When something happens like the Las Vegas shooting, it is natural for people to talk about it for awhile. But a glaring cultural and personal fallacy is revealed here.
At risk of sounding cold, this event is not unique. Random violence and bloody death of regular people occurs all over the world all the time. These are all tragic acts committed by tragically damaged people. They are all available to us in near real time. Most of us can't even say we don't KNOW it happens in a purely logical sense. (We may not THINK about it, but we KNOW it if we take a second.) Yet most of us never acknowledge that it occurs.
So why is it such a big deal this time?
The answer is simply the perception of proximity. Because it occurs in a place we might go, or relatively close to a place we currently are. But this is a fallacy, because if you live in Florida, for example, you are physically closer or equally close to places where this occurs all the time. Namely, the Caribbean and Central America.
You might say, "but this is our country." Sure. But there is no physical barrier between those places and this one. I can be in Mexico from Tampa in a day's drive. And truthfully, that statement reveals a flaw and a fallacy. The flaw: cultural bigotry, and the fallacy: novelty.
Because this event is different from what we usually experience, we take note. This is a fallacy because for the vast majority of Americans our lives have not been disrupted by the event. If we hadn't heard about it yet, as would have been the case 200 years ago, we would still be going on as if nothing happened. So why do we feel different because we know of it? Again, I'm not saying this isn't tragic nor terribly affecting for those directly involved or with family and friends who were. Hang with me, I'm going somewhere with this. The reason is simply because of how we associate the event. It FEELS closer, newer.
Lastly, we are affected because of the sheer frequency of reports. What was in reality one event with a finite number of tragedies is reported and discussed endlessly, even when there is nothing new or only marginally new. The truth is we can't do anything with all that info anyway, so it just serves to rile us up, which is exactly the goal of the commercially driven news. Please do us all a favor and stop using those sources. You do realize that Houston is still a wreck, but you never hear about it any more because it doesn't generate the traffic after a while.
This feeling of inescapability is a fallacy. Statistically, it is now only slightly more likely that it will happen to you. In REALITY, it is NO more likely, not one bit, now than it was prior. It's just in your head.
What troubles me most is the inconsistency. We can be so unaffected by the same or worse suffering for such silly reasons as it isn't in a place or context we connect with and it isn't thrown up in our face constantly. But then very affected by something that is in reality no different, simply because our mind associates it differently! This should bother us.
Showing posts with label fallacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fallacy. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Monday, April 24, 2017
Missed
I am reading a modern book right now (yeah I do read modern ones sometimes). It's by Daniel Quinn, whom I've mentioned before. He wrote Ishmael, which is one of my favorite books. Then he further developed the ideas in the book I'm reading now called The Story of B, and others to follow.
I read Ishmael back in the 1990's and it opened my eyes to a new way of seeing and thinking. Then later, I read the sequel, My Ishmael, which is actually third in written order. I liked this one nearly as much as the first book. I'd skipped B because the plot sounded questionably interesting and was only tangentially in the storyline of the other two.
I don't agree with everything Quinn says, his history is often in error, and his philosophical/logic skills are often faulty. But I have practised being able to "eat the meat and spit out the bones" as a friend says, so that doesn't bother me if there's good to be had in it. But then I decided to pick up B. It's terrible.
I get the distinct sense that Ishamel may have received such a bad reaction that Quinn went a little "Moses striking the rock". I've seen that with other storytellers that have a message, but this one is just not good. It's too full of sour grapes and brow-beating ideas. As he mentions in the book itself, this time he's taking a different approach. He shouldn't have. But as I don't do book reviews, I'm going to leave it at that, and focus on my reactions. If you want more, read it yourself, then we can talk.
The biggest flaw in Quinn's vision, as portrayed in the book, is that it's a reaction to an entirely phantom image of Christianity. He seems to have a certain idea of Christianity, which I've seen practised by many self-styled Christians. But he doesn't recognize that this may or may not be a correct view, nor that there are other interpretations that are almost diametrically opposed to this view within the diversity of Christendom.
If Christianity was what he portrays it: a sort of Dan Brown-esque conspiracy laden jumble of contradictions to dupe simpletons, which any thinking-person ought to be able to see for what it is, I would hate it too.
