We Believe What We Don't Want to Believe

[rowyn]

I was thinking about this topic a few days ago. People, perhaps especially Americans, are often accused of believing what suits their preferences. Some think that religious faiths are basically wish-fulfillment, believed not because evidence supports them, but because people want to think they are saved, that there's an afterlife, a Heaven, etc.

Of course, many early religions were appalling in what they did, and what they "promised" their worshippers. I remember having a conversation with Greywolf about why a basically good person might worship fundamentally evil gods. "He doesn't believe in this because he wants to. He believes because it's true." In his eyes, anyway. I expect for a lot of followers of cruel gods, it never occurred to them that belief was a choice. They would no more think "we don't have to worship these evil creatures" than we would think "if I jump off this roof, I won't fall to the ground."

And while I don't hold any religious convictions that I'm unhappy about, I do believe in a number of things that I'd just as soon be wrong about. For example, I'd be thrilled if it turned out that taking the profit motive away from pharmaceutical and medical developments didn't impact the rate at which new advances were made. If it happened that universal health care didn't create spiraling medical costs, decrease the overall qality of care, and bring medical technology to a standstill, I would be delighted. Obviously, I don't think that's the case. But I would be more than happy to be wrong about it.

I'm sure it would take decades of American intervention, in troops and dollars, to make a stable democracy out of Iraq. But if it miraculously happened by next summer, hey, I'd drink to being wrong in a heartbeat. If the Patriot Act prevents acts of terrorism without damaging civil liberties, I would take being wrong about it with absolute glee.

I think quite a lot of us believe in "harsh realities" that we don't want to be true. Some people become invested in being right, and they want to be right even if it means suffering and grief results. (Americans who opposed going to war against Iraq, and then rooted for American troops to be slaughtered, spring to mind). But I don't think most people are so enamored of being right that they'd rather get a bad outcome than be wrong.

But now I'm curious: what sorts of things do you hope you're wrong about?

Comments

[prester-scott.livejournal.com]

But now I'm curious: what sorts of things do you hope you're wrong about?

You mentioned a few of them.

More broadly, I hope I'm wrong about my suspicion that we are rapidly transforming into The Beast, the Final Panopticon State. I hope I won't have to suffer persecution for standing up to that State. I hope that there is earthly hope that I will be spared the sight of Hell on earth. I hope that I and my family yet to come can live freely and in peace.

However, what I believe about these matters is not going to affect my actions, my plans, or my core beliefs very much. So whether I'm right or wrong about them, by God's help, I'll still have done my duty.

[rowyn]

I hope you're wrong, too. :/

[detroitfather.livejournal.com]

On a similar note ... I have met many environmentalists who would be very upset if global warming was shown to be a hoax, or not happening to the advertised degree. That is, if the planet's temperatures turned out to be stable in spite of technology, they would be bitterly disappointed.

[detroitfather.livejournal.com]

I forgot to answer the question about my own beliefs/fears.

I would love to believe (but cannot) that the report I heard on NPR regarding child slavery for sex, was untrue or exaggerated.

[rowyn]

I didn't hear the story, but based on those four words alone -- "child slavery for sex" -- I think I can safely say I don't want it to be true, either. Gah.

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Ah, a tough question. Why? Because it's hard enough just trying to figure out what I want, anyway.

Hmm.

I think I'm going to have to come back to this one! ;)

[rowyn]

I'll just have to remind you that you were thinking of coming back to this, then. ;)

[minor-architect.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I hope that I'm wrong about the rate at which the divide between the "haves" and the "have-nots" is growing (be it the economic, social, or educational divide). I hope that I've been misled about the numbers of people working to close that gap as much as possible.

I also hope that I'm wrong about "the aging experience" in America, which seems to be fraught with loneliness, boredom, and fear. It would be wonderful to admit defeat on that one, too.

[rowyn]

I think getting old probably isn't necessarily that bad. A lot of the problems of aging you mention are probably controllable by the individual to a certain degree. That is, if you make a commitment to learning new things and meeting new people throughout your life, then you're less likely to find yourself bored and alone as you get older, and your old friends drift away, or your old hobbies become less popular or easy to practice.

Which is not to say the learning new things and meeting new friends is easy, or that losing old friends and passions isn't sad. :/ Still, there are things you can do to make life better.

