The problem of dogmatism

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

“The masses call the truth the information that is most familiar,” wrote Joseph Goebbels. “Ordinary people are usually much more primitive than we imagine. Therefore, propaganda, in essence, should always be simple and endlessly repetitive. influence on public opinion will be achieved only by those who are able to reduce problems to the simplest words and expressions and who have the courage to constantly repeat them in this simplified form, despite the objections of highbrow intellectuals."

Joseph Goebbels

The problem of dogmatism is one of the essential problems plaguing humanity. Millions of dogmatists, unable to think completely independently, but who consider themselves smart, flood and litter the information space with their useless statements. The mind, in the minds of these people, is by no means the ability to think, by no means the ability to reason and draw logical conclusions. The mind, in their understanding, is defined very simply - you are smart if you know certain dogmas - certain provisions that are absolutely correct. And since you know the absolutely correct positions, then you are certainly smart, and the one who does not know them, or “does not understand” that they are correct, is a fool. However, again, dogmatists cannot explain why these positions are correct. At best, they can try to "justify" them with the tricks discussed in the article "fear of thinking". Therefore, in order to "understand" the correctness of dogmas, from their point of view, you need to make some incomprehensible inner effort, mentally pull up and it will come, "understanding" the correctness of the dogma. At the same time, since the actual reason prompting a person to call this or that dogma correct is his emotions, his usual assessments, as it was written in the same article, then to dissuade the dogmatist in the correctness or absoluteness of dogma with the help of any rational argumentation practically impossible. By virtue of these features of the thinking of a dogmatist, his typical reaction to your judgment is something like this: "I read only the first (option" immediately the last ") sentence and immediately understood - all this is nonsense. Where do such idiots who do not know elementary things come from? In fact …. (dogma follows without proof). " On this, the dogmatist considers his mission completed and is very surprised when they begin to argue with him and prove something. Unfortunately, in modern society, where unreasonableness is the norm, there are no guarantees that dogmatists will not penetrate anywhere - in government bodies, in the media, in the education system and even in science, where they will produce and disseminate dogmas and the dogmatic method. presenting it as officially correct, natural and the only possible. A full and comprehensive consideration of the problem of dogmatism is beyond the scope of this article, but here I will outline some aspects that I consider important.

1. Nature. What is the nature of dogmatism, what is dogma in general? Outwardly, a dogma is a certain position, in the absolute correctness of which a person is sure and is not going to give it up under any circumstances. But is any position that is given the status of unconditional absolute correctness a dogma? No, not everyone. Take, for example, the statement, "In 1957, the Russians launched the first satellite." Is it dogma? No, not a dogma. This is indeed an absolutely correct statement, but this is not a dogma, it is a Fact. This statement is absolutely correct, because it corresponds to an event that actually happened. It does not need any other proof and will always be correct. Let's take another statement: "Through point A outside the straight line a in the plane passing through A and a, you can draw only one straight line that does not intersect a." This statement also needs no proof and is not a dogma. But this is not a fact, not a description of any event that happened in reality. Moreover, this statement has nothing to do with reality at all, all the terms that appear in it are exclusively ideal objects. This statement, chosen by Euclid as one of the provisions formulated by him without any evidence and underlying geometry, is a saxiom. What is the essence of axioms? The peculiarity of the human mind is that to describe reality, a person creates models consisting of completely abstract positions in which ideal objects appear. For many centuries, scientists have been struggling to create good models that would successfully describe reality. The emergence of a successful model is a big step forward for humanity, allowing you to systematize ideas and replace a bunch of individual private rules, information that needed to be memorized, with a small convenient scheme. For example, we are very lucky that, unlike people of early civilizations, in order to learn how to transmit speech in writing, you do not need to learn a huge bunch of hieroglyphs for many years, and even the writings of an illiterate person who had solid deuces in Russian at school will be understandable. Many impressive achievements of modern science are based on the use of successful models invented by Newton, Maxwell and other scientists. However, the models we use to describe reality have a characteristic feature. This is their multivariance. Different peoples of the Earth speak different languages. There are various number systems in mathematics. The same system of axioms of Euclidean geometry can be replaced with a completely different one, and it will no less accurately describe the properties of geometric objects and will be no less convenient in order to derive various theorems from it. However, anyone who creates a formal system, a model, for the sake of certainty, introduces into it certain provisions that describe this model in exactly one form that seemed to him more convenient for some reason. These provisions, describing a certain model, will be axioms. Axioms do not need any proofs and there is no point in proving them at all. Since in the model people operate with abstract, ideal objects that do not actually exist, then there is only one criterion for the correctness of the model - this is its consistency. Another question is how correctly we can apply the model, compare ideal objects to real ones, and how accurately the results that we calculate and describe with the help of the model will correspond to the real ones. If this correspondence is unsatisfactory, it means only one thing - we simply went beyond the applicability of the model. For example, at speeds close to the speed of light, Newtonian mechanics does not give very accurate results, but it never occurs to anyone to abandon this model, since it works great if applied wisely, for the conditions for which it is suitable. So, there are two types of statements used in describing reality that do not require proof - these are single facts corresponding to events that happened in reality, and axioms that are used in order to bring certainty to abstract, telling about the properties of ideal objects, models …What is dogma? Dogma is an attempt to hybridize an axiom and a fact, an attempt to present one or more particular facts as an absolute law, an attempt to present one or more cases of successful application of a model under certain conditions as evidence of its absolute and unconditional applicability. Dogmatists are people with a Trinity psychology who, being unable to understand the essence of the theories and reasoning they encounter, diligently memorize and memorize the entire material, taking examples, auxiliary explanations and intermediate conclusions as Holy Scripture.

