Irrationalism Isn’t Moving Anywhere, Only the Flavours
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/12/22
Irrationalism is the human narrative. Non-rationalism is human psychology. Yet, rationalism is both human narrative and psychology, in part.
Irrational strong tendencies in human societies and beliefs exemplify how humans relate to the natural world and to each other. It’s in-built to the story of homo sapiens by any standard metric. It is the part requiring skepticism, as this represents the outcome of human non-rationalism.
Non-rationalism is human psychology. In that, we may be a cognitive species or have the capacity in variations. Yet, the pre-dominant mode of operation is not cognitive alone, but emotional coupled with cognition. This explains terms in psychology such as “motivated reasoning” or “cognitive bias.”
Rationalism is more of an adaptation on these two qualities. Where, the irrational gets force-fit into habits of mind. Those tendencies of mind or mental practices become rational, as they compute in a linear manner. Our linear capacities will never match computers of the future in speed or precision because we’re functioning differently.
We evolved in certain contexts with a necessity of non-rational capacities. Nature moulded without forethought particular capacities and structures of mind for us. The irrational human stories reflect this non-rational psychology and incorporates these trained rational capacities of mind over time.
For example, the rationalizations or reason based arguments for God and holy scripture built on top of the irrational beliefs and non-rational motivations. All this points in an abstract manner to the more practical international matters of ideologies, dogmas. Secular dogmas of Communism, Fascism, Olympism, Maoism, Juche, and so on, or religious dogmas all kinds.
One identified by some religionists is scientism. This seems fallacious to me. A slander intended to undermine well-earned respectability for scientific methodology and findings. As in, “Science may show some truths. But science omits transcendent truths of God. Metaphysical questions remain beyond science. Over-attachment to scientific methodology limits human understanding.”
To quote J. Warner Wallace, “Christianity isn’t anti-science, but it is anti-scientism. Scientism is the belief that science is the only way to know anything. But there are many things we know without the benefit of science at all, like logical and mathematical truths (which precede scientific investigations), metaphysical truths (which determine if the external world is real), moral and ethical truths (which set boundaries for our behavior), aesthetic truths (like determining beauty), and historical truths.”
I have never met anyone claiming science declares the only path to truth – simply that religious textual truths tend to be trivial, over-stated, or non-existent, even when proclaimed as deepities as “truer than true.” Wallace’s argument becomes a non-starter.
It’s not even a critique inasmuch as disgruntled complaint. There’s no real offer of a real alternative. Only a listing of other categories, where cognitive neuroscience can help know about aesthetic sensibilities of the species and anthropology helps know historical truths. Both incorporate scientific methodology, thus fall within its purview.
Mathematical truths are logical truths; logical truths are mathematical truths. These become meaningful in ordering empirical findings. They become organizing principles for the statistical approximations about reality discovered in the intersubjective work of science rather than metaphysical truths about reality at large.
British Columbia becomes a wonderful example of thse tendencies in the contemporary period. The formal category of study of the SBNRs flourishes here: of the spiritual but not religious. We see plenty of non-religious people in British Columbia. Those without formal religious affiliation.
However, one will encounter New Age beliefs galore. A prevalence of belief in astrology, naturopathy and other quack therapeutic interventions. It’s a long list: Astrology, crystals, I Ching, meditation, Ouija boards, Reiki healing, science fiction, Tarot cards, yoga, Zen Buddhism, and more galore. This gamut of bullshit is necessary.
Necessary because nothing replaced the other – religious – ideas. Those supernaturalist stories, the irrationalisms, have declined. Yet, an increase in rationalist, critical thinking education wasn’t present. People merely transitioned from religious transcendentalisms to other categories of nonsense.
With a decline in religious faith in so many Western societies, we will witness a rise, and have been seeing an incline in, the number of New Age and other beliefs. Those narratives pervade. On the one hand, we can claim a freethought victory in the decline of dogmatic faith. On the other hand, we can claim a new challenge of New Age, or “newage” to rhyme with sewage – coined by the late James Randi.
And that’s okay. It’s easier because it’s less well funded than the formal religions, less entrenched, easier to tackle, and with fewer criminal histories behind it. Certainly, a claim of scientism or something similar will come down the pike.
All of this talk is merely to reiterate the point. The arguments remain the same. The principles against irrational narratives and non-rational psychology remain the same. Only difference is the surface formulation. Freethinkers have roles to perform here. Liberatory roles for themselves and others.
Our forms of critical thinking, logical inquiry, empirical reasoning, will displace these too. Yet, the positive history of the battles is in the favour of freethought.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
In-Sight Publishing 