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Is God a Human Invention? World-view, Rhetoric, and Declaring a Winner

Submitted by Ken Watts on Fri, 03/07/2008 - 13:21
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In the end, the debate between Dennett and D'Souza comes down, not to rhetoric (surprise!), but to worldview.

American culture (and perhaps human culture as a whole) is presently caught between two different views of the world—of the nature of humanity, of morality, of truth, and, well, of nature.

Probably no one of us subscribes completely, at every moment, to one view or the other, but Dennett and D'Souza—at least in this debate—are fairly good representatives of the two sides.

Dennett comes close to putting his finger on the distinction between those sides when he suggests that D'Souza subscribes to a "trickle-down theory of goodness".

One of the distinctions between the worldviews they represent is that D'Souza's worldview involves a top-down approach to a great many things: including Truth, Authority, Morality, Rhetoric, Belief, Faith, and Goodness.

Dennett's worldview, on the other hand, involves a bottom-up view of many things: including truth, authority, morality, rhetoric, belief, faith, and goodness.

The following chart gives a rough outline of the of the two worldviews in the culture at large. Capital letters mark the usages peculiar to a top-down approach:

Bottom-Up Worldview

Top-Down Worldview

truth (small t) comes from observation of many small cases. Our experience as individuals—and as a society—of lots of separate instances, and our ability to question our conclusions and those of others, gives us a fairly reliable picture of the way things are.

Truth (capital T) comes from the pronouncements of an Authority. This could be the Pope, the Church, Tradition, Mom and Dad, the Bible, the Koran, or others. These Authorities are the final guides to the way things are. They should never be questioned.

authority (small a) is faith based. It is rooted in the faith of the student, or the patient, or the child in the teacher's, or the doctor's, or the parent's competence and good will.

Authority (capital A) is force based. It is rooted in the ability of God to send you to Hell, of the King to kill or imprison you, of Mom or Dad to punish you, of your boss to fire you.

we ought to do that which satisfies our natural values: caring for others, pursuing fairness, balancing the needs of ourselves and our group against those outside.

we Ought to do that which the Law endorsed by Authority demands of us: following the rules to the letter. We Should try to change those who don't follow the Law we follow, and  look out for our own group at the expense of others.

The primary purpose of rhetoric is scientific—to communicate our understanding about the patterns of truth, and to critical examine the patterns we perceive. As we deepen our understanding, we make wiser decisions.

The primary purpose of Rhetoric is political—to manipulate people into accepting Truth, submitting to Authority, doing and Believing what we Ought to do and Believe. As people submit to Authority, they come to Obey the rules and do what they Ought to.

belief is the result of experience and understanding. We can choose to pay attention to the evidence and to exercise our reason, but to try to choose the outcome would make the process pointless. We don't choose what to believe, we only choose whether to consult the evidence.

Belief is a matter of choice—of Morality rather than reason. The choice is between Believing what I Ought to believe—the Truth, as proclaimed by Authority—or believing something else. If reason points to something else, then reason is wrong, and I must rely on Faith to overrule reason.

faith is trust, based on knowledge, reason, and understanding.

Faith is Belief, in spite of, or in the absence of, knowledge, reason, or understanding.

goodness is inherent in nature. It is sometimes relative (what is good for the lion is not necessarily good for the zebra) and complex (what is good for the species may not always be good for the individual). But ultimately it a result of natural processes—including, in the case of humans, our capacity for reason, wisdom, and love.

Goodness must be imposed on nature. It is absolute (whatever the Authority decrees is good) and simple (Obedience to the Authority is always the right choice). Ultimately it is a result of Supernatural intervention, or, at least, Obedience to Authority against the grain of our natural inclinations.

The distinction between these worldviews is not primarily about God—in spite of the topic of this debate. Many who are not in the least religious are still primarily top-down thinkers. On the other hand, many religious people are bottom-up thinkers in most of their lives—even when thinking about religion.

A certain kind of religion, though, is fundamentally top-down: the kind represented by D'Souza in this debate. And, although Dennett is not always a completely top-down thinker, his position in this debate is.

Once we understand the differences in their world-views, their different use of rhetoric falls into place:

  • If you come from a top-down worldview, as D'Souza does, a debate is a battle of  influence—the kind of debate you get in a presidential election, where two parties attempt to influence the audience to cast their vote for one side or the other. His focus was on influencing everyone's behavior.