But here's the kicker: his alternative is very much the Christianity I know and follow! He just attempts to rebrand it as a universal animism. Even the strict conservative Christianity I was raised in had many of the elements he seems to be seeking in his reconstructed nature-based religion.
For example, in B he propounds that every place is sacred, every living thing. That all are interconnected and that in a real sense, they all live out their lives in the hand of the god. He makes a distinction that he doesn't mean the all-powerful creator God, but the less distinct animus of the single place.
Well, my understanding of the Bible is exactly this, except of course that the deity is the universal Good, the all-powerful God. Which is very much more to his point, I think. Coming from the obvious Hippie perspective he originates in, the Universe (which he actually refers to at one point) is by definition ONE thing. If all life is part of this big ONE thing. Why divide that into myriad animi of place? Wouldn't the world itself be one thing as much as all things in it are one? If there is an animus of each of the small expressions of the one, how much more a single grand Animus in which all the others were collected, reflected, and imagined?
In fact, I know many Christians that actually do operate in a worldview of lesser spiritual beings guarding and shepherding places and activities. The Romantics, and even CS Lewis routinely referred to these beings as part of their cosmos.
So what is to be gained by stepping so insistently outside of Christianity as Quinn tries? A sense of place? Heck, I know more Christians that HEAVILY venerate places, even natural ones, than those that don't. Even to the point that I think it's silly, since obviously one place is no better than another IN ITSELF. As Quinn agrees, ALL places are sacred. To me this is so only because of the presence of God in them, not any aspect of the atoms, as such, in that locale. So my prayers are no better heard in one spot over another. Like the Centurion praised for his faith that Jesus didn't have to come to his house to heal someone.
I've seen this far too often: someone gets an idea of something locked in their head, especially if it was a bad experience, and they judge all other similar things as that. This is especially true with Christianity. This is the very reason I'm so dogged against Christians who knowingly or unknowingly play into these stereotypes. Because when it comes down to it, the burden of communication is on the communicator. If someone gets the wrong message from what I say, that's my fault, not theirs. If for no other reason than I am the one who wants them to hear me. I can't expect people who aren't asking the question to do the work necessary to get my answer.
But back to the former side, it never pays for us to misjudge, misunderstand. To understand, we have to listen and explore with openness. Not to say lack of critical thought, by any means, but with openness. It also never pays to assume one perspective or case is true for all others.
The ironic thing, is that I learned that in large part FROM Quinn!
I read Ishmael back in the 1990's and it opened my eyes to a new way of seeing and thinking. Then later, I read the sequel, My Ishmael, which is actually third in written order. I liked this one nearly as much as the first book. I'd skipped B because the plot sounded questionably interesting and was only tangentially in the storyline of the other two.
I don't agree with everything Quinn says, his history is often in error, and his philosophical/logic skills are often faulty. But I have practised being able to "eat the meat and spit out the bones" as a friend says, so that doesn't bother me if there's good to be had in it. But then I decided to pick up B. It's terrible.
I get the distinct sense that Ishamel may have received such a bad reaction that Quinn went a little "Moses striking the rock". I've seen that with other storytellers that have a message, but this one is just not good. It's too full of sour grapes and brow-beating ideas. As he mentions in the book itself, this time he's taking a different approach. He shouldn't have. But as I don't do book reviews, I'm going to leave it at that, and focus on my reactions. If you want more, read it yourself, then we can talk.
The biggest flaw in Quinn's vision, as portrayed in the book, is that it's a reaction to an entirely phantom image of Christianity. He seems to have a certain idea of Christianity, which I've seen practised by many self-styled Christians. But he doesn't recognize that this may or may not be a correct view, nor that there are other interpretations that are almost diametrically opposed to this view within the diversity of Christendom.
If Christianity was what he portrays it: a sort of Dan Brown-esque conspiracy laden jumble of contradictions to dupe simpletons, which any thinking-person ought to be able to see for what it is, I would hate it too.
But here's the kicker: his alternative is very much the Christianity I know and follow! He just attempts to rebrand it as a universal animism. Even the strict conservative Christianity I was raised in had many of the elements he seems to be seeking in his reconstructed nature-based religion.
