By Mark Glasgow Johnson, Robert Lucas, and Alan Woontner
The Urgency of this Election
A beast is stalking America, and its name is Dogma. No one with any native intelligence doubts that we are at a critical turning point in history, with major economic, geopolitical, structural, and environmental dangers threatening our well-being. Yet at this crucial time, we are faced with the Republicans’ cynical promotion of fundamentalist religious and economic beliefs that have held sway since the Reagan era. The Republican strategy covertly suggests that it is more important to win the election than debate the real merits of the national and global crises we face and the lessons we must take from them. From their perspective, any means to that end are condoned.
As educated voters, we are astonished by the degree to which the Democrats have tacitly acquiesced in the Republican game by staying silent about the dangers of this sort of low-level political manipulation.
The most glaring pointer to this turn in the debate is the selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s vice-presidential nominee. But to place our focus on her obvious lack of qualification for the presidency, or her end-of-times religiosity, is to miss the point: We need to address the fundamental lack of critical thinking on the part of either party. Their failure to engage in direct philosophical debate about why and what they envision for our future is where our attention and true concerns lie.
It is time to ask, “What are the assumptions about life and reality that politicians make as they propose laws and budgets and make decisions?” If we do not ask these kinds of questions, then we legitimize a dangerous political atmosphere: demagogues and fanatics seizing power, lost in their own delusions, and causing more harm than good.
Where can this debate be found in the public discourse? The Democrats, for their part, have punted. Neither the candidates nor the campaign will address the huge philosophical difference between a policy based on logic and evidence, and a policy based on unexplored belief. We suspect that the Democrats’ silence stems from the fear of offending religious believers and/or tackling the daunting challenge of educating the electorate. Whether from fear or apathy, they are bypassing a unique opportunity to link themselves to the principles of the Enlightenment upon which our country was founded.
Defining the Real Problem: The Dangers of Ideological Dogma
Our current political discussion lacks the understanding that there are different categories of thinking and they are not at all equivalent. Beliefs that the Bible is the literal repository of all truth, or that a “free” market can naturally solve all economic woes, do not allow for questioning. Politicians using belief-based thinking abandon any logic or evidence that contradicts their basic assumption: that the only truth is the one I believe. Unquestioning adherence to either scripture or a leader is ideologically and morally the same. Whether the beliefs are Christian and Bible-based, Islamic and Koran-based, or capitalist and based on the ideal of a “free” market, absolute beliefs can only deliver a dead end to meaningful thought, discovery, and deeper understanding. It freezes society in place as history and the rest of the world rush on without us.
Not surprisingly, the more threatened any social group feels economically, psychologically, or spiritually, the more susceptible they are to the kind of skillful brainwashing performed by ideological, religious and economic demagogues. Dogmatic ideologies quickly find scapegoats to blame for the problems of the world. It is a hallmark of these systems that they create disunity through a separation of Us and Them, which, in turn, justifies a reactionary viewpoint: “We know better than those that do not believe as we do.”
We must also expose the prevailing economic dogmatism as much as the dogmatism of the end-of-timers. Both Republican and Democratic leaders have been seduced by the siren call of Wall Street gamblers, lulling us into fantasies of magical trickle-down wealth if only we will set them free from government regulation. But as with any gambler, great winnings have been followed by disastrous losses. And now we learn that Alan Greenspan, once hailed as an economic genius, belatedly recognizes that he was wearing ideological blinders! Governments inevitably affect the markets; the question is not whether, but for whose benefit?
As long as ordinary citizens remain in a state of blind belief — whether it be religious or economic — our political milieu will continue to be a product of manipulation. The problem stems from the simple fact that we are not trained to apply reason to politics and economics. As a result our fear and ignorance leaves us prone to being mesmerized and manipulated by clever, self-interested political strategists.
Case in point: the War in Iraq. The Bush Administration got away with recruiting many people into the Bush Doctrine of unilateral war, based on the very flimsy and poorly-reasoned arguments of the neo-conservatives. It does not take much imagination to picture how a McCain-Palin Administration could take delusions of American power even further.
