IN PART ONE OF THIS SERIES, I distinguished between two approaches to thought and language: scientific rhetoric, used to discover truth and promote understanding, and political rhetoric, used to influence ourselves or others.
I pointed out that both are necessary and helpful, but that political rhetoric is dangerous if it loses touch with scientific rhetoric: that trying to influence behavior can easily lead us to ignore the truth.
At the end of part two, I suggested that "bad morality" was a particularly dangerous thing in this context, and promised to explain that strange statement in part three.
Well, here we are.
What could I possibly mean by "bad morality"? If it's morality, doesn't it have to be good?
I've explained elsewhere that we use the term morality in more than one sense, and I won't go into detail about that here. Instead, I'll just mention the particular type of "bad" morality I have in mind, when talking about these two kinds of rhetoric.
As I pointed out in the first two parts, each kind of rhetoric has its purpose. I don't try to give a lecture to a five-year-old on the nature of combustion if I want him to come out of a burning building. I don't care if he understands. I will use any trick in the book to get him out.
On the other hand, if I'm teaching a course in chemistry, I will make understanding my focus. I'll be more interested in communicating truth than in motivating my students to action.
Even there, though, a good teacher will use some political rhetoric. A funny story, for example, may help keep students interested or even make an important point memorable.
And, if you think back to the five-year-old in the burning building, the same is true there. I may be using political rhetoric to motivate him, but my reasons are dictated by scientific rhetoric: the facts of the situation (the building is on fire, and it will kill him if he doesn't get out) and my understanding of those facts.
In both cases, political rhetoric is helpful because it is operating within a framework of scientific rhetoric. Language and behavior designed to influence someone is rooted in truth and understanding.
But there are "moral" systems in the world which attempt to reverse the natural relationship between scientific and political uses.
If you are a normal human being, you've probably experienced them.
Have you ever found yourself in the odd position of looking for evidence on some issue, and knowing, in advance, what the "right" conclusion had to be? Have you ever found yourself troubled by evidence that contradicts what "should" be true?
As I pointed out in the first two parts, we use political rhetoric to influence others, and we use political rhetoric to influence ourselves, but we also have political rhetoric used on us.
One of the forms this takes is the notion that certain ideas are "right" or "wrong", no matter what the evidence says.
I'll provide an example from my own experience, concerning my attitude toward abortion.
When I was a member of the religious right, I was against abortion, because that was the position of my church and my right-wing friends. But I was also a very serious Bible student, who believed that all moral truth was based on the Bible, so I spent a great deal of time and trouble looking for support for my position on abortion in the Bible.
The point here is that I didn't initially spend that energy trying to figure out what the Bible actually said on the subject, even though I considered the Bible to be the authority. I was looking for evidence to back up the "moral" point of view, and I already knew what the moral point of view had to be.
It won't surprise you to know that I found all kinds of arguments against abortion.
Later in my spiritual evolution, I realized what I had done. I discovered that the religious sources of the anti-abortion movement were not protestant theology, but Roman Catholic. I was still an evangelical protestant, so this weakened my certainty.
I also realized that much of the force behind the anti-abortion movement came from secular politics.
The conservative political movement had pushed this issue, and had used it as a way to bind fundamentalists and many Catholics to a right-wing economic agenda that went directly against most of what the Bible taught about economics.
Worse yet, I already knew that there was a lot more evidence in the Bible against that economic agenda than there was against abortion.
This wouldn't have bothered me in itself. I was, by that time, perfectly willing to straddle the political spectrum in order to be true to my religious beliefs.
But what it did do was free me up to go back to all those verses I had consulted early on—this time not to prove a foregone conclusion, but to actually see what they said.
What I found taught me a lesson I hope I will never forget.
When I actually looked at those passages with an open mind I found that my former conclusions were unsupportable.
The Bible actually had very little to say on the subject, but what it did have to say all went in the pro-choice direction.
Any neutral interpreter, trying to come to a conclusion based solely on those passages would be forced to conclude that the Bible did not consider that a fetus became a person until at least birth, and quite possible until some time later.
I won't go into the details here; that's another post, and this one is not about either the Bible or abortion.
The point is that I had completely skewed my first interpretation of those passages.
This happened, not simply because I thought abortion was morally wrong, but because I had gone a step further. I had come to believe that it would be immoral to think abortion was not wrong.
The political rhetoric of my subculture was, in effect, exerting thought-control on me, and I was a willing participant. I had accepted the idea that it was wrong to believe the facts, even when it was obvious what they were.
And the way it worked was this: I came to those passages looking, not for what they said, but for how I could interpret them in a way that fit the prejudices I already had. I never even asked the question, "what is it really saying?" I only asked, "How does this prove abortion is wrong?"
The thought-control that was exercised on me could just as easily have come from the left as the right. Remember all the liberals who defended Stalin in the face of overwhelming evidence against him.
Or, more to the point, let me tell you another story on the subject of abortion, this time about a liberal friend of mine.
A while back a book was published titled Freakonomics. It was about the application of some of the methods of economic research to other fields.
A fascinating and witty book, it became quite popular. But one of the many case studies it contained became controversial. The study showed a strong probability that the passing of Roe v. Wade was a main cause of the dramatic drop in violent crime fifteen to twenty-five years later.
That is, as the authors of Freakonomics put it:
When a government gives a woman the opportunity to make her own decision about abortion, she generally does a good job of figuring out if she is in a position to raise the baby well. If she decides she can't, she often chooses the abortion.
The authors went on to make it clear that they were not proposing that choice be advocated as a crime control measure, and even pointed out that from a strictly economic point of view such a policy wouldn't be efficient.
Nevertheless, the book stirred up quite a controversy. That is where my liberal friend comes in.
He said to me that he was "against" this research, and the conclusion, because it was the kind of thing that could be used as an argument for genocide.
Notice how his political rhetoric—his moral disproval of genocide, which I share—trumped his scientific rhetoric—his ability to understand the study, and the information it contained.
He acted as though there were sides to truth. He might as well have said, "I'm against the law of gravity."
Now, of course, if the result of a study may have serious implications, it makes great sense to be cautious. It would be sensible to say, "I think we should study this further and make sure it's correct before we act on it." Or, even: "I don't care if this is true. It is not a valid argument for public policy."
But to take the position that the truth or falsehood of an idea should not be based on evidence, but on whether we approve of the idea (or of how it could be used) is a mistake. It's like arguing against the idea of gravity, because it could be used to drop bombs on people.
When a culture begins to believe that it is right or wrong to believe certain things, political rhetoric has taken priority over scientific rhetoric, and that culture is in trouble.
But, more importantly, when a person comes to accept that kind of belief, he or she—you or I—comes under a kind of mind-control, and is in danger of intellectual suicide.
And, in the end, the responsibility to avoid mind-control, to be clear about the difference between understanding and manipulation, is a spiritual matter: a responsibility of every individual who desires to be free.
And, by the way, if you had trouble believing what I had to say about scientific vs. political language in this part because I used abortion as an example, I suggest, as a spiritual exercise, that you sort out how that happened to you.
