Sheep and Goats

Category: Critical Thinking

  • “YOU read it and decide if it was a “quid pro quo” conversation, worthy of bringing down a U.S. President.

    It is a reference to the transcript of a call from the U.S. president to the Ukrainian president. It dominates the news on this 26th day of September, 2019. It contains the raw material that may lead to impeachment—such is the talk of the day.

    “YOU read it and decide if it was a "quid pro quo" conversation, worthy of bringing down a U.S. President,” comes the challenge from someone (not me) with an opinion. 

    Some do. Some don’t.

    I think the key point to take away from this is that, not only can people not agree on what to do in light of the facts, but they cannot even agree on what the facts are.

    Pew Research puts it this way: 

    “Nearly eight-in-ten Americans say that when it comes to important issues facing the country, most Republican and Democratic voters not only disagree over plans and policies, but also cannot agree on basic facts.”

    The Bible puts it this way:

    But know this, that in the last days critical times hard to deal with will be here.  For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, haughty, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, disloyal,  having no natural affection, not open to any agreement,slanderers, without self-control, fierce, without love of goodness,  betrayers, headstrong, puffed up with pride, lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God,  having an appearance of godliness but provingfalse to its power. (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

    The same circumstance of being at loggerheads over basic reality is seen in any number of  areas today—in what is science and what is not, and how much it should be relied upon, for example. It is seen in disputes over the basic mores of human nature—of what makes people tick—is another example. It argues poorly for those who think humans are going to ultimately triumph with their “critical thinking.” They can’t even agree on what reality is.

    “However, we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the power beyond what is normal may be God’s and not from us,” says 2 Corinthians 4:7.

    The “treasure” is the Christian ministry, irrelevant for this discussion. But the “earthen vessels” are us, so that the “earthen” quality that would sabotage the ministry were it not for reliance upon God also sabotages human ability to solve and even to properly assess problems. 

    This is so even when we are at our sharpest, and yet we are seldom at our sharpest. Generally we are distracted with 100 distractions—some having to do with responsibilities of life and some having to do with where we go when we are not grappling with the responsibilities of life. Few on break use their mental powers to evaluate the problems of the day. They watch TV instead. During commercials, they find something on Twitter that agrees with what the already think and they retweet it.

    There is nothing easier than to mislead “earthen vessels.” There is nothing more foolish than the “earthen vessels” thinking that they can overcome their “earthenness” or triumph irrespective of God.

  • “I Ain’t Going to Work on Maggie’s Farm no More”

    I haven’t written any Bob Dylan posts for a long while, and I wouldn’t have written one today, except that the dryer broke. That meant—with my wife looking on approvingly—that I would be spending precious time hanging stupid wash on the line! It’s ridiculous!

    Of course, as I was doing so, the lyrics of Maggie’s Farm came to mind:

    Well, I wake up in the morning/Fold my hands and pray for rain

    I got a head full of ideas/That are drivin' me insane

    It's a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor

    I ain’t going to work on Maggie’s farm no more.

    This prompted me to investigate further in (of course) Wikipedia, where….gasp!….I discovered that the most bedrock and undisputed fact in the musical universe is, in fact, not so!

    Bob Dylan rose to fame on the strength of his folk ballads. We all know that. We also all know that he reinvented himself, and has done so several times since. We all know that, at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, he was roundly booed, and we know the reason why: he went on stage with electifried sound, and the snooty purists there stuck up their nose at anything not acoustic. I mean, we all know this!

    We all knew wrong! It is another “Everything You Thought You Knew About Such and Such is Wrong” headline. I am coming to think that there is no reason to accept anything anymore. If a pitch is not to your liking, just lay back like Casey and wait for one that is. Unlike Casey, you will get more than three. You will keep getting pitches until the cows come home. Just wait for one you like. Everyone else does—why should you not as well?

    They booed because they didn’t like the electric guitars? No, they booed because the sound was terrible and they couldn’t hear the words! Look at what Pete Seeger (termed Dylan’s harshest critic that day) said:

    “There are reports of me being anti-him going electric at the '65 Newport Folk festival, but that's wrong. I was the MC that night. He was singing 'Maggie's Farm' and you couldn't understand a word because the mic was distorting his voice. I ran to the mixing desk and said, 'Fix the sound, it's terrible!' The guy said 'No, this is what the young people want.' And I did say that if I had an axe I'd cut the cable! But I wanted to hear the words. I didn't mind him going electric.”