For example, in B he propounds that every place is sacred, every living thing. That all are interconnected and that in a real sense, they all live out their lives in the hand of the god. He makes a distinction that he doesn't mean the all-powerful creator God, but the less distinct animus of the single place.
Well, my understanding of the Bible is exactly this, except of course that the deity is the universal Good, the all-powerful God. Which is very much more to his point, I think. Coming from the obvious Hippie perspective he originates in, the Universe (which he actually refers to at one point) is by definition ONE thing. If all life is part of this big ONE thing. Why divide that into myriad animi of place? Wouldn't the world itself be one thing as much as all things in it are one? If there is an animus of each of the small expressions of the one, how much more a single grand Animus in which all the others were collected, reflected, and imagined?
In fact, I know many Christians that actually do operate in a worldview of lesser spiritual beings guarding and shepherding places and activities. The Romantics, and even CS Lewis routinely referred to these beings as part of their cosmos.
So what is to be gained by stepping so insistently outside of Christianity as Quinn tries? A sense of place? Heck, I know more Christians that HEAVILY venerate places, even natural ones, than those that don't. Even to the point that I think it's silly, since obviously one place is no better than another IN ITSELF. As Quinn agrees, ALL places are sacred. To me this is so only because of the presence of God in them, not any aspect of the atoms, as such, in that locale. So my prayers are no better heard in one spot over another. Like the Centurion praised for his faith that Jesus didn't have to come to his house to heal someone.
I've seen this far too often: someone gets an idea of something locked in their head, especially if it was a bad experience, and they judge all other similar things as that. This is especially true with Christianity. This is the very reason I'm so dogged against Christians who knowingly or unknowingly play into these stereotypes. Because when it comes down to it, the burden of communication is on the communicator. If someone gets the wrong message from what I say, that's my fault, not theirs. If for no other reason than I am the one who wants them to hear me. I can't expect people who aren't asking the question to do the work necessary to get my answer.
But back to the former side, it never pays for us to misjudge, misunderstand. To understand, we have to listen and explore with openness. Not to say lack of critical thought, by any means, but with openness. It also never pays to assume one perspective or case is true for all others.
The ironic thing, is that I learned that in large part FROM Quinn!
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Colors
Every once in a while the media frenzy of the day gets to me in a way that I want to add my two cents to the conversation. So that's what this is. But I will start by telling you what this is not.
This is not the extent of my opinions. You should never assume you have me pegged based on what I say here. This is not an assessment of current events. I am not commenting on something I have no direct knowledge of. That would be ignorant foolishness.
So I want to talk about how this does affect me: colors. Namely skin colors as a means of defining ourselves and others. Has anyone else noticed that this whole controversy has tacitly accepted the distinction of "black" and "white"? It's a given in the argument. It's an unstated assumption. The two groups exist and are different.
I emphatically disagree with that. I am calling the assumptions into question.
Let alone the stupid nature of the terms which don't accurately reflect reality. I know very few people who are actually white or black in color. We're all a greater or lesser degree of tanish brown. Where do we draw the line? I know "blacks" who are paler than me and "whites" who are far darker. And I don't mean people of one ethnicity who identify culturally with the other. I mean actual African genomed people with pale skin and the reverse.
But even accepting the words as cultural markers, they are nothing more than something we assume. We all know examples of the "crossovers" who identify more with the culture of the color they are not. But then there's those in the middle, of various ethnic descents, etc. who don't fit in either. For many of us, the cultural lines are not drawn based on color, they just aren't. There's multiple colors in the same culture. So it's not nearly as fixed as some would have it seem.
But to go a step further in denouncing the differences, I know many people who identify themselves as distinctly "white" even wearing the racist history as a badge of honor, and many "blacks" who are all chip-on-their-shoulder types. But you know what? They eat similar foods. They view things in similar ways, only with a color swap. Soul Food and Southern Cooking are EXACTLY THE SAME THING! The only difference is the cut of meat...and sometimes not even that. A poor ignorant "white" says the same things about "blacks" that a poor ignorant "black" is saying about "whites". I've experienced this first hand, each oblivious that they were saying the same things about the other group. But they're sooo different! It's ridiculous!
