Schopenhauer wrote, “Let no one tell you what is in [Kant’s] Critique of Pure Reason.” C. S. Lewis uses that statement to introduce his discussion of the second part of the Romance of the Rose. Lewis writes,
‘It is with a despair and an ‘astonishment’…that I approach the task of conveying to those who have not read it…some idea of this huge, disheveled, violent poem of eighteen thousand lines” (137).*
Thus, I begin this little note about how dependence on what others say or write has produced more harm than good. On a planet covered by 6.7 billion literate people (87% of world population) eager to voice their opinions, we have so much to hear and read that we can’t take the time to consume it all directly. So, we rely on others.
But relying on others makes us susceptible to deceit and unintentional falsehoods. Yet, even knowing that fact makes the dilemma of hearing about the number of teeth in a horse’s mouth as opposed to actually counting the teeth in a specific horse’s mouth very rarely resolvable. You just don’t have the time, and neither do I to go out to the barn or into the field to look into the “horse’s mouth,” that is into all that’s written or said. And in a world of “fact-checkers” who selectively check facts, trusting what others say about what “others” say or write is a gamble. Who, we constantly have to ask, is watching the watchers?
Our temporal limitations throw us into the position of having to trust our sources, say a Schopenhauer to interpret Kant or a Lewis to interpret the Romance of the Rose. As Ringo Starr sings in “It Don’t Come Easy”: “I don’t ask for much; I only want trust/And you know it don’t come easy.” How, after so many falsehoods promulgated by the mainstream media and by agenda-driven authors, can we trust what someone is telling us about another person? And in an age of photoshopping, how can we even trust what we see when others have produced the videos? Remember the lie about border guards on horses whipping migrants? It was promulgated by the President of the United States and the Secretary of Homeland Security even though the photographer himself said the picture was misinterpreted. Still, the Press ran with the story. Trust? I think not.
Of course, trusting the information of others has long been a human dilemma. I wonder sometimes if bees have the same problem when they follow directions to a field of flowers given by a dancing member of the hive. Think about it. Some bee flying randomly or discovering by some instinctive mechanism a meadow near the hive returns to perform a dance that somehow conveys information about distance and direction, enticing the others to seek out the flowers. Do they always follow the instructions in the dance?
Is it possible that a bee finds that upon returning and dancing, the other bees ignore the signals on the basis that the bee isn’t trustworthy. “Hey, he’s done this dance before, but it never leads us to flowers. I say ignore him.” With all our supposed wisdom, we humans often don’t respond with such distrust if the returning “bee” has a message that conforms to assumptions or underlying beliefs. “He’s one of us, and that alone makes his interpretation believable.” Need I point out the “Russian collusion” deception?
Think of riots—not just modern riots, but riots through the ages. Some rumor kicks off a mass hysteria response. Tens, hundreds, even thousands of people take their directions from the “reporting bee.” Want other examples? Think of runs on toilet paper, canned goods, perishables, and banks on the slightest rumors of impending hardships. Think of large societal movements based on fragments of thoughts. Most riots are not centered on a work of eighteen thousand lines like the Romance of the Rose that C. S. Lewis analyzes or Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason to which Schopenhauer refers, but rather on simple phrases or short statements that are often misinterpreted if not consciously designed to deceive. The riots in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 are testimony to the power of four words: “Hands up, don’t shoot” taken as the truth though no thorough investigation could confirm the veracity of its utterance.
In this rather fast-paced world of 6.7 billion literate people chattering, gossiping, misinterpreting, and even intentionally deceiving, we cannot be bees. We cannot accept that the dance we see conveys automatically a reality or a truth. But the nagging dilemma is that since we can’t investigate or analyze personally all that is thrown at us verbally, we either have to trust or to ignore the source and the substance.
An obligation imposed by being “wise” is being skeptical. And particularly during today’s age of social media and electronically facilitated mass media communication, skepticism is warranted whenever we rely on others to tell us how many teeth a horse has or where a meadow of flowers lies.
