Truth and Curiosity

Andrew Sullivan's "Quote for the Day" from yesterday gave me a chuckle:

"There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work," - Irving Kristol.

First off, it's entirely to be expected that Irving Kristol would cast the whole thing in terms of age and education. What's more intriguing is the idea that "one set of truths" available to everyone has something to do with modern democracy.

Sullivan links to a Wikipedia entry on "The Noble Lie," itself a concept that has little to do with democracy at all -- the "noble lie" in its essence is

. . . a myth or untruth, often, but not invariably, of a religious nature, knowingly told by an elite to maintain social harmony, particularly the social position of that elite. The noble lie is a concept originated by Plato as described in The Republic. However, the concept has far greater scope and has been used by many commentators to talk about much more modern issues in politics (see Modern views, below). A noble lie, although it may benefit all parties, is different from a white lie since a white lie does not cause discord if uncovered whereas noble lies are usually of a nature such that they would do so.

I do, by the way, question the linking of "myth" with "untruth" here, but I'll let that go for the time being. What's more important is that we can see right off the bat that Kristol is just running his mouth -- or pen, I suppose. What are we to take as the "noble lie" in the case of modern democracies -- say, ours? That all are equal before the law? That's the main tenet of our republic, and although it's demonstrably untrue, at least in some circumstances, we do have recourse. Our federal courts were designed to maintain the truth of that tenet, although given the current make-up of the federal bench, particularly the Supreme Court, it's problematic -- the Roberts Court quite blatantly favors the rich and powerful over everyone else. That is, however, by the nature of things, a temporary aberration.

What strikes me about Kristol's statement is that he completely ignores the main stronghold of "universal truth" in contemporary America -- the evangelical/fundamentalist Christianist right. I'm including the neocons in that group because, although not all Christianists, they suffer from the same blinkered world view. (That's not really a surprise, though.) In that case, the "one set of truths" is not only available to everyone, but must be held by everyone.

(And I suppose it's only to be expected that Sullivan offers this one with no comment.)

That does, however, bring to mind a later post from Sullivan. He quotes from this OpEd by Stanely Fish in NYT. Sullivan's quote is instructive -- and riddled with unfounded assumptions, Here's the full paragraph:

They are obsessive and obsessed and exhibit, says John Henry Newman, something akin to a mental disorder. “In such persons reason acts almost as feebly and as impotently as in the madman: once fairly started on a subject, they have no power of self-control” (“The Idea of a University”). They have no power of self-control because they have no allegiance — to a deity, to human flourishing, to community — that might serve as a check on their insatiable curiosity. (Curiosity is inherently insatiable; its satisfactions are only momentary; there is always another horizon.) In short, curiosity — sometimes called research, sometimes called unfettered inquiry, sometimes called progress, sometimes called academic freedom — is their God. The question, posed by thinkers from Aquinas to Augustine to Newman to Griffiths, is whether this is the God — the God, ultimately, of self — we want to worship. Given the evidence, including Chairman Leach’s address, the answer would seem to be yes.

Notice how Catholic apologists are always rushing to call something intrinsically human and perfectly normal a "mental disorder." Newman's argument is grossly overstated, and for the most part, simply untrue. Take me, since I'm about as human as it gets: I'm curious about almost everything. The universe is a fascinating place, and there's a lot about it that I don't understand -- yet. It's that "yet" that's the key factor. And I think if you watch a group of monkeys or apes, or even individuals, for any length of time, you'll realize that, as exhibited in our nearest relatives, curiosity is a basic simian chracteristic. (Let's take it one setp farther -- I think mammals as a group can probably be shown to exhibit a high degree of curiosity relative to, say, fish. And it occurs to me that even fish exhibit a certain degree of inquisitiveness.)

As for having no self-control -- can I call bullshit on that one? Curiosity and self-control have nothing to do with each other, and I can -- and do -- exhibit at least as much self-control as any other adult. Ditto this "allegiance" that Fish introduces into the argument -- again, apples and oranges. I am, when it comes right down to it, a very devout person. Not particularly observant, but devout in my beliefs. The fact that my religion encourages curiosity may have something to do with this, come to think of it. (You can generally figure that a Witch is going to be surrounded by books -- we are very strong proponents of learning, as a group.)

Fish makes use of an extensive body of quotes from various churchmen and Christian propagandists that seem uniformly to set up straw men -- curiosity will inevitably lead to. . . . (Sort of reminds me of Maggie Gallagher and her "arguments" against same-sex marriage.) It's all crap, of course, but given that the authorities quoted were one and all proponents of a particularly pernicious form of the Noble Lie, I suppose it's only to be expected.

The point is, if you're dealing with adults who have some sort of moral foundation -- and at this point, you're going to have to work pretty hard to convince me that's part of the arsenal of the brand of Christian thought being trotted out here -- you're not going to get the results posited by Paul Griffiths:

Griffiths builds on the religious tradition in which curiosity is condemned because it distracts men from the study and worship of God, shackling them, says Augustine, “to an inferior love.” But curiosity can also distract men from secular obligations by so occupying their minds that there is no room left for other considerations. These men (and women) fail to register the pain of animals subjected to experiments in the name of knowledge, pay no heed to the social consequences of their investigations, and take no heed of the warnings issued in Marlowe’s “Dr. Faustus,” Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” H.G. Wells’ “The Island of Dr. Moreau” and Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (not to mention the myth of Pandora and the Incredible Hulk).

Of course, going back to my own religious traditions, things like the pain felt by animals in experiments are going to be a primary concern. We don't have the disdain for other forms of life that is an intrinsic part of Christian thought -- in our system of belief, everything shares a bit of divinity, and harming another -- whether it be human, animal, or plant -- is against the one rule we all subscribe to. (We do make allowances for feeding ourselves, and even when gathering plants for ritual purposes, the practice is never to take enough from any single plant to cause permanent damage, and to leave an offering in return for what you have taken. It's about balance.) (I hadn't meant to turn this into an anti-Christian diatribe, but the more I go into this and the more I think about what Fish is relating here, the more I realize that all the negatives he's holding out as the "necessary" result of curiosity are, in fact, only necessary if you're operating from a Christian world view, which, indeed, has infected the West to such an extent that it's almost ineradicable. Nobody he quotes is asking the next question because it was quite literally inconceivable to them: What if you don't subscribe to these basic beliefs? What if you believe that things like self-control and responsible behavior are not necessarily the result of fear of punishment by an Almighty God, but are a sign of the respect you hold for the world you share?)

This whole essay strikes me as nothing more than another example of someone insisting that there is one truth, and some father figure is going to tell us about it when he's damned good and ready, and until then, we should just do as we're told. (Sort of like the "conservative" gay rights contingent.) And in the meantime, any display of those characteristics that make us really human is A. Bad. Thing.