[arocoun]

I've been giving this a lot of thought. From everything I know of history, philosophy, psychology, etc., I think that the following is very relevant.

I believe that, more important than any scientific or technological discovery, more important than any literature, more important than any philosophy, and even more important than the lesson that we live on a finite planet; the single most important lesson that should be passed from generation to generation is that humans are very prone to self-deception, and that all ideas should be challenged.

If you look at history, you find a great multitude of cases where people believed crazy, impossible, terrible, or simply moronic things, only because that was the big belief of the time. And more importantly, they refused to believe otherwise, because they had so thoroughly convinced themselves that what they believed was true. Only when people began to question their beliefs, like the philosophers of ancient Greece or the thinkers of the Renaissance, was any progress made against the false beliefs of earlier times.

Some of history's more terrible self-deceptions were that:
--there are gods living in the sky that want their followers to conquer and oppress those around them
--that the king is a living god
--that women are physically and mentally incapable of anything but having and taking care of as many babies as possible
--that cleanliness is bad for you
--that you had to give your time, money, and freedom to the Catholic church, or their loving god would torture you for all eternity
--that prayer to YHWH, the evil god of obedience, draconian punishment, and imperialism, will make your plague problems go away
--that people should follow their lot in life because that's the way the god(s) want things to be (that nobles should be nobles because they were born as nobles, that peasants should be peasants, that slaves should be slaves, etc.)
--that disease has something to do with humours
--that certain groups (most recently, the "negros") are naturally born to be slaves
--that working more than 50 hours a week is natural or acceptable
--that human sacrifices are necessary for anything
--that drug-induced hallucinations are messages from god/the soul
--that animals can't feel anything, so it's okay to cut them open, alive and without anesthetic (well this is almost as much "current events" as "history")
--that we are the superior race, and can thus exterminate all others
--that technology can break the laws of thermodynamics
--that market forces can do anything
--I could go on and on.

The simple truth is that only those who know they can decieve themselves have to power to see through the deceptions of themselves or others. And, I believe that knowing this lesson is absolutely essential to retaining any of the progress we've achieved throughout history, and creating any sane society in the future.

Any thoughts?

[AmericanEmpire]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '-')-that women are physically and mentally incapable of anything but having and taking care of as many babies as possible

[ashurbanipal]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') believe that, more important than any scientific or technological discovery, more important than any literature, more important than any philosophy, and even more important than the lesson that we live on a finite planet; the single most important lesson that should be passed from generation to generation is that humans are very prone to self-deception, and that all ideas should be challenged.

[eastbay]

I find it interesting that we can often see our strangest beliefs reflected in our largest structures, monuments and memorials.

[arocoun]

AmericanEmpire--You will die by the hands of a hoard of angry women...soon.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kochevnik', 'p')eople can delude themselves about ANYTHING. And what was most enlightening, is that I could include myself in that group as well. The number of scientific experiments proving this idea was mind-boggling. I think it is truly a bedrock idea you have there.

[arocoun]

Additionally, I didn't say there weren't gods, or a Catholic god, or whatever. What I said was that they were terrible, unsupportable beliefs that lead to oppression and war. It isn't so much the truth of whether or not they existed that I contend with, as much as it is the fact that they were blindly believed in.

Oh, and when I mentioned the ancient Greek and Rennaisance thinkers I was referring more to revolutions in thought than the thinkers themselves. I mentioned them in particular because they were the most stand-out examples of change in western thought.

[ashurbanipal]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'a')shurbanipal--Yeah, funny.

[arocoun]

Well, it seems I'm not as knowledgable about history as you are. It seems that thought from the ages I mentioned was often a restatement and refinement of earlier thought.

I think I now understand what points you're trying to make. For example, you point out the fallacy of putting religious faith in science. That, I actually agree with--science is a tool for gaining knowledge, but it is not perfect or godlike. Indeed, on some topics, like those of animal intelligence or spirituality, I believe that science lags way behind other methods of obtaining knowledge, because science is so mechanical, detached, and interest-based.

I think you may believe that I don't question today's beliefs because I didn't include them on my list. However, in my list I tried to point out the more terrible beliefs of history--the past. I myself am a radical thinker of the present, and I tend to disagree with many of the presumptions of the present, too. For one big example, I have questioned, and now oppose, the idea of civilization itself.