People are people. We have different cultures. We have different styles and different ways of talking. But at the root, we all care about the same things. We are not that different. To draw a line based on some hazy definition of skin color is to establish a lie around which many evils spring up...as we're seeing right now.
So I refuse to accept the assumption. I grant that many people do. But that is the only reason it exists. And every time we tacitly accept it, we reinforce it. But every time we refuse it, we tear a bit of that lie down. So I'm telling you that for me and my house, we will not, do not, use color as an identifying characteristic. Not even culturally.
And I'm asking you to do the same. Strike it from your vocabulary! It will be stilted until you get used to it. People around you will still use it. But YOU don't. Don't let your kids. Don't fill it out on forms. Erase it. Insist on it. Play dumb when people try to use it with you. "White? That girl in the white shirt? Oh you mean the guy with lighter skin up there? Is that who you mean?" Decide on it right now. And if you feel those tendencies of your past way of thinking creeping in, reject them and consciously look on people with fresh eyes. This is the only way it will go away. Take the power out from under it. You'll have to think about people in new ways. You'll find it gets easier with time until you truly don't see the distinctions you once did.
Don't perpetuate this evil. End it now as far as your sphere of influence reaches.
This is not the extent of my opinions. You should never assume you have me pegged based on what I say here. This is not an assessment of current events. I am not commenting on something I have no direct knowledge of. That would be ignorant foolishness.
So I want to talk about how this does affect me: colors. Namely skin colors as a means of defining ourselves and others. Has anyone else noticed that this whole controversy has tacitly accepted the distinction of "black" and "white"? It's a given in the argument. It's an unstated assumption. The two groups exist and are different.
I emphatically disagree with that. I am calling the assumptions into question.
Let alone the stupid nature of the terms which don't accurately reflect reality. I know very few people who are actually white or black in color. We're all a greater or lesser degree of tanish brown. Where do we draw the line? I know "blacks" who are paler than me and "whites" who are far darker. And I don't mean people of one ethnicity who identify culturally with the other. I mean actual African genomed people with pale skin and the reverse.
But even accepting the words as cultural markers, they are nothing more than something we assume. We all know examples of the "crossovers" who identify more with the culture of the color they are not. But then there's those in the middle, of various ethnic descents, etc. who don't fit in either. For many of us, the cultural lines are not drawn based on color, they just aren't. There's multiple colors in the same culture. So it's not nearly as fixed as some would have it seem.
But to go a step further in denouncing the differences, I know many people who identify themselves as distinctly "white" even wearing the racist history as a badge of honor, and many "blacks" who are all chip-on-their-shoulder types. But you know what? They eat similar foods. They view things in similar ways, only with a color swap. Soul Food and Southern Cooking are EXACTLY THE SAME THING! The only difference is the cut of meat...and sometimes not even that. A poor ignorant "white" says the same things about "blacks" that a poor ignorant "black" is saying about "whites". I've experienced this first hand, each oblivious that they were saying the same things about the other group. But they're sooo different! It's ridiculous!
People are people. We have different cultures. We have different styles and different ways of talking. But at the root, we all care about the same things. We are not that different. To draw a line based on some hazy definition of skin color is to establish a lie around which many evils spring up...as we're seeing right now.
So I refuse to accept the assumption. I grant that many people do. But that is the only reason it exists. And every time we tacitly accept it, we reinforce it. But every time we refuse it, we tear a bit of that lie down. So I'm telling you that for me and my house, we will not, do not, use color as an identifying characteristic. Not even culturally.
And I'm asking you to do the same. Strike it from your vocabulary! It will be stilted until you get used to it. People around you will still use it. But YOU don't. Don't let your kids. Don't fill it out on forms. Erase it. Insist on it. Play dumb when people try to use it with you. "White? That girl in the white shirt? Oh you mean the guy with lighter skin up there? Is that who you mean?" Decide on it right now. And if you feel those tendencies of your past way of thinking creeping in, reject them and consciously look on people with fresh eyes. This is the only way it will go away. Take the power out from under it. You'll have to think about people in new ways. You'll find it gets easier with time until you truly don't see the distinctions you once did.