And on an unrelated note: I like your new icon. Librarians rock. :)

[minor-architect.livejournal.com]

And on an unrelated note: I like your new icon. Librarians rock. :)

Hee, thanks! The one I'm using right now is new, too. I'm adding to my collection. ;-)

[rowyn]

Bwahahaha! Very cute. :)

why, librarians really are heartless ...

[minor-architect.livejournal.com]

Either that or we're dedicated to books, heart and soul! :-)

Quibble about the premisse

[ex-strangess744.livejournal.com]

I'm not so sure it's a case of believing things we don't want to be true; but being willing to believe something that has unpleasant consequences from the emotional reward that comes as these seperate positions knit together and make real cardinal beliefs and ideas.

For example, I see a thread in your list of "the government by its nature cannot do much right". As I noted a few convo's ago with you, I'm not going to debate that position, because it is one that I believe, just with different relative emphasis....

In my case, I wish that I was wrong in thinking that people as a body are myopic, apathetic, and too demoralized to resist "the next big thing". I wish that religion didn't do more harm than good by serving to poultice people's fears and desires rather than giving them a true moral compass. ie . that the vast majority of the "faithful" didn't belong to the "Church of What I Intended to Do Anyway". I wish that the modern economy was not founded on systematic corruption and passing as many costs on to people outside the productive organizations as possible...despite the long term effects of "shitting where you eat". I wish that parents truly wanted children rather than little xeroxes to fulfill their lost hopes vicariously or as pets to show off to their peers.

And the thread unifying my wish list is that I don't believe that _humans_ can escape being anything but cattle for the resourceful herdsman and shepherds among them. And I need to believe that, because my most fundamental belief is that everything is wrong. If it's not, after all, my pervasive malaise and ill feelings are nothing but a reflection of a flawed and maladapted brain and my failures are 100% my own. Which belief I doubt you can have that much sympathy for (wry smile) given your thoughts on responsibility.

Re: Quibble about the premisse

[rowyn]

I'm not so sure it's a case of believing things we don't want to be true; but being willing to believe something that has unpleasant consequences from the emotional reward that comes as these seperate positions knit together and make real cardinal beliefs and ideas.

So, is it better to be a member of the Church of Intolerance Because the Bible Says So than a member of the Church of What I Intended To Do Anyway? This seems like a no-win situation: if a person picks a religion that makes sense to him as it is, or opts not to believe because none of them do, then you can say "He's just doing whatever he wants and using religion (or lack thereof) as an excuse." But accepting that, say, "In Genesis, the Bible demonstrates that you're not supposed to use contraception, so any tolerance for that is pure accomodation" hardly seems appealing as the moral high ground.

Personal Churches

[ex-strangess744.livejournal.com]

Well, you are right that the strata of "believers" whom are ingesters of a belief and do not interact with it are even worse than the type I mention. However, there is that third strata who actually get involved in their faith and set themselves a moral system that they _know_ they will have a hard time with, because they want to have a part in making a world just a little less debased by human evil. The ones who take orthodoxy as a starting point but try to understand the currents of theological debate and align themselves with alternatives where they exist.

I could have just said "of course it's a Hobson's choice, did I mention I hate religion?" but that would have been cheap evasion of the substance of the question, namely is it possible to arrive truly moral behaviour by religious adherence of some sort ? I think it is, but the number of people who achieve this will be vanishingly small.

Because few people want to believe in something that makes them +by definition+ have to work for the right to believe themselves a good person. And most of those who do accept this difficult burden will only believe it if you beat it into them while young, and follow it like robots, rather than say, free inviduals...

Re: Personal Churches

[rowyn]

The trouble with making religion a Hobson's Choice in this fashion is that non-religion takes on the same overtones of self-indulgence. After all, if merely giving lip service to a Creator is bad, how much worse is it to assume one doesn't exist at all? Then you don't need to worry about moral restraints on behavior at all, right?

I also think that it's a bit silly to say "Better to be an Orthodox Jew than a Reform, or a Roman Catholic than a Unitarian" merely because the former faiths are older and more rigorous. If you want to prefer one because you think it's true, or more beneficial to mankind, that'd make sense.