If a politician believes, as does Sarah Palin, that homosexuality is wrong because certain Biblical passages say it is a sin, then her policies about the treatment of gay people are going to be skewed in the favor of belief and not reason. If you can prove, scientifically, that homosexuality is somehow unhealthy, or detrimental to the fabric of society, then let us look at those facts and have a debate. But to attack homosexuality based solely on narrow religious interpretation of very old and debatable religious passages is absurd. It is simply not logical or consistent to state that the Bible is infallible and must be interpreted literally, (despite all the translations and modifications done over the ensuing 2,000 years), and then ignore the same Biblical tenets that condoned slavery.
It is chilling to imagine what Palin — a professed Creationist who belonged to a church espousing Dominion Theology — might do if she was in power. Dominionists and Dispensationalists believe we must prepare for the End Times and the coming of the Rapture, and that Biblical prophecy has a special role for a United States Administration. Therefore only believing Christians should be at the helm.
All of this is not to say that we discount all faith or spirituality. On the contrary, there are many great thinkers, scientists, and philosophers who hold that a sense of awe and wonder at the endless creativity of the Universe is compatible with the full use of reason. It is rather that we object to how politicians abuse their constituents’ ignorance and blind belief to achieve inauthentic aims. A truly philosophical way of thinking demands the opposite — that we test our assumptions, beliefs, and theories with intelligently-informed rationality and logic, and our own empirical observations.
The Wisdom of the Founders in Separating Church and State
It is important to remind ourselves that the founders of our country were steeped in the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries, and were inspired by the social and political philosophers who used critical reason as their means to challenge the entrenched authority of both Church and Monarchy. And no wonder; they had every reason to fear religious intolerance and control, having come from societies where all aspects of life were once dominated by a powerful religious or monarchial rule. The principle of the separation of church and state was not just a convenience, or a tool to thwart the Church of England, or even simply the manifestation of an inalienable right to worship freely; it was intended to prevent religious ideologues from subverting the gains that science and reason had made. As the philosopher, Richard Tarnas, writes about the Enlightenment and its effect on modern man in The Passion of the Western Mind:
For when the titanic battle of the religions failed to resolve itself, with no monolithic structure of belief any longer holding sway over civilization, science suddenly stood forth as mankind’s liberation — empirical, rational, appealing to common sense and to a concrete reality that every person could touch and weigh for himself. Verifiable facts and theories tested and discussed among equals replaced dogmatic revelation hierarchically imposed by an institutional Church... The way was now open to envision and establish a new form of society, based on self-evident principles of individual liberty and rationality.
As political activists well-schooled in both social philosophy and the burgeoning scientific method, the Founders were eager to put the ideas of the Enlightenment into practice in a practical political philosophy. One of the Enlightenment’s major arguments was that the faculty of reason should be applied to the social world of man, just as the scientific method became the model for reason’s investigation of the natural world. Philosophers challenged the old patterns of belief, particularly in the area of authority. The belief that kings were vested with divine authority fell by the wayside. Writers including Locke and Rousseau proposed that authority be vested in the people, as it was more likely that a representative system where everyone had an equal say in debates about moral values is the only way that reason would prevail.
Philosophers and political writers had only to look back on the history of Western civilization to see how often religious dogma had suppressed rights, the free expression of ideas, and the exploration of scientific truths. Famous examples were well known to the Founders: the Crusades, Galileo, the Inquisition, the arrogance of Catholic missionaries as they forced vanquished cultures in the New World to embrace Christianity, the Protestant-Catholic wars, the suppression exhibited by the Salem witch trials, and so on. The great thinkers of the 18th century knew that dogmatic ideology was not just the problem of one religion, it was the more universal problem of blind faith opposing reason.
In our modern era we know that fundamentalist ideology can take even non-religious forms, whether it be Communism, nationalistic fascism, the cult of demagogues who claim divine authority as if they were prophets, or even, as we see now, in the unquestioning belief in free markets as economic ideology.