    It was all a lie! The folk people didn’t mind him going electric that night. Someone else on the program had already gone electric and nobody had lost their cookies over it. This is just the result of some revisionist falling over himself to paint a titanic “Clash of the Cultures” when in fact there was none! “Bob’s going electric?” is more like it, “Well, what d’ya know? Wish we could hear the words.”

    Now, if this is a big lie about a bedrock and undisputed fact, it must be conceded that it is not a big lie about a very important bedrock and undisputed fact. (Unless you are a musician, in which case it overshadows everything else) “Who cares?” is a reasonable reaction. However, though trivial—or maybe it is even magnified because it is trivial—it serves to illustrate the quicksand that those of critical thought stand upon as they presume to instruct those less mentally disciplined. As with the Christian ministry, the “ministry” of conveying human knowledge is carried in earthen vessels—humans. In fact, not just “earthen vessels,” but sievelike earthen vessels that leak most of the water before it ever gets to you. In fact, worse than sievelike earthen vessels that leak most of the water before it ever gets to you, but sievelike earthen vessels that leak the most of the water while various yo-yo’s are replenishing the supply with their own water, which turns out to be contaminated—so that what finally gets to you is not the real water at all.. I mean, if you can’t believe that the folk singers booed Dylan because they were elite and snooty, what CAN you believe?

    This is only the beginning of the woes for ones who suppose that critical thinking will save us. For the ones steadfastly filling the leaky vessels are not the careful and wise ones, intent upon safeguarding knowledge. As often as not, they are yo-yos and liars, concocting their own version of events so as to sway viewpoints their way. Sometimes they are deliberate frauds. More often they are sincere persons truly doing their best but, since we are all molded and skewed by our own individual experiences, one must analyze in detail even the most mundane and obvious statement—in this case that the folk singers were shocked at Dylan changing the genre. With him, there is almost nothing that has been related accurately. Even his supposed leadership role as a counterculture icon is all wrong.

    Are people inclined to analyze in detail even the most “mundane and obvious” statement? You know that they are not. But even when they are, the fact remains that nobody has the resources to do it—the disposable time of any given individual is very, very small. For many, it is effectively zilch. Plus, there is much to compete with that disposable time, and most often entertainment wins out over research. Stacking the odds even more is the habit of some to hide matters in a barrage of irrelevance (that is not to say that THEY regard it as irrelevance), muddying the waters, to the point where people say: “Ah, to blazes with it! They’re all liars anyway!” When this happens, as the saying goes, “the terrorists [to human knowledge] have won.”

    And yet those of critical thought strut around on the world stage as though their grasp on the “facts” makes them invincible. It is as Jack Nicholson said to Tom Cruise in the movie: “You can’t handle the truth!” We leak away the true facts in no time at all, and compensate for it by tapping the minds of pillars who have also leaked away the true facts. 

    Alas, “critical thinking” will not save us. It may even make matters worse, for who has not noticed that those who harp with greatest tenacity about critical thinking invariably assume that they have a lock on the stuff? One of our first conclusions as to critical thinking ought to be that we are not very good at it. Nope. It is the heart that will save us—not the head—the heart refined by spiritual principles that are true, that have emanated from a Higher Source, that have the greatest odds of mending the earthen, leaky, flawed vessels that are us.

    …..

