Thresholds

When nothing is unbelievable

WE BELIEVE BECAUSE THERE IS
NO REASON NOT TO BELIEVE

"Thought of the Week" for October 4, 1999

...the world in which we live is very nearly incomprehensible to most of us. There is almost no fact—whether actual or imagined—that will surprise us for very long, since we have no comprehensive and consistent picture of the world which would make the fact appear as an unacceptable contradiction. We believe because there is no reason not to believe. No social, political, historical, metaphysical, logical or spiritual reason. We live in a world that, for the most part, makes no sense to us. Not even technical sense....

Perhaps I can get a bit closer to the point I wish to make with an analogy: If you opened a brand-new deck of cards, and started turning the cards over, one by one, you would have a pretty good idea of what their order is. After you had gone from the ace of spades through the nine of spades, you would expect a ten of spades to come up next. And if a three of diamonds showed up instead, you would be surprised and wonder what kind of deck of cards this is. But if I gave you a deck that had been shuffled twenty times, and then asked you to turn the cards over, you would not expect any card in particular—a three of diamonds would be just as likely as a ten of spades. Having no basis for assuming a given order, you would have no reason to react with disbelief or even surprise to whatever card turns up.

The point is that, in a world without spiritual or intellectual order, nothing is unbelievable; nothing is predictable, and therefore, nothing comes as a particular surprise.

(Neil Postman , From a speech given at a meeting of the German Informatics Society  on October 11, 1990 in Stuttgart)

Comment:

In a world without order, anything is believable

by Reg Harris

Copyright © 1999 by Reg Harris. All rights reserved. Updated October 7, 2007. All rights reserved. Apart from properly cited quotes and short excerpts, no part of this article can be copied or used in any form without written permission from the author. For permission to use, please contact me.

 I think that what Postman calls a "comprehensive and consistent picture of the world" might be what Campbell would call a common cultural myth. It is the "universal story" of a culture and it guides the culture's view of life and understanding of the world.

When we educate our children in using computers, in gathering information, and we do not educate them in a mythos or (perhaps) a common set of values, our children have no basis for evaluating the information they receive. The have no foundation from which to evaluate the information being targeted at them by the media, the advertisers, and the politicians. And with no basis for evaluation, they have no basis for determining what is substance and what is fluff, what is genuine and what is smoke, what is valuable and what worthless.

I believe that we, as educators, are doing a terrible (and dangerous) disservice to our students by not helping them first develop a philosophical basis from which to evaluate the information they will be presented throughout their lives. To do this, we must teach philosophy, psychology and comparative religion. These are at least as important (I believe more important) than any computer skills we teach them.

Giving them the technical skills (power) without first giving them a foundation in philosophy is like giving a child a car without teaching him or her the rules of the road. Sooner or later, someone will get hurt.