Don't perpetuate this evil. End it now as far as your sphere of influence reaches.
Friday, December 3, 2010
De Facto
I have been sitting in a conference for three days. It always gives me lots of time to think as my mind wanders through the uninteresting portions. Truthfully, I don't find that I get much out of long days listening to people talk. In this age of internet and electronic communication, I find it an antiquated and inefficient system of communicating used mostly to give people an opportunity for free travel. I love webinars, etc. because I can take them at my own pace and even accomplish other things while not having to be trapped in a big room full of people with varying and questionable levels of humor, health, and hygiene.
But I digress. While sitting there listening to various topics, many of which covered a particularly political aspect of my work, namely new controversial regulations, it hit me that the feelings I was having were not unlike watching TV news. I felt alarmed, a bit angry, disillusioned, like I wanted to react and fight a fight, yet powerless to do so. That's when I realized that I was being sucked into the all too common fallacies of hasty generalization, appeals to fear, popularity, and authority. Being confronted with a crush of information about a certain topic from a limited viewpoint by seemingly authoritative figures, assented by the surrounding majority, and which is perceived to be a bad thing, I jump on the bandwagon when in fact, it may not happen, the info may not be accurate, it may not be so bad, and it may not affect me anyway.
Once I realized this, I felt a weight lift. That helped me to think more clearly and even recognize some very presumptive aspects of the argument. I expressed these to a nearby colleague and was not outright dismissed, but got the feeling he wasn't in total agreement. I'm not surprised. He may come around after thinking it through, but most others won't be able to let go of their preconceived ideas enough to see from outside the issue. But that too is a deeper level of the fallacious thinking. Fighting to make them understand even their own fallacies is still a distraction from my purpose.
This has implications for many parts of my life. Fear is a great weapon and together with lies forms the double-edged sword which negative forces use against us. Perhaps their only weapon. That is why we are so encouraged to have faith and not to fear. Possibly more than any other encouragement in the Bible. So how is false fear about a work problem a spiritual issue? It distracts me from what is important. While I have my role to play at work, above that is that same role from the perspective of the Regnum Caelorum, and beyond that even is my work as a servant of my God. This fear appeals to the first two levels and draws me away from what is truly my work.
If I ever want to live free like my regenerated substance allows, I must ever be at my God's disposal. And I mean that in the fullest sense: not just available for his work, but fully dependent on him in real ways...Like all unfallen beings, animals most familiarly, we are called to depend fully on him in our fullest state. Neither sowing nor reaping nor planning, but fully dependent on him. I'm not ready for this, I can assure you. I'm not even sure it's possible in this world. But this is the ideal. This was the state in Eden and will be the state when our new being is fully manifest.
As it goes now, I must focus on what is in front of me at the moment and leave the decisions to him. He will make them known. Truthfully, he even spoke to me despite the throes of fallacious mind I was engaged in. I was so bored at one point that I flicked over to the e-reader on my handheld and ran across Practice of the Presence just where Brother Lawrence was describing this aspect of work. It wasn't just then that this was all revealed, but it primed the lock and a day later all the tumblers had clicked into place.
It's hard to swallow, I know. It goes against my early spiritual training. It flies in the face of our cultural voice. But it is true. Of course I should do my best at everything, as if unto the Lord. But that's just it. I mustn't be distracted into activity which I am not asked to accomplish and which I probably can't change anyway. We all want to be the hero. All the posters tell us that we are the what-if waiting to change the world. But most real heroes attest to being simply there at the moment. NOT having planned it. Having done their deeds in spite of themselves. If I am to be the hero, I will be. But it will be God's spirit acting in me when it occurs and not my wit, perseverance, and ingenuity. These are merely tools that must be powered and operated by the maker, not operating on their own.
Even now, my insides are screaming that this must be qualified. Someone might get the wrong idea, I might delude myself. But I will not change it. It stands against that voice as something I know to be true.
What matters in each moment is what is concretely in front of me to accomplish. Be that smile, lighten a mood, lick a stamp, listen to a personal problem, craft a policy, or make a perspective known...in that moment, in that place. As I step away into what-ifs and what-to-dos I step increasingly further from that purpose.