But the way you put it reminds me of Pratchett's ultra-traditional dwarves, that treat the other dwarves badly and non-dwarves worse. "That must annoy the more liberal dwarves." "No, they respect them." "What, they want to be like that?" "No, but they think it's good that someone else is keeping up the old ways."

What's so good about the old ways that they ought to be kept up? What's so horrible about the new ways that they shouldn't exist?

I think there is a real and fundamental fallacy in saying "Because few people want to believe in something that makes them +by definition+ have to work for the right to believe themselves a good person". It implies that anyone who is "sacrificing" for their beliefs must be inherently better -- regardless of what they're sacrificing, or how much evil they're doing in the name of their religion.

It only takes a change in assumptions about statistics

[telnar.livejournal.com]

It occurred to me that a lot of the more cynical things I believe about what we should do to defend ourselves against the way other human beings are likely to behave are statistical rather than universal.

I lock my front door not because it is absolutely necessary or completely safe, but because I suspect that there are enough people out there who might wander in, but be deterred by this mild effort (and the increased work required to break in as well as the slightly higher risk of getting caught that picking the lock, or breaking a window entails). If I lived in a slightly different world where the mere fact that the door was closed was as effective as a locked door is in this world, I probably wouldn't bother to lock it.

Everyday life and even my political and economic views are full of cases where I assume that I need to be at least mildly cynical because more than a threshold fraction of the people I interact with will have motives I don't approve of. So, I don't even have to be all that far wrong in some cases to cross the cynical threshold.

X-Files and Horror RPG's

[garyamort.livejournal.com]

I hope I'm wrong and that most of the world's ills are caused by inter-dimensional beings feeding off human misery, or Aliens out to conquer the world.

It would make life so much more pleasant to beleive human beings are simply manipulated into evil acts by outside forces.

Cynicism

[kelloggs2066.livejournal.com]

I read your post a few days ago, and meant to get back to it, and haven't.

All I can really add to this is that, well... I personally try not to be cynical.

That is, when I expect people to do something stupid, but I'm really hoping that they won't. I usually recognize that I really don't *want* to believe that someone's being stupid, but sometimes the temptation is overwhelming.

And, I think cynicism is generally close to the situation that you're describing.

Still, I have to say that I'm not cynical very often, or at worst, I try not to be cynical.

Re: Cynicism

[rowyn]

I think cynicism is too glib a turn of phrase. I don't think it's fair, for example, to say that it's "cynical" to believe it will take a lot of time, effort, and money to make Iraq a democracy.

To give an even more extreme example: is it "cynical" to assume that a toddler's first work of art will not show the technical mastery of Rembrandt? :) But you can bet that if the toddler's work did, I wouldn't be disappointed!

And on the other hand, there's a certain inherent optimism in some opposing views. For example, some people advocate the government providing social services (welfare, unemployment, etc.) because they believe that the government is best suited to this task. I think they're wrong, and that private charities are best suited to this task. You can say that I am "cynical" about government, and I can say that my political opposite is "cynical" about private charities. Or you can say we're both optimistic about the abilities of our chosen vehicle. :)

To me, cynicism is saying "all the options are bad; we're doomed." To start out with "Option A is better than that option B" and then be pleased when option B turns out well after all isn't the result of a cynical outlook -- it's just life.

Re: Cynicism

[kelloggs2066.livejournal.com]

The example you gave originally of Americans who opposed the war, and then secretly (or not so secretly) hoped for large numbers of casualties to prove that they were in the right, is, cynicism beyond all cynicism.

That's the sort of cynicism I try to recognize and avoid in myself.

The cry of the cynic has always been "I'm just being realistic!" But, there's a fine line between "Being realistic" and Being cynical.

I try to draw that line in such a way as to avoid a no-win scenerio. (Maybe not on any sort of a concious level, but I always like to look for options, even when those options may be a long shot.) Many people don't make that distinction.

Being a cynic or a pessimist is always easy. All you have to do is to say, "It won't work." or "I give up." or "People are bad/stupid."

Being an optimist means always hoping for a solution. Solutions aren't always easy to find. Beliving that a solution exists if you can find it can take a lot of effort. Certainly more than, "I give up."

So, when I'm "Being realistic", I at least hope that I leave enough room that I'm also Prepared to be surprised.