The Contrast Between Ideologically-Driven Politics and One Informed by Logic
The differentiation between ideological and logical thinking is stark, and the history of governments based on dogmatic belief is sobering. So the question remains: When are the Democrats going to point out that dogma has no place in American public policy? When are they going to realize that the refutation of logic and reason in favor of beliefs in religious or economic salvation threatens all of us? When are we going to bring into our political conversation a discussion of exactly what ideology and belief are, and how we evaluate the underlying context of the statements of our political leaders?
Logic is essential to our democratic process. It gives us a common basis to discuss issues and solve problems together, bringing our best understanding and evidence to bear. Yet our politicians never challenge the basic reasoning capacity of their opponents or the origins and foundations upon which they build their policy positions.
Perhaps they have grown fuzzy on the rules of logic we all learned in high school. But if we just go back to basics, we can see how easy it is to spot unreasonable and illogical arguments. Aristotle said that there were three basic premises to what we now call formal logic. Western scientific thinking began with this simple line of deductive reasoning. It starts with a major premise: All humans are mortal. It is followed by a minor premise: Socrates is human. And it draws the logical conclusion: Socrates is mortal.
Logic has always been the lever employed to challenge entrenched patterns of thinking. Inductive logic, the other major form of thinking, was formulated by Francis Bacon in the 16th Century, and fueled the creativity of the Scientific Revolution. These were the tools that the Enlightenment thinkers brought to bear on political philosophy in analyzing societies and government. Writers such as Locke used blistering displays of logic to expose the false premises of the arguments justifying the divine right of kings. He equally refuted the justifications for racism and slavery, pointing out the fallacy of believing that some people are born weaker than others. Indeed, philosophical reason started questioning inequalities of all sorts and expounded a more logical rationale by which governments would assume political authority. As a result, many thinkers both in Europe and America came to agree with the notion of the social contract. Women’s suffragists later applied the same dialectical process to dispute the belief that women are inferior — an age-old prejudice that also sought support for its arrogance in the Bible. The same argument is now going on vis a vis gay marriage.
We have provided this review to demonstrate that reason and logic have been the source of all the freedoms we enjoy. The evolution of our social contract depends on the scientific method of research, the examination of false assumptions, and the debate about truth. The success of our political institutions depend on these processes, from unions, to women’s rights, to racial equality, to occupational health and safety; in fact, we would argue, the whole fabric of our modern society.
This vital, stimulating process of intelligent minds debating principles of governance made the United States a country singularly rich with ideas. This process can be seen in the Federalist papers and other documents as a logical discourse whose goal was the discovery of our best understanding of the truth. With belief, especially a religious belief that has no basis in reality, there is no evidence and nothing to be tested. Logic tests likely premises to determine the truth. Dogma elevates an untested belief to the truth, without any test.
The Delicate Balance Obama Must Strike
We understand the delicate balance Senator Obama must strike in his effort to express his own religious feelings, honor those impulses in others, and try to find the proper place for faith in the public arena. We agree that all religious impulse does not have to be censored from public debate. Our ability to intuit moral truth, and to hold those truths as self-evident, can clearly be understood as a universally spiritual dimension. Throughout history religions have been instrumental in helping to codify laws that bring a wiser and more compassionate state of mind to government.
What we are calling for is a more sophisticated understanding of the interplay between reason and spirituality. It is important to remember that the heinous immorality of slavery was eventually confronted and defeated by both faith and reason. Leaders like the English parliamentarian, William Wilberforce, who experienced spiritual conversion and redemption, (as told so beautifully in the film Amazing Grace), were instrumental in passing laws. Reasoning minds, however, were swayed by the rigorous philosophical inquiry of writers like Locke and Rousseau.
