Tag: Agnotology

Ideology vs Morals

These postings are generally a commentary on a particular topic with respect to my book “Light of Truth – Anticipating the Triumph of Righteousness” and the corresponding website UBLightofTruth.com. My book is based on teachings in The Urantia Book, a revelation of truth published in 1955. Strong undercurrents in global society relate directly to my book; Ideologically Driven Processes are actions strongly motivated by a particular ideology. Morality is not even contemplated, only the ideological goal and ways to attain it are considered.

One glaring example is Communism; its founders desired a “worker’s paradise” where labor would receive proper compensation for their work. This is certainly a noble idealistic goal, but when its precepts were implemented, a dark repressive society emerged. Something went wrong between ideological conception and actions supposedly leading to the goal. Communism became a government with no recognition of the worth of laborers to whom it was supposed to bring equality. It resulted in a government whose primary goal became staying in power, while their “worker’s paradise” was put off into a far distant future.

Ideology

In this context, ideology means a set of ideals strongly motivating a group of citizens. Secondary considerations fall by the wayside because the idealistic goals are deemed to be urgently needed; they become the focus of existence for followers of the ideology. This goal is of such supreme worth, any action not contributing to it is shunned. This ideology becomes the primary motivation for the group.

There are countless such motivating threads in our society; in no particular order there are: Conservative Christianity, seeking to promote a narrow interpretation of Biblical teachings; White Nationalism, promoting a white only society; Conservative Politics, promoting the desires of big business at the expense of working people and removing their health care during a pandemic; wild conspiracy movements; anti-abortion groups; radical and violent members of all political ideologies; agents secretly promoting interests of other nations in our social media and society. No doubt there are many more.

There are segments of society where goals do not rise to such a level of fanaticism; some individuals recognize the importance of morality in realizing their goals. These elements are beginning to realize the value of every citizen, they realize the worth of every human, and they are beginning to become conscious of the presence of God in the life of each thinking mortal. For them the end can never justify the means because therein lies a Godless anarchy.

Proponents of a particular ideology may follow leaders with whom they do not fully agree; they do this so they can have access to power and advance their own goals. The leader obtains a larger following while the ideologues gain recognition and access. Leaders with dictatorial aspirations eagerly accept such fiercely dedicated ideologues because they tend to ignore issues not related to their goal.

Ideologues firmly committed to their beliefs will claim their goal is so important it must be pursued with utmost vigor; it rises above conventional morality. They rationalize their actions with “absolutes” as a basis for their actions; they might claim “The Bible says…” therefore they are justified taking any action. Any time we seek to avoid moral responsibility by employing such ideological processes we are going against the will of God who is within every thinking mortal, not just the ideologues.

Moral Foundation

One way to understand the problem with ideological processes is to examine the importance of having a moral foundation. Any undertaking needs to have a firm foundation if it is to succeed. It is a Biblical truism that a house cannot be built on shifting sands, but neither can an individual life, or even a civilization. All civilizations of the past have eventually failed because they had no moral foundation. Many an individual has failed because they lost their moral footing. Moral foundations are vital.

How does one construct an enduring foundation? The only truly lasting moral foundation consists in realizing every thinking mortal on Earth has within them an actual spark of God; our Heavenly Father is within every person and we all stand equal before Him. Knowing by faith and experience that God is within becomes our moral foundation.

How does this foundation work? We can still have noble idealistic goals, but now before we act we must consider any proposed action relative to our moral foundation; determine if it is consistent with our moral base. If the proposed action includes immoral shortcuts, if it means marginalizing anybody at the expense of others, causing physical harm to others, or if it takes unfair advantage of the poor, then the proposed action is inconsistent with our moral foundation and has to be rejected. If it passes these tests, it may be acceptable. Every proposed action must be carefully evaluated relative to our moral foundation. This naturally means it might take longer to reach our idealistic goal but it would also make reaching it more realistic. The Communist Revolution took place about a hundred years ago and today there is no indication its initial goals can ever be reached. Every action requires a firm moral foundation.