    Now, as long as we are at it with my hanging clothes on the clothesline until the repairman comes—if he comes, because when this post is written I will explore fixing it myself—I fixed the dishwasher, after all, when it did not heat, so maybe the dryer will also surrender its secrets to me, even though I still remember that time decades ago when I scorched the clothes in an attempt to fix another recalcitrant dryer. At any rate, Dylan’s Clothesline Saga comes to mind (I am done with ramifications to critical thinking; read on only if you care about Dylan):

    After a while we took in the clothes

    Nobody said very much

    Just some old wild shirts and a couple pairs of pants

    Which nobody wanted to touch

    Mama come in and picked up a book

    An' papa asked her what it was

    Someone else asked, what do you care

    Papa said well, just because

    Then they started to take back their clothes

    Hang 'em on the line

    It was January the thirtieth

    And everybody was feelin' fine

     

    The next day, everybody got up

    Seein' if the clothes were dry

    The dogs were barking, a neighbor passed

    Mama, of course, she said, hi

    Have you heard the news he said with a grin

    The vice president's gone mad

    Where? downtown When? last night

    Hmm, say, that's too bad

    Well, there's nothing we can do about it, said the neighbor

    It's just something we're gonna have to forget

    Yes, I guess so said ma

    Then she asked me if the clothes was still wet

     

    I reached up, touched my shirt

    And the neighbor said, are those clothes yours

    I said, some of them, not all of them

    He said, ya always help out around here with the chores

    I said, sometimes, not all of the time

    Then my neighbor blew his nose

    Just as papa yelled outside

    Mama wants you to come back in the house and bring them clothes

    Well, I just do what I'm told so I did it, of course

    I went back in the house and mama met me

    And then I shut all the doors.

    It took me years to realize that this song is a parody of Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billy Jo,” which dominated the charts in 1967. That song revolves around a horrible tragedy—Billy Jo jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge, and what hidden and unnamed inner torment might have caused him to do that? The event is related in the first person at a rural Mississippi dinner table, where it must compete for attention with the most banal and ordinary conversation of the adults. It is a “teenage self-pity song,” as Garrison Keillor would have put it.

    In Dylan’s parody, the conversation is even more banal, and the “tragedy” is outright ridiculous:

    Have you heard the news he said with a grin/The vice president's gone mad

    Where? Downtown When? last night/Hmm, say, that's too bad

    Well, there's nothing we can do about it, said the neighbor/It's just something we're gonna have to forget

    Yes, I guess so said ma/Then she asked me if the clothes was still wet

    and Bob sings it in the most laid-back and uninterested drawl that is a hoot in itself. He really is pretty clever. Alas, I can no longer find it on YouTube. There is a pretty good version of it from The Roches, but to a purist, such as I used to think they were at the Newport Folk Festival, only original will do. It may even be that the song will get increased recognition in a modern context, from political zealots, on account of it underlying tragedy: “The Vice-President’s gone mad.”

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  • A Lot of Work to Syphon Out the Liars

    “As much as I hate "conspiracy" theories”

    As near as I can tell, Jehovah’s Witnesses buy into conspiracy theories in no greater proportion than the general population. It is a little surprising, since they have become privy to the greatest conspiracy theory of all—that involving religion having deviated so far from its source

    As for me, I find myself nibbling at the edges, and in some cases accepting them. If I follow anything on Twitter, I make a point also of following its polar opposite. Sometimes I find the polar opposite point of view to be represented much more persuasively than the common wisdom.

     

    “…After a while, one can develop an entire framework of areas (and players) where such admissions happen more often than others. When the pattern of 1)position, 2)slip-up, and 3)method of backtracking to regain the original position becomes very predictable, then you are probably onto something trending toward truth.”

    That’s a lot of work to syphon out the liars. 

    That’s not to say it is not a good idea, nor that it is any more time-consuming than what I do. It is just that few people have that kind of time. Most people take news from one or two sources, often the evening TV news for people our age, and pretty well accept that they are being told the truth. Usually they are, but it is not “the whole truth and nothing but the truth”—which can completely turn things around.

    At one pioneer meeting the elder conducting it was highlighting the importance of neutrality, and never to give the impression of taking sides. “Now we all know that Trump is crazy,” he said, “but…….” I would stake my life on it that his only source of news is the evening news of one of the three networks. 

    I was relatively up in years before I discovered to my surprise that my (non-Witness) Dad cared hardly at all about politics. Many were the political discussions swirling around the dining room table, as I was growing up, when the extended family was gathered. However, it turned out that my Mom’s father was very much a GOP person and would crank on about it endlessly, and my Dad was just too gracious to tell him to zip it—it was his father-in-law, after all, who his wife liked.