2. Context. Any scientist knows that it is pointless to achieve absolute agreement between theory and experiment. Any theoretical description is an approximation of real objects and phenomena, any theory has its limits of applicability. The possibility of adequately correlating theory with experiment depends on specific conditions. When conditions are relatively constant, familiar and are usually implied conditions, for convenience it is possible to introduce wording, particular laws that will be suitable specifically for given specific conditions, which will be simpler than more general formulations and laws, but will have more limited application. For example, you can formulate a particular law according to which gravity acts on all objects, which is directly proportional to mass and is calculated by the formula F = mg, where g is a constant equal to 9.8 m / s ^ 2. However, this formula will be valid only on the surface of the Earth, but, most likely, it will be completely inapplicable to reality in other conditions. The natural language spoken by people is a very flexible means, allowing, using a limited set of constant words and grammatical constructions, to formulate statements that correspond to reality in a wide variety of situations. However, in order to correctly understand the meaning of certain isolated statements, we must be sure that we correctly understand the context that was implied in the formulation of this statement. A computer, for example, cannot translate speech in natural language well enough precisely because it does not perceive the context. Thus, whenever we formulate a statement intermediate between pure abstraction and a specific single fact, we must clearly understand that this statement is true only in a certain context, in certain conditions, which is implied when we prove the correctness of a given statement. The transformation of a certain reasonable statement into a dogma by unreasonable dogmatists is associated with taking it out of context, associated with a lack of understanding of the conditions for which this statement was formulated and correct, associated with the inability of dogmatists to think logically and systematically. Reasonable reasoning for dogmatists breaks down into a chain of separate, isolated statements, it turns into a mummy, a dried exhibit, into an engine clogged with sand and mud, in which no details move. Since dogmatists are not able to see the whole, they are not able to grasp the interdependencies and connections between phenomena, they quite calmly absolutize the meaning of separate, quite reasonable in their context statements, and, being in full confidence about their correctness, they begin to use these statements as dogmas, not noticing absolutely no contradictions arising from this and without understanding any arguments.