Interactions

These various ideological threads have polarized society so much there is an excessive amount of anger, fear, and hatred. Each group is so fixated on their own goals there can be very little dialog between these ideological groups. Many of these groups follow leaders who are, or want to become, demagogues; they follow with the hope their own goals will be advanced. In their rush to realize their goals they ignore moral deficiencies in the leader they have chosen. Exchanges between competing groups become heated and compromise is nearly impossible; there appears to be no effort to understand holding different beliefs. Misinformation fills social media and influences many who are ill informed; those in political power frequently contribute to this flood of lies.

These ideological interactions sweep across society on many levels, having a logical dialog becomes more difficult every moment. Until more individuals become aware of the powerful truth that our Heavenly Father literally dwells within each human being, these interactions will continue to be difficult. Frequently these exchanges are heated because the ideologues are so firmly convinced of the rightness of their beliefs; they have left conventional morality behind.

Consequences

The result of these conflicting ideologies is our society has become highly polarized; compromise, even governing, has become nearly impossible. When a collection of these ideological processes takes control in a nation such as ours, there is no obvious way to carry out important governmental activities, such as implementing a timely and effective response to our Coronavirus disaster.

It goes even deeper than that. Many people have become indifferent to the needs of other human beings. They are being pulled in so many directions at once there appears to be no way of reconciling these various processes. There certainly are people who deeply care, but the overall tenor of society is divisiveness.

At the core of these activities are individuals who, for whatever reason, are purposefully deceptive. Perhaps they feel their goals are too important to totally depend on conventional morality; they are above such mundane pursuits. The consequence of this flood of ideas is that whenever we receive information we must evaluate it with respect to its truthfulness. Some news sources may generally be trusted, but never social media where there is little fact checking.

We realize our society has a problem; it is time to move forward and seek solutions.

Solutions

When having a discussion with an ideologically driven individual no solution can be found if the dialog is heated, if the participants cannot have a calm, reasonable discussion. A shouting match only makes everyone even angrier. The number one priority is to cool down the rhetoric. Often there appears to be no way to accomplish this, but a way to begin is to find why they are angry. If this cannot be done there can be no dialog. If they respond saying “I am angry because…” the reason can be discussed and perhaps progress can be made toward having a reasonable discussion.

Next we need find a way through the ideology so exchange of ideas is possible. Frequently ideologues use code words that encompass a wide range of ideas, sometimes it is difficult to determine exactly what the code words are and what is meant by them. We need to understand what they want, only then can we progress to the next step.

Finally we must seek common ground. Finding this common ground is the only way society can continue; it is vital to our survival.

When each one of us realizes every human being has within them an actual spark of God, realizes we are all sisters and brothers, we can begin to work toward building a more inclusive society, one where the worth of each mortal is recognized.

Sisters and brothers of planet Earth: unite for the Triumph of Righteousness!

Agnotology

This posting is a condensed version of a new entry on the Talking Points page. The subject is Agnotology, the study of ignorance. We certainly have an abundance of ignorance and outright lying these days!

The study of ignorance, its origin and nature has been termed agnotology,[1] which was crafted from the same Greek word as agnostic. One way to study ignorance is to divide it into three basic types. The first of these is native state; these are things we have not yet discovered. The second is called lost realm, which are things we previously knew but have forgotten. The final type is the one we are interested in: strategic ploy, deliberately constructed ignorance by a group promoting a certain agenda.[2] “Ignorance can be an actively engineered part of a deliberate plan.”[3]

The deliberate spreading of falsehood is one of the tactics used by the followers of our fallen planetary prince; this activity is deliberate and they know exactly what they are doing. This deliberate spreading of lies is the way they operate. What they disseminate is misinformation, and they know it is false. Furthermore they actively promote and spread these statements they know to be lies; their motto might be: “we rule you if we can fool you.”[4]

This type of agnotology is spread by special interest groups having an ideology not generally accepted; they fully believe in their agenda, so much so they will do anything to bring it into a wider acceptance. Since they have such a firm belief in their tenets they feel justified in spreading lies to attain their goals. Indeed there is no limit to the techniques they will use to further their plans; for them the end does justify the means, there is no cultural or moral restraint to their activity.

In our society the spreading of deliberate lies has become simple due to our internet technology and social media; for these outlets there is little checking of facts, everything put out there is assumed to be absolute truth. There are even students of The Urantia Book who believe outrageous lies published on these media. Each of us needs to be critical of information we receive; we need to think for ourselves.