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    Photo: Evening News, by Vasilennka

  • One of the Foremost Conclusions of Critical Thinking Ought Be That We are Not Very Good at It

    Anyone suspecting that ‘cognitive dissonance’ is a far overrated evil need look no further than American pharmaceutical ads—with narrator saying you must have the stuff and voiceover saying that it may kill you. Those adsters seem to handle their ‘cognitive dissonance’ pretty well, don’t they?

    It is a concept worthy of a pamphlet, maybe, but little more. We cannot entertain two non-dovetailing ideas simultaneously without our heads imploding? Intelligent people have always done it. Moreover, the insistence that people cannot do it without incurring massive cognitive dissonance is the perfect example of Romans 1:22: “Though asserting they were wise, they became foolish.” And “I will make the wisdom of the wise men perish, and the intelligence of the intellectuals I will reject.” (1 Corinthians 1:19)

    The whole concept of “critical thinking” is skewed and pompous. Everything is to be looked at critically. Nothing is to be accepted as true until each and every component is proven, and one wobbly point negates the whole. People thinking this way far overestimate their ability to “prove” things and end up doing only what humans are most good at—tearing things down and replacing them with nothing.

    There was once a time when it was thought intelligent to supply context and to seek to put things into perspective. Today if you do that you are told that you are “raising a straw man argument.” The best way to counter this is to invent a character—Bernard Strawman—who regards himself as the epitome of reason. Mr. Strawman appears in both Tom Irregardless and Me and No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash.

    “Cognitive dissonance” a problem? Humility is the deciding factor. The one with humility tells himself that the facts are not all in yet, indeed they may never be, and he will be able to juggle non-dovetailing ideas proportionately until he sees how they resolve, which may or may not occur within his lifetime. That way he is not blindsided by the recurring headline: “Everything you thought you knew about such and such is wrong!” One mustn’t get too carried away with one’s own investigative ability.

    One of the foremost conclusions of critical thinking ought to be that we are not very good at it.

     

     

  • The Cake-Fruit Experiment that Blew Reason Sky High

    It was irksome when those atheists put up their ‘Let Reason Prevail’ billboard right next to that Illinois State Capitol Nativity Scene; that much was immediately apparent. But putting my finger on just why it was irksome required more effort. Was it the presumption of the atheists that they held a monopoly on “reason?” Partly. Was it the crassness of plunking it next to the nativity scene, as though it, too, offered a message of hope? Closer. In fact, I prematurely declared, that was it!

    However, you don’t necessarily express your innermost thoughts on the Internet, to be pawed over by all and sundry.  In truth I was anything but convinced that my answer was it. Something was still missing. I’ve tossed and turned each night since. 

    Until now. For now I see clearly what was lacking: scientific validation. We all know today that one ought not think anything without first checking with scientists, yet I had done exactly that! Well—no more! Diligently consulting volumes of research, I at last came across an experiment that blew that silly ‘Let Reason Prevail’ slogan sky-high. Reason cannot prevail among humans. We are not capable of it. We can muster a fair effort when distractions are few. But add in any significant stress, and human reasoning ability goes right down the drain. It is hard to come to any other conclusion after pondering the cake-fruit experiment of a few years back. Alas, it has received only the publicity of light fluff news. It deserves more, as it holds unsettling implications for any future based on the veneration of reason.

    The cake-fruit experiment unfolded thus: In 1999, Stanford University professor Baba Shiv enrolled a few dozen undergraduates and gave each a number to memorize. Then, one at a time, they were to leave the room and walk down a corridor to another room, where someone would be waiting to take their number. That’s what they were told, at least. On the way down, however, participants were approached by a friendly woman carrying a tray. “To show our thanks for taking part in our study,” she said, “we’d like to offer you a snack. You have a choice of two. A nice piece of chocolate cake. Or a delicious fruit salad. Which would you like?”

    Unbeknownst to each participant, some had been given two-digit numbers to memorize, and some had been given seven-digit numbers. When Shiv tallied up the choices made (for that was the object of the experiment) he found that those students with seven digits to remember were nearly twice as likely to choose the cake as those given two digits! Two digits—you choose fruit. Seven digits—you choose cake. What could possibly account for that?

