Ever since I wrote my post on halakha and hashqafa I've been thinking about meta-ideology, and specifically the meta-ideology necessary to maintain ideological diversity. (What I mean by meta-ideology: ideology about ideology.) Actually, I've been thinking about this issue for a long time, but now I've hit on a new, and I think productive, way of thinking about it.
Judaism's emphasis on halakha (rules) results directly in freedom of hashqafa (ideology). That is, the fact that everybody agrees on the rules, and the fact that they are not derived from ideology means that no new ideology can challenge the stability of the system. Halakha (the way) specifies the rules of the road: drive on the right, stop on red, etc., and the fact that everybody follows them means that everybody is able drive to where they want to go. Imagine what would happen if traffic rules were derived from ideology, if people argued about whether you should drive on the left or right? Stop on red or green? Imagine if every town were free to set its traffic rules according to majority opinion, if traffic rules were a hotly debated issue, if the country were on the brink of civil war because of these differences of opinion?
It has occurred to me that for a democracy to survive while permitting ideological diversity, the vast majority of the population must be committed to a meta-ideology which permits ideological diversity. The United States Constitution serves exactly that purpose. It is a religious document, in the sense that its validity is not debatable. It is the basis of the American religion. (A good way to become a political pariah in the US is to reject the US constitution.) Its beauty is that, like halakha, it is a procedural document. It doesn't tell you what to think, it tells you what to do. Moreover, it demands that no laws can tell you want to think or say: laws can only tell you what is permitted or forbidden to do. (As an aside, this contrasts dramatically with the proposed European Constitution, which concerns itself mainly with ideology.)
In other words, the democratic religion (I cannot prove that democracy is good, except in terms of values which I also cannot prove, therefore it is a religion) requires something equivalent to "God wants the Jews to live according to halakha" (from the post below), something like: "It is required to live according to the constitution". (I can't think of better rhetoric that doesn't mention God.) But to promote diversity, the constitution must be such that advocates of any ideology (or at least a very wide range of ideologies) can point to it and say, "I'm okay because I support the constitution" - and that's exactly what the US Constitution provides.
With the possibility of ending this post on an anticlimax, I want to try to apply these ideas to academia. Academic freedom is supposedly a big deal, but universities, at this point in time, have exactly the wrong kind of freedom: There are no clear rules, instead there is a clear ideology to which you must conform. So let's try to turn the situation around: What sort of rules should there be? What should the academic meta-ideology be? Well, I know where to start: The scientific method. Unfortunately, the scientific method is not easily applicable to all fields of study, and it is true that in those areas where it is clearly applicable (physics, for instance) ideology is much less important. But, in fact, the scientific method (plus some statistics to make up for the difficulty of doing experiments) can be applied much more widely than it is. Fashionable fields like Woman's Studies or Black Studies are actually very amenable to the scientific method, if you are honest. And it's beyond me why Linguistics isn't a "true science" - you can really do experiments in many branches of Linguistics almost like you can in Physics. So the first rule of academia should be: I can say anything I want as long as I can back it up with the scientific method. I think that will get us far, but what about areas like Political Science, Literature and History? I don't know, but I'm open to suggestions!
Posted by David Boxenhorn at March 16, 2005 11:12 PMIt amazes me that someone as intelligent as yourself reads MY humble blog :)
Posted by: Maria at March 17, 2005 12:38 AM PermalinkI don't think the scientific method can be applied to all problems, but the remaining truths can be argued for nonetheless.
Our primary shield against ideologies is to remain open to competing arguments, whilst continuing to act on our best theories.
I would suggest four reforms for academia:
(1) End compulsory schooling for children in countries where home education has been made illegal. (This will slowly impact on universities by changing the ordinary citizen's conception of education.)
(2) Insist on diversity of funding for universities
(3) Make university lectures non-compulsory
(4) Pay lecturers according to how many students actually show up at their lectures (the free market is a direct form of criticism)
Democracy isn't a religion, it's a way of criticising policy by giving citizens the power to remove bad law makers.
Religions, by contrast, ring-fence certain irrational beliefs in order to shield them from criticism. (This preserves old knowledge.)
Nothing is certain. Will humans survive? We've made plenty of progress so far, and there's no reason to suppose that infinitely more progress isn't possible.
Posted by: Tom Robinson at March 17, 2005 03:47 AM Permalinkideology vs religion
I've been writing a lot about it. http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2004/12/clashing-symbols.html
http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2004/10/battle-of-religions.html
http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2004/10/democracy.html
Maria: You are a bright bulb yourself!
Tom: To me, anything that can't be proven (such as values) is a religion. Why should you believe in "a way of criticising policy by giving citizens the power to remove bad law makers"? Of course, you can give reasons in term of other values you may have, but ultimately you can't prove that it's right or wrong.
Anything that can't be proven, is a religion? The validity of reasoning is unprovable in exactly the same way that basic morality is -- question it, and you exile yourself from all possible debates. Is it sensible, or useful, to label the rules of logic a "religion"?
Posted by: Michael Brazier at March 17, 2005 12:08 PM PermalinkMichael: Well, non-religious people are always talking about how irrational religious people are. But in the final analysis everything is irrational. In other words, everybody has a religion, so the question is not, "Are you religious?" but, "What is your religion?"
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at March 17, 2005 12:33 PM PermalinkDavid: No knowledge is certain, even mathematical theories which have been "proved" are tentative.
Theories can never be positively verified, only shown to be false or flawed and inferior to their rivals.
Yes, I have faith in democracy, in the absence of better systems. To make an analogy: in physics there are really only three constants, namely 0,1,infinity. Given that we have made *some* progress (measuring between zero and one), there's no reason to suppose progress won't continue indefinitely.
Posted by: Tom Robinson at March 17, 2005 06:32 PM PermalinkNo knowledge is certain, but faith in G-d is more rational than mere faith in reasoning. Here are three reasons why:
1. The G-d concept addresses the unconscious and unknown as well as the conscious and knowable.
2. Believing in the unknowable is more rational for fallible humans than believing that everything that should be believed is provable.
3. G-d is the ultimate optimistic moral meaning.
The most rational worldview is a basis of belief in the G-d concept, with reasoning applied to every action. There are other kinds of better or worse applicable to theories than verifiability.
Posted by: Alice at March 20, 2005 12:16 PM PermalinkIt is not true you allways have a religion: a religion is a mithological set of beliefs.
Axiomatic truth is not provable but should be reasonable.
When you hold that human behaviour should be based on reciprocity, responsability and maximum welfare for the majority you make sensible and natural statements.
When you hold that stone women to death is a moral duty because a guy received a book from God in 622 AD, you are basing your statement in the unlikely fact that the guy received the book from God (specially unlikely becauase the moral contained in the book is openly cruel, intolerant and opposite to human needs).
So, not everything that cannot be proved is religion. Religion is based in mithology, and becomes false if the mithology is not factually true.
Abstract ethics doesn´t depend on mithology, so its validity depends on its ability to improve human welfare.
Posted by: Kantor at March 20, 2005 10:04 PM Permalinkso its validity depends on its ability to improve human welfare
How do you know what "human welfare" is?
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at March 20, 2005 10:08 PM Permalink