    "Winning" for D'Souza meant getting some or all of the audience to convert to Catholicism, or, lacking that, to vote for him at the end of the debate.
  • If, on the other hand, you come from a bottom-up worldview, as Dennett does, a debate is a reasoned discussion, where two people argue different sides of the same question in order to throw light on the question and perhaps on their differences, as well. His focus was on deepening everyone's understanding of the issue.

    "Winning" for Dennett would have consisted in convincing D'Souza, or, lacking that, the audience, that his point of view was the more reasonable interpretation of the facts.

Each debater acted predictably, and quite honorably, within the values and beliefs of their respective worldviews.

Consider the following:

  1. D'Souza produced nearly twice as many separate points as Dennett.
  2. Dennett's points were aimed at the question almost half the time; D'Souza's, less than a third of the time.

    Dennett aimed at the audience's motivations a little over half the time; D'Souza, over two thirds of the time.
  3. Almost all of Dennett's points were sound; none of D'Souza's.

    (It's possible that I leaned toward Dennett in judging soundness, since my position is closer to his—though not the same. Even allowing for that, the difference is staggering. D'Souza actually came very close to sound points on a couple of occasions, but didn't bother to present them in a sound form. On the other hand, many of D'Souza's arguments are not just unsound, but blatantly so—as when he accuses Dennett of not citing sources immediately after Dennett has done so. This pattern begs for an explanation.)
  4. Only one point made by Dennett was clearly adversarial, while over half of D'Souza's points were.

All of these differences can be explained by the fact that Dennett and D'Souza have fundamentally different understandings of what they were doing in that room. They were playing different games on the same playing field.

There are two things to remember about this difference between them.

  1. First, each debater saw the debate in terms which resonated with their definition of "belief".

    For Dennett, belief is a reasoned reaction to the evidence at hand. To believe in something is to come to the conclusion that there is stronger evidence for it than against.

    For D'Souza, belief is a choice, without regard to the evidence. To believe is to choose a side, or a community, even in the total absence of evidence.
  2. Second, neither debater was right or wrong about the nature of the debate.

    Both types of debates exist in the real world, and many debates are a mixture of the two types.

    Dennett is a teacher, with a primarily bottom-up worldview, and so would naturally be drawn to the first type of debate.

    D'Souza's has a top-down worldview, and comes from the political world, and so he naturally saw the debate in that light.

But the game they are playing controls their strategy.

Why, for example, did Dennett make so few points, and D'Souza so many?

If you are trying to deepen someone's understanding of an issue, it's best not to confuse them by throwing a lot of different ideas at them, one after another. You slow down, introduce a few ideas as clearly and simply as possible, and take your time to develop them.

On the other hand, if you are trying to get someone to act, the more reasons you give them the better. If one reason confuses them, or fails to motivate, the others will simply take its place. And, in the end, the combined weight of all your arguments will make them seem inevitable. Even if it doesn't, there's a good chance that one or two struck home with enough force to motivate action.

The same can be said for soundness. If I'm aiming at understanding, the last thing I want is to hand you an argument that has a hole in it—even if you don't see the hole. In fact, a hole you don't see is worse than one you do, because it means that there's a hidden confusion in your thought.

But, if I'm aiming for action, an unsound argument is just as good as a sound one, provided you don't detect the hole. If you do detect the hole, my other arguments may do the trick. And if I slow down to make sure I haven't left a hole, I cut down on the number of other arguments I can provide. So I actually experience a pressure not to be to careful, to keep moving.

And, of course, if I am aiming at understanding then I won't be interested in being adversarial. I want you to understand, and convincing you that the other guys are nasty has nothing to do with that.

But, if I am aiming at motivation, there's nothing more powerful than "us vs. them". If I can convince you that "we" are the good guys and "they" are the nasty ones, I've gotten a lot closer to convincing you to join my team.

So who won?

The answer to that question, as well, is a matter of worldview. If you are a top-downer, the winner was the one who persuaded the most people to action—in this case to joining the "God side", whether by voting in the debate, or by being impressed by D'Souza on YouTube, or by converting to Catholicism.

And, if you are a top-downer, you probably think D'Souza accomplished his goal.

If you are a bottom-upper, the winner would be the person who marshaled the most sound arguments, who clarified the issue best, who most deepened the audiences understanding.

And, if you are a bottom-upper, you probably think that Dennett is that person.

The interesting point, in the end, is that just as a top-downer and a bottom-upper mean different things by belief, truth, authority, and faith, so, in this context, they mean different things by "winning".

In the end, even when they disagree about who won, they aren't really disagreeing at all.