    The reason, Shiv theorized, is that once you weed out the occasional oddball, we all like cake more than fruit; it tastes better. But we also all know that fruit is better for us. This is a rational assessment that almost all of us would make. But if our minds are taxed with trying to retain seven digits instead of a no-brainer two, rationality goes right out the window, and the emotional “Yummy, cake!” wins out! “The astounding thing here,” said the Wall Street Journal’s Jonah Lehrer, reviewing the experiment for NPR, “is not simply that sometimes emotion wins over reason. It’s how easily it wins.”

    Now, this experiment was not taken very seriously by anyone. When the media covered it at all, they treated it as fluff, as a transitional piece going in to or out of more serious news. “Oh, so that’s why I pig out after a hard day at work here,” giggling Happy News people would tell each other on TV. But plainly, the experiment holds deeper significance. Aren’t world leaders also human, and thus susceptible to emotion trumping rationality? Daily they grapple to solve the woes afflicting us all. Meanwhile, opponents seek to undermine them, and media outlets try dig up dirt on them. If it takes only five extra digits for emotion to overpower reason, do you really think there is the slightest chance that “reason will prevail” among the world’s policymakers, immersed in matters much more vexing and urgent than choosing between cake and fruit? Has it up till now?

    That is what was so irksome about the ‘Let Reason Prevail.’ slogan. Reason cannot prevail among imperfect humans! It can occur, but it cannot prevail. Humans are not capable of it. Five digits is all it takes for our rational facade to crumble!

    Now, if there is one thing that Jehovah’s Witnesses are known for, it is for their insistence that humans do not have the ability to govern themselves. Everyone else in the field of religion accepts the present setup of squabbling nations as a given and prays for God to somehow bless the leaders running it—often with the proviso that whatever country they are in emerges on top. Of course, it doesn’t matter too much, though, since said religionists are all heaven-bound! Just passing through, you understand. So while one might not like staying in a crummy hotel, you can at least console yourself that it’s only for a night or two.

    Not so Jehovah’s Witnesses. Earth is where God meant us to be, so that is where we focus. Like the psalm says: (115:16) “As regards the heavens, to Jehovah the heavens belong, but the earth he has given to the sons of men.”  And our view that humans are incapable of governing the earth is no more than acknowledging the words of Jeremiah:  “I well know, O Jehovah, that to earthling man his way does not belong. It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step.” (Jeremiah 10:23) And: “The wise ones have become ashamed. They have become terrified and will be caught. Look! They have rejected the very word of Jehovah, and what wisdom do they have?” (Jeremiah 8:9) In other words, today’s calamitous conditions are not really a surprise to those who have immersed themselves in Bible instruction. It is what they have always expected. They are not stuck with the pathetic hope that voting out the incumbents will somehow bring in a more amenable bunch of politicians among whom “reason can prevail.” It is human rule itself that is at fault.

    You could almost view it that God himself is conducting an experiment, just like Baba Shiv. Not that it was his purpose, but when humans insisted on setting their own standards of “good and bad,” rejecting his sovereignty, he said, in effect: “Go ahead—for such-and-such an amount of time see if you can make good on your claim of self-government. When the times runs out, then—we will see.” Is not this the meaning of those early Genesis chapters? Is not the grand experiment of human self-rule ending exactly as the Bible foretold it would? And does it not show, as any novice Witness will tell you—sometimes a bit parrotlike, but true nonetheless—that “it just goes to show that we need the kingdom?” Announcing this kingdom, so that people may align themselves with it, is the purpose of the Witnesses’ public ministry. (April 2010)

     

    ***

    “When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and

    Dale Carnegie, from the book ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People.’

     

    ******  The bookstore

     

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    Photo: Wikipedia Commons

  • Rationalism, the Third World, and Bible Principles

    At first it appeared the countries suffering the most would be the "guilty" countries – the ones whose banks invented the super leveraged credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations – the ones whose governments and citizens were head over heals in debt – the ones whose people had replaced the Bible with Consumer Reports. "Responsible" countries, those operating a surplus, whose citizens were frugal, such as China, Japan, and Germany – would emerge relatively unscathed. Ah, but it was not to be! The latter countries have suffered as much or more. Their strong balance sheet comes from exports, and now who remains to buy their goods?