What the Democrats Can Do
We call on Senator Obama and the Democratic Party establishment to engage the Republicans in an authentic, respectful debate about the essential and core principles that were so instrumental to the founding of the United States. And we call on the Democratic Party leadership to focus on educating the American public about these principles. Let us examine the simple fact that all political policies emanate from the author’s world view, from his or her beliefs and opinions about what is right and important in life, the quality of his or her thinking, and their moral integrity.
How do you have a conversation with people who see the world as a battle between Good and Evil? Challenge them! Remain patient, don’t allow them to hijack the agenda and tenor of the discussion, and maintain a perspective of exploring things from a larger context without judgment in the interest of achieving real understanding.
As we have tried to demonstrate, a black and white view of the world leads to absurd arguments and dangerous extremes. Those who exhort us to fight the evil Islamists are proposing an equally dogmatic and dangerous “Christianism.” Those who see government as evil have championed de-regulation and the “freedom” of the market, and led us into a financial nightmare. Dogmatic positions have to be shaken loose by keeping the focus of the conversation on a broad, objective assessment rather than the emotionalism of select points, as in: “Do you really believe in killing babies?”
The threat posed by the insertion of Sarah Palin into the political process must be dealt with head on. We must insist on a higher standard for political discourse that is based on the exchange and examination of ideas. Allowing dogmatic beliefs to go unchallenged is the gravest of oversights, with enormous consequences. Treating dogmatic beliefs as if they are on a par with the logical presentation of ideas not only cheapens the political discussion, it has the power to corrode our political institutions themselves.
We Need an Interrogative Process with Fundamentalists and Political Ideologues of All Stripes
We call on politicians and journalists of every political persuasion who value ideas, logic, and reason to make the unflinching examination of dogmatic beliefs a part of our political conversation. It is no different than an ninth-grade teacher asking a student to back up a position taken in a homework assignment. Here are some possible questions that politicians and journalists could and should pose to Governor Palin and other fundamentalists to ferret out their dogmatic thinking:
- Do you believe that America has a special mission related to the second coming of Christ? If you do, how would this affect your decisions as Vice President or President?
- Do you believe that Christianity has an exclusive claim to knowledge of God or ascent to heavenly realms? If you do, how do you regard non-Christians, and how would that affect the way you would govern a diverse country?
- Who and what represents evil and what is government’s role in dealing with evil?
- Why do you believe that global climate change is not caused by human activity?
- Now that we have seen how unregulated financial markets behave, do you believe we can thrive in a 21st-century society without government regulation?
When that has been done, let us then ask the Republicans about the roots of neo-conservatism and the Bush Doctrine, examine their philosophical origins, and hold these up to the test of logic. We think you will find, as we did, the shockingly arrogant, narrow-minded, and unintelligent scope of thinking that led us into the War in Iraq. Let us look under the microscope at Social Darwinism and its role in Republican economic ideology. And, yes, let us even question the limits of secular humanism.
Perhaps this letter will come too late to stimulate much debate about the current election and the shibboleths being bandied about by the Republicans. If that is the case, and Obama wins — as we dearly hope he does — then let us bring this level of inquiry into the ongoing political debate about domestic and foreign policy. Let the Democrats show some leadership in educating the voting public about what an educated citizen must be aware of, steering our political culture and along with it our evolution as a society in the direction of insightful reason and truth. In these dangerous times achieving this is nothing less than our most sacred duty.
Let us not banish spirituality from our political thinking; rather, let us elevate our philosophical thinking to a place that respects the unity of life and the spirit. Not as a dogmatic faith reserved for a special few, called to their special mission, but as a vision of all of humanity working together to solve its problems.
The founders of this country suffered through religiously-inspired battles and took pains to banish any taint of a specific religion or belief system from the founding documents. But they did include a statement of the unity of all human beings in the Declaration of Independence, and it is still one of the most inspiring passages in the entire history of political writing:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
In words both humble and profound we are called to recognize each other as equal before a creator who is neither identified nor described. That alone should be enough to cut through dogma and give us the freedom to live our lives in a society that nurtures our highest human potential.