*The Allegory of Love. New York. Oxford University Press. 1968 Reprint of the 1936 original work.
‘It is with a despair and an ‘astonishment’…that I approach the task of conveying to those who have not read it…some idea of this huge, disheveled, violent poem of eighteen thousand lines” (137).*
Thus, I begin this little note about how dependence on what others say or write has produced more harm than good. On a planet covered by 6.7 billion literate people (87% of world population) eager to voice their opinions, we have so much to hear and read that we can’t take the time to consume it all directly. So, we rely on others.
But relying on others makes us susceptible to deceit and unintentional falsehoods. Yet, even knowing that fact makes the dilemma of hearing about the number of teeth in a horse’s mouth as opposed to actually counting the teeth in a specific horse’s mouth very rarely resolvable. You just don’t have the time, and neither do I to go out to the barn or into the field to look into the “horse’s mouth,” that is into all that’s written or said. And in a world of “fact-checkers” who selectively check facts, trusting what others say about what “others” say or write is a gamble. Who, we constantly have to ask, is watching the watchers?
Our temporal limitations throw us into the position of having to trust our sources, say a Schopenhauer to interpret Kant or a Lewis to interpret the Romance of the Rose. As Ringo Starr sings in “It Don’t Come Easy”: “I don’t ask for much; I only want trust/And you know it don’t come easy.” How, after so many falsehoods promulgated by the mainstream media and by agenda-driven authors, can we trust what someone is telling us about another person? And in an age of photoshopping, how can we even trust what we see when others have produced the videos? Remember the lie about border guards on horses whipping migrants? It was promulgated by the President of the United States and the Secretary of Homeland Security even though the photographer himself said the picture was misinterpreted. Still, the Press ran with the story. Trust? I think not.
Of course, trusting the information of others has long been a human dilemma. I wonder sometimes if bees have the same problem when they follow directions to a field of flowers given by a dancing member of the hive. Think about it. Some bee flying randomly or discovering by some instinctive mechanism a meadow near the hive returns to perform a dance that somehow conveys information about distance and direction, enticing the others to seek out the flowers. Do they always follow the instructions in the dance?
Is it possible that a bee finds that upon returning and dancing, the other bees ignore the signals on the basis that the bee isn’t trustworthy. “Hey, he’s done this dance before, but it never leads us to flowers. I say ignore him.” With all our supposed wisdom, we humans often don’t respond with such distrust if the returning “bee” has a message that conforms to assumptions or underlying beliefs. “He’s one of us, and that alone makes his interpretation believable.” Need I point out the “Russian collusion” deception?
Think of riots—not just modern riots, but riots through the ages. Some rumor kicks off a mass hysteria response. Tens, hundreds, even thousands of people take their directions from the “reporting bee.” Want other examples? Think of runs on toilet paper, canned goods, perishables, and banks on the slightest rumors of impending hardships. Think of large societal movements based on fragments of thoughts. Most riots are not centered on a work of eighteen thousand lines like the Romance of the Rose that C. S. Lewis analyzes or Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason to which Schopenhauer refers, but rather on simple phrases or short statements that are often misinterpreted if not consciously designed to deceive. The riots in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 are testimony to the power of four words: “Hands up, don’t shoot” taken as the truth though no thorough investigation could confirm the veracity of its utterance.
In this rather fast-paced world of 6.7 billion literate people chattering, gossiping, misinterpreting, and even intentionally deceiving, we cannot be bees. We cannot accept that the dance we see conveys automatically a reality or a truth. But the nagging dilemma is that since we can’t investigate or analyze personally all that is thrown at us verbally, we either have to trust or to ignore the source and the substance.
An obligation imposed by being “wise” is being skeptical. And particularly during today’s age of social media and electronically facilitated mass media communication, skepticism is warranted whenever we rely on others to tell us how many teeth a horse has or where a meadow of flowers lies.
*The Allegory of Love. New York. Oxford University Press. 1968 Reprint of the 1936 original work.
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