    But the really innocent countries – the third world countries – fare the worst by far. There, the downturn doesn't mean tarnished golden years. It means lives lost. Seldom are cause and effect linked so clearly – most often there is sufficient disconnect so that the connivers on top can remain oblivious to the havoc they wreak below. But not this time.

    Economist this week considers the plight of Africa, (The Toxins Trickle Downward, 3/14/09) where in recent years, millions have inched their way above the poverty line, only to be shoved firmly beneath it again. Such countries are impacted in three ways: 1) credit market are closed to them, as they are riskier borrowers, and financial aid from wealthier countries wither, 2) commodity prices have collapsed, and commodities are usually their primary exports, and 3) remittances from citizens working abroad have dried up. The World Bank reckons these three factors will account for 200,000 – 400,000 lives lost, all children.

    It's rare that the failure of human rule is shown in such stark relief, with consequences so directly traceable. How damnnable that people nonetheless prefer it to God's rulership as outlined in the Bible, as advertised by his Witnesses, and as practiced by the Christian organization. Here's an excerpt from someone who has left God – our God, no less – Jehovah, to embrace atheism. He gushes effusively about his new "rational worldview" (I have greatly condensed certain remarks, and to be fair, you might want to see them in their context here. The author includes a number of his gripes about Jehovah's Witnesses – mostly exaggerated drivel, in my view, that I may respond to if asked – likely in a separate post.):

     

    Rationalism for me means a life of pure freedom. ….. But this means that this life that you’re living now is the most precious thing you’ll ever have. …. Because there is no Big Daddy to appease or suck up to, or be afraid of, you should be nice to people because it’s nice! You should treat people like you want to be treated! You should not steal or murder because it hurts people, and hurting people is wrong. Always. No one needs a god to tell them this…..

    Being a rationalist….If you say something irrational or realise the error in your own thoughts, a red flag immediately raises. …..rationalism is a worldview with no drawbacks, and only positives. It encourages honesty and truth…..It promotes interest in the common good…

     

    How lofty and soaring the words sound! How much crap they are in reality! As the "African" example shows, people use their "pure freedom," to grind others into the dirt, and not to "treat people like you want to be treated!" (an exclamation mark, no less….oh, the joys of rationalism!) They are not "nice to people." They "hurt people," two to four hundred thousand of them, even though "hurting people is wrong." Plainly, we do need a "big Daddy to appease" and a "god to tell" us how to live.

    If you had had a son or daughter high up in the banking world, who was devising the complex financial instruments that would ultimately ruin us all, you would have carried on about how well junior was doing for himself, how respected he was in the business world, and so forth. Even experts in the field had not a clue they were playing with dynamite; if they had, they would have cashed out their investments before the markets plunged.

    The fact is that humans were not designed to rule themselves. It's an ability they do not have. Whether through greed, ignorance, pride, or some mix of the three, the record of human rule aptly illustrates Jeremiah's words:

    I well know, O Jehovah, that to earthling man his way does not belong. It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step   Jer 10:23

    A major theme of the Bible is that God has designed rulership which will one day replace human rule. He will bring it about himself, and those who have sided with him will be mere bystanders. In the meantime, these latter ones declare this government by God:

    And this good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.    (Matt 24:14)

    Today, the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses govern their affairs in accord with Bible principles, which provides a hopeful foregleam of life under that Kingdom rule. It's well known that racial and tribal divisions – the ones tearing apart the world – utterly fail to divide Jehovah's Witnesses. It's well known that when natural disaster strikes, (for example, Katrina) teams of volunteers promptly care for their own, rebuilding homes while governments are yet twiddling their thumbs. It's well known that Kingdom Halls in the third world are often the most impressive building in town, far more than what the locals could afford – due to a sharing of resources and building talent from wealthier countries.

    All this provided through an organization which counsels, which directs, which disciplines its own, which insists on members living by Bible principles. Grousers, such as one may find online, launch blistering attacks at this, for it seems to impede their freedom, and this they will not tolerate, even in trivial matters. But our "economy" works to the good of third world countries, rather than trampling them underfoot.

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    Tom Irregardless and Me     No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash