Thursday, July 07, 2005

How do we know?

The world is a complicated place. We all make up rules about how it all works, that help us keep make sense of it. I like to keep mine as simple as possible. In fact, I feel like I spend a lot of effort re-organizing them and combining them to make a shorter list.

So here's one that I haven't been able to put in a nice neat package: How do I know when I am right?

There are those who know, and those who only think they know. It seems to me, there's a slight problem with dividing people into these two categories. The only people that can tell the difference between the two, are the people who know. The others have it completely backwards. Before you decide if I'm talking out of my ass again, let me give you an example.

For instance. When you're a child, you think that you're responsible, and that your parents are evil dictators who love nothing more than to see you suffer under their oppressive rule. They won't let you get a skateboard, or jump off the roof with an open umbrella, or let you work the gas and brake while they steer the car. Then you grow up, and realize that you were the jerk after all. All those things your parents wouldn't let you do, you would have been a complete idiot to have done. Your parents really knew. You only thought you did.

So, when it comes to the belief "children should be allowed to decide for themselves what's good for them", kids and adults are very neatly divided, each thinking the other is ignorant of the facts. And yet, aren't the adults clearly right, and the children clearly wrong? That's a loaded question, since everyone reading this is probably an adult, so right or wrong you'll all agree with me.

I thought about this more today after reading this story on Salon about how people with no sex drive are considering themselves just another sexual orientation - asexual. According to them, there's nothing wrong with them, they are perfectly happy without sex, so they don't consider it a disorder.

It becomes a bit of a philosophical quandary. When you have two divided schools of belief, each believing the other doesn't have the facts, how do you know you're right? You can't just say "use logic". Each group will merely accuse the other of having a faulty logic system. It seems to me that a handy way to break the tie is to examine the people who have been in both groups.

As it turns out, the two examples above have something in common. That is, virtually no one ever transitions the "other" way. Once you believe children need parental guidance, you don't change your mind again. Once you believe that sex is worth having, you don't change your mind back. Even after the fire of youth has cooled, you still remember it fondly.

So that's it then. The group with the lowest number of defectors wins. Or should it be percentage based?

Or am I just talking out my ass again?

One could probably use my argument to show that Scientologists are right and the rest of us are wrong. I'll keep working on it.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Different strokes for different folks.
The problem with your argument is that children are growing and evolving into adults. They learn, through trial and error, what is dangerous to them and "not right". But even still, their personal experiences shape their idea of what's right and what's wrong for them.

I don't think that your example of people becoming Scientologists is good argument (that more people have gone from not being a scientologist to becoming a scientologist so they must be evolving) because Scientology is a religion. I don't think that anyone should think that his or her religion is right or wrong. Their religion or ideology is right for them and that's the only thing that matters. Because you are an atheist, do you think that everyone who believes in God is wrong?

Something like, people thinking the world was flat and then now know that the world is round is an example of how people were wrong and now are right, but I think you should leave religion and ideology out of this.

People imposing their ideas of what's right and what's wrong is what has gotten us here- gays not able to marry, women not able to choose, people not able to call themselves asexual (ha ha).

So that brings us back to the question- how do we know what's right and what's wrong *for us*? I think we just have to feel it in our bones.

10:33 AM  
Blogger Jeff said...

I don't agree with your statement "Their religion or ideology is right for them, and that's the only thing that matters". As a counterexample: Is it all that matters that Al Qaida's brand of militant Islam is 'right for them'? People's religion can and does affect others in a negative way.

Yes, I do think that everyone who believes in God is wrong. Does that surprise you? I think that the belief in God often affects others in a negative way. If it didn't, i wouldn't care what people believed.

It's standing in the way of curing disease. It's taking away women's rights. A 70-virgin afterlife is motivating people to blow up buildings and buses full of innocent people.

So I won't just leave them alone. They're wrong and they're hurting people.

Anyway, I think I can skirt the "Scientology" problem with my theory. The problem is that I put all non-scientologists into the same category, but there can be widely varying beliefs in that category.

1:51 PM  

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