3. Dispute. The main motives of dogmatists in accepting a particular dogma are two factors: 1) habit 2) personal gain or emotional attachment to a particular dogma. Does a dogmatist come across examples in life, both confirming and refuting a certain dogma? No problem. For a dogmatist, indifference to contradictions is his characteristic, constant feature. The dogmatist will pay attention, first of all, to those examples of which there are more. For example, in antiquity, the dogma was extremely rooted (it was recorded even in the "physics" of Aristotle) that heavy objects fall faster than light ones. For example, a stone falls faster than a piece of paper. Actually, a piece of paper can be crumpled, and it will fall quickly, but this did not bother the dogmatists at all, since observing the facts when heavy bodies fall faster was more familiar to them, made up most of the cases. A significant part of the baggage of dogmatists is made up of dogmas that they mastered in their youth - in the family, at school, at the institute, and subsequently these dogmas take root so much that a change in the situation, a change in the context, by all means testifying to the inapplicability of those older dogmas, does not at all convince dogmatics - he tries to escape from these examples that contradict his dogmas, ignore the real state of affairs, unite with the same dogmatists, where he indulges in nostalgic memories and engage in empty chatter, overwriting the very dogmas that he once learned in his youth and feeling with the help of this one is smart and understands something, creating for oneself the illusion of analyzing and evaluating current events, the illusion of intellectual activity, although this pseudo-activity has nothing to do with real intellectual activity. Since the main motives of dogmatists are the two above-mentioned factors, then in a dispute with someone, dogmatists try to "prove" a dogma either with the help of particular examples, for example - "Marxist economic theory is correct, because with its help the USSR achieved such successes in 30s - carried out industrialization, created a powerful military industry ", or through attempts to influence the personal position and assessments of the interlocutor, for example -" why do you criticize the market economy, because you, as a person, educated enough, could make good money with it "and so on. In general, if we generalize the peculiarities of the participation of dogmatists in discussions, then, unlike a reasonable person, a dogmatist does not set himself any goals, does not see any tasks in front of himself, does not try to find any solutions. A dogmatist has no questions, he only has answers. Therefore, in any discussion, the dogmatist pursues not a constructive goal, but the goal of creating the illusion of intellectual activity, the illusion of reasoning or analysis of any events, but any "analysis" comes down to him only to purely emotional assessments and the issuance of the results of comparing the "analyzed" with the usual dogmas … In the best case, a dogmatist can take on the role of an informant or a volunteer who will only, pursuing some good wishes, acquaint others with information known to him in the hope that they will become interested and figure it out themselves. Based on these characteristics of dogmatists, any normal, productive discussion with them is impossible. Dogmatists never argue for results. The thesis "truth is born in a dispute" is not for them. The key belief of the dogmatists in their attitude to the dispute is the statement "in the dispute, the truth cannot be established." Dogmatists are sure that two people with different points of view, being stubborn enough, will never agree among themselves and their argument will never be effective. This point of view, widespread among dogmatists and thanks to the existence of dogmatists, causes great harm to all. Unfortunately, as I noted, in particular, in my review "about reactions to reading this site", even those people who are reasonable enough and capable of some independent conclusions, often, like dogmatists, run away in advance, seeing a discrepancy or dissimilarity positions, avoiding the thought that these discrepancies and contradictions can be resolved in a constructive discussion. For such people, I would like to give some explanations regarding the fallacy of the thesis "the truth cannot be found in a dispute." We live in a complex world where unreasonableness is the norm. In modern society, it is not considered advisable to provide complete information about events (and often simply reliable), to clearly and thoroughly explain the essence of certain decisions or concepts (often this essence is hidden on purpose), to separate subjective assessments and interpretations from an objective presentation, etc. We live in a world of informational and semantic chaos. In this situation, it would be difficult to expect that two people, having met, will begin to speak the same words, even if they are talking about the same thing (use the same context). We can not be sure that we are basing our arguments on the same facts, nor that we are using the terms and formulations we use in the same sense, that we sufficiently understand, in general, that each of he means us, voicing certain assessments and theses, and this, objectively, leads to a mismatch of positions. In this situation, the constant motives of people who are (theoretically) ready to conduct a discussion and come to some understanding and some common opinion, to constantly jump off the constructive focus of the dialogue and enter the path of isolation, irrational conflict and bickering, cannot (personally me) do not cause irritation. At the same time, the greatest irritation is caused by the position of those who do not express their claims and do not express their position explicitly, but try, under the influence of false stereotypes of emotional thinking, to hide the fact of disagreement or rejection of the opponent's statements, believing that thereby doing "better", i.e. because it does not spoil the mood of the interlocutor. Such a position cannot lead to anything good. An alternative to a reasonable dialogue and the search for mutual understanding are other ways of resolving conflicts, fraught with significantly higher costs. All clever people and intellectuals who do not want to think and turn their noses at a friend to please their prejudices, emotions and vicious desire to see themselves as the only owner of the truth should understand that while you are doing nonsense, thousands of bandits, swindlers, stupid and unprincipled individuals are already united and coordinate their actions aimed at destroying society, country and civilization and achieving their criminal and selfish goals at the expense of others. Not you, but they, the bandits and swindlers, establish their own rules of the game in a society to which you, along with everyone else, will be forced to obey. The strength of intelligent people is only in unity. A constructive attitude towards finding mutual understanding always leads to a result. As a rule, people who set themselves the same goals, tasks guided by similar values and life guidelines, starting a dialogue on some issue, talk about the same thing, but in different words, and the difference, which has no insistence on It makes more sense than arguing about whether to break an egg from a sharp or blunt end often prevents them from agreeing with each other. Can people who say the same thing in different words come to a common opinion? Of course, if they had at least a bit of patience and at least a bit of desire in order to achieve clarity in this matter. One should understand a simple fact, which neither dogmatists nor, unfortunately, many relatively reasonable people understand. For a dogmatist, the difference of someone's position from his own, from the dogmas known to him, is a sign of stupidity. For a reasonable person, on the contrary, a sign of stupidity is the inability of a person to think, the lack of his own opinion, the inability to formulate his own position on a certain issue independently and in his own words. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that different people who are able to think independently will speak about the same thing in their own words. Does this fact represent any obstacle to finding mutual understanding? Certainly not, if a person is not a dogmatist, but clearly distinguishes between the factual information he is talking about and those reference points that he himself set in his logical scheme for certainty. If these reference points are known, then in order to restore the meaning of reasoning from them and make sure, for example, that a person is talking about the same thing, you just need to be able to think logically. Dogmatism is the only obstacle to establishing the truth in a dispute and joint efforts to find the right solution.