Back in January, sparked by a documentary marking Martin Luther King day, I wrote an entry about the strong beliefs of those who opposed his social justice movement. I closed on a deliberately provoking question: “of what value is belief when it can lead us so catastrophically astray?”
Carla echoed the question in a comment on the perspective she found in the wake of the Iraq war: “[I found myself] wondering whether there is something inherantly wrong with actions motivated by passionate belief.”
Matt‘s reply: “A great many actions that have transformed society in wonderful ways have been motivated by passionate belief… Belief as a phenomenon itself isn’t the problem. It’s *what* people belief that can cause trouble.”
(There were a bunch of other amazing responses, also from Jamie and Billy. Go check ’em out. The comments continue to be the best bit of the serious stuff on this blog.)
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The keystone of my understanding of the world is this: we misconceive what it is to be human.
We overestimate our self-authority, the reliability of our memory, our ability to think rationally, our ability to evaluate others, the robustness of our health.
We misunderstand how we fit within our cultural context, how we are governed by the laws of probability, how our bodies interact with the environment both short- and long-term, how our experience of consciousness relates to our experience of emotion and vice versa.
Many of us don’t even understand what makes us happy.
We do not know what we are. I studied psychology and anthropology to get at these issues, and in all my study I only scratched the barest surface of our failure to comprehend ourselves. I learned humility, there, I think. The sheer breadth of our failure – it astonishes me still.
I also learned that knowledge is not power. My awareness of these misconceptions does not give my the power to escape them.
The best I can do to is to strive towards mindfulness. To question, always, what I see of myself, and to fail over and over again but carry on regardless. Once I thought that journey into myself might some day have an ending – but no. It never will, nor does it need to. That journey is its own purpose.
We do not understand what we are – but how does this relate to belief?
On one level, it addresses belief through direct example. Our beliefs about our selves are pervasive, fundamental, and frequently incorrect. The process of ongoing interrogation, however, itself serves as some measure of correction – not the outcome, mind, but the process itself. Belief interrogated by doubt.
On a deeper level, it raises the possibility of adopting a different way of thinking about reality. Belief (as it usually is) requires a coherent self. Take that away, and all belief becomes subject to doubt.
Or, rather, belief becomes replaced by something new – an ongoing internal relationship between doubt and faith. An internal suspension.
I believe this would be a better way to live. I believe aspects of this are at the heart of the spiritual paths alluded to by Matt and Jamie.
Doubt is the worth of belief.
Matt: “Ecclesiaties 3:11 says that all men have eternity in their hearts. But then it goes on to say that they have not understood it…”
Jamie: “This is how to change belief – by not changing others, but allowing them to wake up.”