Does that open the door for gaps in efficiency, function, policy? Yes. But this is where faith comes in. I must believe that God will fill those gaps in his way...and in my experience this is usually at the last minute for many reasons which I won't go into here. But I know that he won't if I keep jumping in like the micromanager.
But I digress. While sitting there listening to various topics, many of which covered a particularly political aspect of my work, namely new controversial regulations, it hit me that the feelings I was having were not unlike watching TV news. I felt alarmed, a bit angry, disillusioned, like I wanted to react and fight a fight, yet powerless to do so. That's when I realized that I was being sucked into the all too common fallacies of hasty generalization, appeals to fear, popularity, and authority. Being confronted with a crush of information about a certain topic from a limited viewpoint by seemingly authoritative figures, assented by the surrounding majority, and which is perceived to be a bad thing, I jump on the bandwagon when in fact, it may not happen, the info may not be accurate, it may not be so bad, and it may not affect me anyway.
Once I realized this, I felt a weight lift. That helped me to think more clearly and even recognize some very presumptive aspects of the argument. I expressed these to a nearby colleague and was not outright dismissed, but got the feeling he wasn't in total agreement. I'm not surprised. He may come around after thinking it through, but most others won't be able to let go of their preconceived ideas enough to see from outside the issue. But that too is a deeper level of the fallacious thinking. Fighting to make them understand even their own fallacies is still a distraction from my purpose.
This has implications for many parts of my life. Fear is a great weapon and together with lies forms the double-edged sword which negative forces use against us. Perhaps their only weapon. That is why we are so encouraged to have faith and not to fear. Possibly more than any other encouragement in the Bible. So how is false fear about a work problem a spiritual issue? It distracts me from what is important. While I have my role to play at work, above that is that same role from the perspective of the Regnum Caelorum, and beyond that even is my work as a servant of my God. This fear appeals to the first two levels and draws me away from what is truly my work.
If I ever want to live free like my regenerated substance allows, I must ever be at my God's disposal. And I mean that in the fullest sense: not just available for his work, but fully dependent on him in real ways...Like all unfallen beings, animals most familiarly, we are called to depend fully on him in our fullest state. Neither sowing nor reaping nor planning, but fully dependent on him. I'm not ready for this, I can assure you. I'm not even sure it's possible in this world. But this is the ideal. This was the state in Eden and will be the state when our new being is fully manifest.
As it goes now, I must focus on what is in front of me at the moment and leave the decisions to him. He will make them known. Truthfully, he even spoke to me despite the throes of fallacious mind I was engaged in. I was so bored at one point that I flicked over to the e-reader on my handheld and ran across Practice of the Presence just where Brother Lawrence was describing this aspect of work. It wasn't just then that this was all revealed, but it primed the lock and a day later all the tumblers had clicked into place.
It's hard to swallow, I know. It goes against my early spiritual training. It flies in the face of our cultural voice. But it is true. Of course I should do my best at everything, as if unto the Lord. But that's just it. I mustn't be distracted into activity which I am not asked to accomplish and which I probably can't change anyway. We all want to be the hero. All the posters tell us that we are the what-if waiting to change the world. But most real heroes attest to being simply there at the moment. NOT having planned it. Having done their deeds in spite of themselves. If I am to be the hero, I will be. But it will be God's spirit acting in me when it occurs and not my wit, perseverance, and ingenuity. These are merely tools that must be powered and operated by the maker, not operating on their own.
Even now, my insides are screaming that this must be qualified. Someone might get the wrong idea, I might delude myself. But I will not change it. It stands against that voice as something I know to be true.
What matters in each moment is what is concretely in front of me to accomplish. Be that smile, lighten a mood, lick a stamp, listen to a personal problem, craft a policy, or make a perspective known...in that moment, in that place. As I step away into what-ifs and what-to-dos I step increasingly further from that purpose.
Does that open the door for gaps in efficiency, function, policy? Yes. But this is where faith comes in. I must believe that God will fill those gaps in his way...and in my experience this is usually at the last minute for many reasons which I won't go into here. But I know that he won't if I keep jumping in like the micromanager.
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