Truth is diluted by an avalanche of lies in this process; the forces opposing truth can put out a blizzard of lies obscuring all truth and leading many astray. Thinking persons must be careful and attempt to discover where truth resides; we must consider the source of any information we receive before we make up our mind.

One of the most glaring examples of agnotology is the tobacco industry denying their product causes cancer; an executive of that industry “stated doubt is our product.”[5] The tobacco industry utilized countless agnotology schemes to create doubt concerning the scientific evidence about the cancer causing effect of tobacco. Among these are: advertising, funding questionable research, set up organizations acting as a mouthpiece for the industry, press releases containing falsehoods, compiling friendly research for publication in poplar outlets and many other such projects. They also had a vast amount of money to fund these efforts.[6] At every turn the industry denied, spread falsehoods and did everything to obfuscate reality, even though there was good scientific research linking tobacco with cancer.[7]

Willful dissemination of falsehood has become so commonplace it is hardly noticed, and this is a sad commentary on our society. It seems we cannot trust anyone to tell the truth; this is not a modern phenomenon; lie telling has been with us for a very long time indeed.

Deliberately spreading lies was one of the main techniques used by Hitler and the Nazis in their rise to power. There is a well-known quote by their propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels to this effect: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” And: “the truth is the greatest enemy of the state.”[8] The methods and results of the Nazis are well known.

The political arena is fertile ground for lie telling. It is too easy to make up a wild story defaming one’s opponent and publish it without any basis in fact whatsoever. Another tactic frequently used is cherry picking voting records; they pick a few votes bolstering the position they want to promote against their opponent while ignoring the vast number that do not. Lie telling has become prevalent in our society; a consequence of not having a strong moral foundation.

This prevalence of lie telling is what happens when any society ignores spiritual reality. Certainly if we ignore future eternity, if we ignore God, if we ignore true values, then we are free to do whatever we might want. Where will you be in a thousand years? What will be the spiritual harvest of your actions? The quality of our decisions during life in the flesh determines the nature of our service and adventure opportunities in eternity. We can ignore truth only so long; eventually it rises up and asserts itself. When reality rises up and bites you on the buttocks will you be on God’s side or on the side of those who cannot face spiritual reality?

We recognize a serious problem, what can each of us do about it? First is stick to the truth, not in any circumstances stoop to the level of truth deniers, because when we fall to their level we become one of them. It is imperative we stick to truth and emphasize reality. The moment we fall to their level we may be lost. Those working against truth have much experience; they absolutely know what they are doing. Therefore we must be patient, follow the internal guidance each of us has, and fearlessly confront the truth deniers.

They can be defeated by reason, patience and determination; we must not be caught up in the emotional displays they use to obscure their falsehoods. When we consistently stick to truth, we weaken their position. They have no real facts to bolster their position, they can only bring up half-truths or harangue about nothing until those upholding reality give up. As long as we, truth tellers, stick to our positions, and if we are strong, we will be able to withstand the sophistry of evil.

We must counteract lie tellers point by point, dealing with each false issue they concoct. One problem lie tellers have is keeping all their lies consistent; we who stick to truth have only one story making it easier for us. We must not be dismayed when liars publish wild and untrue stories about us, and we must be steadfast declaring truth even though nobody may believe it. Eventually truth will come out.

Tags: Agnotology, Ideologically Driven Processes, Moral Foundation

  1. “Agnotology: The making and Unmaking of Ignorance” Edited by Robert N. Proctor and Londa Schiebinger, Stanford University Press, Stanford California, 2008, p. vii ↑

  2. Proctor p.3 ↑

  3. Ibid p. 9 ↑

  4. Ibid p. 11 ↑

  5. Proctor p. 1 ↑

  6. Ibid p. 17 ↑

  7. During the first half of the twentieth century the author’s uncle, Dr. Leonell C. Strong, was one of these researchers and he remembers visiting Dr. Strong’s lab when young. Among other research Dr. Strong painted tobacco tars on mice and observed the tumors formed. A biography of Dr. Strong can be found at: https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.3322/canjclin.29.1.54 ↑

  8. Thinkexist.com/quotation/-if_you_tell_a_lie_big_enough_and_keep_repeating/345877.html, retrieved 4/13/2020 ↑