owning child does in deed “own” the object and that the object will be returned allows the owning child to share with more comfort and addresses its emotional connection to the toy.
Of course, children will also learn less admirable uses of language. They will learn how to say things to manipulate and to emotionally injure those around them to achieve their own ends. They recognize the emotional needs of others and exploit that knowledge.
In total, all language is the expression and communication of emotion.
First, let me explore language itself. A baby’s first words usually correlate to its most pressing needs. “Mama”, “Dada” or “my”. It learns to communicate its emotion by use of these first simple words. If it experiences desire for an object, the child says, “my.” If it experiences desire for physical comfort, the child says, “mama.” A child first learns to express themselves, and slowly learns words to describe the emotions they are experiencing.
Later on, the child begins to cross another threshold of language. Children have to learn that other people have emotions and respect those emotions. A child wants a toy and asks, “Can I play with your toy?” In this, the child expresses their own emotion, but they are also communicating to the other child that they realize that the other child may have an emotional attachment to that object (toy) as well. Realizing that the asking child recognizes that the owning child does in deed “own” the object and that the object will be returned allows the owning child to share with more comfort and addresses its emotional connection to the toy.
Of course, children will also learn less admirable uses of language. They will learn how to say things to manipulate and to emotionally injure those around them to achieve their own ends. They recognize the emotional needs of others and exploit that knowledge.
In total, all language is the expression and communication of emotion.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)