This year the anniversary of 9/11 (Wednesday) immediately preceded the Chuseok (harvest moon) holiday in Korea so I have had some down time from the latter to reflect on the former.
One of the things that has struck me is how willing an increasing number of people is to invest ever more energy into and to allow their fundamental assumptions to be manipulated by myths and hoaxes, to wit:
– the Flat Earth theory
– macro-evolution
– denial of the Armenian genocide
– denial of the Holodomor
– denial of the Holocaust
– the Moon Landing conspiracy
– the Climate hoax
– the 9/11 conspiracy theory
– the Trump/Russia collusion hoax
While people pushing these myths and hoaxes often deserve (and receive) scathing take-downs online, my purpose today is not to debunk any of these or to deliver my usual invective against those who believe in them. Instead, I pose the question:
Why are so many so willing to believe in so much bunk?
It’s not that they’re stupid, for the most part. Truly stupid people rarely grow up to be successful at much of anything, and most people with whom I have the opportunity to converse about these issues have achieved some measure amount of success, whether it be a secondary degree, a family, some sort of career, or all of the above. They’re not functionally stupid.
They’re not entirely gullible, either. To be gullible is to be easily fooled into taking an ill-advised course of action. There really are not that many Pinocchios in the world, not that many people buying Brooklyn Bridges.
I’m not going to lay the blame entirely at the feet of the #fakenews, either. While #fakenews definitely exists, is despicable, and is responsible for manufacturing and promoting many if not most of the hoaxes listed above, it is still the decision of the individual consumer/thinker whether to believe them. That there is a common understanding of what we mean by #fakenews demonstrates that belief is not automatic, it is chosen.
Why are so many choosing to believe, then?
I put forth that they are credulous. Credulity “stresses uncritically forming beliefs, suggesting a lack of skepticism… the credulous are a little too quick to believe something.”
Lack of skepticism.
Which then leads me to my next pondering:
If their lack of skepticism is general, why do they uncritically believe A, yet are highly critical of Not A and impute bad motivation to those who are skeptical of A and assert Not A? Wouldn’t a general lack of skepticism result in a random patchwork of belief?
This is why I am suspicious that there is a feedback loop between lack of skepticism and one’s fundamental assumptions. There must be a cascade effect that is kicked off when general lack of skepticism leads one into the first “rabbit hole” of a hoax – the Climate Hoax, for example – that then provides feedback that manipulates one’s fundamental assumptions, leaving one more susceptible to belief in another hoax but in the same direction, not in a random direction.
Figuring this out would require a fairly massive and longitudinal study, but if my suspicions are correct, one of the most important tool sets that people must be armed with today – and trained how to use, especially as youth – is a set of clear and correct fundamental assumptions, and a strong sense of universally applicable skepticism.
One reply on “Lack of Skepticism, Not Stupidity”
“a set of clear and correct fundamental assumptions”
Who makes up the assumptions with which to indoctrinate the young?
On what bases are these assumptions known to be correct?
If assumptions are simply assumed to be correct how can they be a valid bases for any kind of knowledge about the real world? Aren’t they indifferent from arbitrary guesses?
How can any mine run assumption be distinguished from any of the thousands of religious, pseudo-religious, and tribal belief systems that have come and gone throughout the history and prehistory of belief?
If thinking, choosing, and acting required only assumptions, how is your list of myths any different from what you call “correct assumptions”?
I suggest you assume too much, question too little, and assert way beyond your ability to know, prove, or demonstrate. Then you have the audacity to call it “a strong sense of universally applicable skepticism.” Where is this skepticism you talk about? It does not appear evident to me in your post, or in much of the general public, academia, or governing elite.
I question that there can be correct assumptions until they have been fully tested, demonstrated, and proved to be true. In that case, they would NOT be assumptions, they would be sound principles upon which to base valid thinking and action.