On the topic of absurdity, I believe absurdity should be judged on a subjective basis. But I gave more thought to the examples you gave me which I called "absurd" earlier, and have come to the conclusion that they aren't all that absurd after all. For all I know, all women could be robots or aliens, as small a chance as that might be--and thus, in addition to questioning the assumption that they can't do anything but be mothers, I should also question any conclusion I come to from questioning that belief.

...okay, I'll take a moment to untie my brain from this knot I made here...

As for believing something because they believe it, what I meant was giving one's beliefs emotional so much emotional or intrinsic value that they refuse to question their belief. I definitely don't think beliefs make themselves. Yeah, I should have specified, but I wanted to make a short and sweet point.

On the topic of questioning my own reasoning: Yeah, I actually have long since asked myself, "can I trust my own reasoning?" My conclusion was that my own reasoning is the only reasoning I have in the end, so I might as well use it. If my reasoning isn't trustworthy, I'll never know it. My only other option is to not reason at all, and thus be no more thoughtful than a plant. But plants are boring.

But yeah, to make it clear, I don't just question the assumptions of the past, like those on my list. I question many things that the people around me hold as unquestionable reality. Which is, of course, why I made this topic to begin with. I believe we still have a lot of stuff to question, which is why it's important to pass on the knowledge that we should question our beliefs.

[threadbear]

Arocoun--Plants are boring? There you go again!

[seldom_seen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('arocoun', 'W')hat I said was that they were terrible, unsupportable beliefs that lead to oppression and war. It isn't so much the truth of whether or not they existed that I contend with, as much as it is the fact that they were blindly believed in.

[Raxozanne]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seldom_seen', '
')Our closest living primate relative, the chimpanzee, is also known for waging war on its own kind. As far as we know they are not doing this under the banner of religion or racism or patriotism. Why are they doing it then? and why are we doing it?

[Battle_Scarred_Galactico]

Or in other words, it's all the reasons that people make up as to why THEY are BETTER than someone else.

You are never going to change this, ever, as everyone wants to be the best. And those who don't usually end up getting trampled all over, as evident through centuries of history.

I believe we're going to see more of the same as everything unfolds, this is a good thead though as you've raised a good issue.

[arocoun]

I don't think it's fully natural nor inevitable for humans to be warlike brutes. Most certainly, individuals (from most mammalian species, at least) can have traits different from those of the species in general. Even IF humans in general are selfish and destructive by nature, individual humans don't HAVE to be.

But I would even argue that humanity in general doesn't have to be like that. Even the bonobo, not much evolved from the chimp, has a generally egalitarian, peaceful way of existing. Humans have evolved even farther away from chimps than that, and thus aren't necessarily bound to the hierarchal, patriachal, and occassionally brutish way of the chimp.

History shows plenty of examples of groups of humans warring over land, resources, slaves, and religion. But history also has plenty of examples of humans betraying their group or country to oppose such things, or groups of humans simply existing in relative peace. In the past, most such groups were conquered by imperialist forces because they were less practiced in fighting and had less technology for war, but this lesson has been learned for the future by many who would re-create peaceful societies.

As for Raxozanne's pointing out that humans have to be bound by human rights or laws to restrain selfish, destructive behavior, I believe that to be false, both on the individual and general level--as do many others. Anarchist literature, for example, is filled with examples of cooperation and altruism being done by free people. And primitivists both believe in and have examples of people being able to exist in relative peace and cooperation without the bounds of civilization, law, or complex concepts (like rights). Of course, not all humans have the ability to do this, but I definitely believe that a large portion of humanity is capable of it, given the right conditions.

I don't have a lot of faith in humanity, and I'm not saying humans will stop creating excuses for brutish imperialism in the future. But I do believe they can, and I do believe at at least a few will.

[oowolf]

A philosopher, I can't remember which one, (Kierkegaard or maybe Piaget?) once drew a connection between the human child's development of self consciousness and the ability to tell a lie in order to defend that "posited self". Once one gets good at deceiving others, the next step is often self deception. Social leaders (politicians) are very prone to self deception as politics is mostly the art of lying to gain social status.

Most of the people I encounter in current Amerika are so hypnotized by the advertising industry they wouldn't know an axiomatic truth unless there was a movie coming out about it.

[Pops]

The single most important lesson of all time...

Has nothing to do with talking.


"Can't never did anything."

That means doing.


Quit talking...

Start doing.