Everyone thinks that they think rationally. But going by the interactions on online social spaces [and in real world], we also see that we believe every other person is being highly irrational.
So, what I’m setting out to explore is
- Does this mean rationality is highly subjective? And if so, why?
- And secondly can scientific temperament help in bridging these irrational divides?
The silent ones
Before we get to the groups that are often at each other’s throats during discussions, we need to acknowledge the existence of a 3rd entity that holds silence as the golden principle. They may say, “we are busy with ‘real’ work”. One presumption is that those people have mostly conditioned their minds to a world that includes only people and emotions, similar or familiar to them. Which means they would inevitably react when ‘it’ touches their livelihood. History teaches us that it would be too late to act at that time. An easy reference is a frog-on-hot-water analogy. Another school of thought is, “what change is it going to make if I think or talk about it?”. Since ‘human’ is an ethical being, we have an inherent responsibility to listen and address issues faced by people marginalized on race, demography, gender etc. To those who say “…but we do respond”, do you not remain selectively silent keeping boundaries like family, state and nation?
The famous post-war confessional by the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller about the complicity of silence when evil happens [1]
There is no boundary to be an ethical-being and there are no precedence requirements, vis-à-vis one must respond to ALL events. Also, the essence of great interventions has never been ‘absolute’ outcomes. Therefore, it’s imperative we realize that even well-meant donations, lending helping hand to less privileged people, etc, rarely result in an ‘absolute’ change in the situation. This is applicable for the likes of “making the world for all”, “go green to save the world”, “gender equality” etc too. Associating with these are not ‘absolute’ solution based, but with the understanding that our interventions will lead to the ‘next step’ of the intervention.
Not taking even a single step or not uttering a single word is basically the worst, if not most cowardly response.
Tribalism
Next while looking into the over passionate, extremist group [they will say “no you are the extremist…”, but we shall address that in a later passage], we need to understand how a ‘group’ works and how it has evolved in the cognitive evolution cycle.
For easier illustration, imagine you are in a family gathering or a team-outing event. Someone comes up with the idea of playing a game, we go ahead and divide into two teams/groups to play the game. Suddenly a new sense of ‘groupism’ comes into effect that didn’t exist before. During the entire game, the team members show revelry and competition to win over/outdo the other team. In order to inject more group mentality, the team leader can assign some color, flag, logo or slogan. By introducing additional props to the setup, the team leader could tap into the unconscious ‘basic instinct’ of groups to compete with anyone outside their group. While in college itself we have seen such group with names like “Royal Mech”, “Kottayam group” etc (and these groups are common even now in Engineering colleges, at least across Kerala)
Now map this ‘group’ exercise to a larger construct like religion, political ideology or race. You can identify that the team members get a feel of affiliation, protection and sense of belongingness… as if they are in their mother’s lap. The loyalty towards group insiders and hostility towards outsiders comes out immediately, while its intensity may vary over time. They gain approval from their own group for any actions they do against their opponents. There is also a magnification of feelings like pride, superiority, exclusive ownership, and entitlement.
In a Tehelka leaked video, a leader of one of the Sangh organizations said that he felt a sense of “…satisfaction and meaning…” while he was actively involved in 2-3 days of the 2002 Gujarat riots. Another common trait in this ‘groupishness’, in addition to the constant talking of uniqueness of their race, color etc., comes proclamations of being the ‘chosen ones’ by god. If not god then it’s the proclamation of being on the ‘right[eous] side’ while the ‘other’ are obviously on the wrong/corrupt side.
History gives us enough recurring examples of this behavior from Hitler’s, as well as left or right-wing leaders’ speeches. Another tell-tale signature is that the rational/reasonings/memory [if we may put it so] of the group while ‘logical’ within their group boundaries, outsiders often fail to understand its relevance, importance; and usually find them extremely illogical. Also, what comes out in this context is the importance of the group over the individual, whereby the individual is forced to ignore rational thinking, and not apply their intelligence. Which is why we find so many skilled engineers and doctors, people of science get squeamish when we talk of evolution from apes or the age of the earth versus what’s mentioned in their ‘one book’. The same applies to Marxist/Communist ‘believers’ also, who follow their leaders with blind allegiance to the Marxist/Communist dogma and not any rational thinking.
In most societies, all the above behavior patterns are followed in some fashion. While extreme left/right-wing politicians and man-made-gods across the globe have played this card for a while, the advent of the internet made things easier for many more.
Side effects of Tribalism
This tribal groupism thrives on the constant paranoia of the ‘other’ who is out to deprive what is rightfully yours. So, this requires groups to maintain a force for ‘defending’ themselves (and they will always have an opponent internal or external to fight with). This in turn results in casualties and every such group starts to idolize martyrs and sacrifices. We have seen the culture of political parties that need ‘rakthasakshigal’. The vulnerability and the sacrifices (martyr) are normally increased among youths and they are usually below 25 years of age. It is evident when you check the number of film star fans association members in their 40s or 50s.
For anything that contradicts the group’s beliefs, the tribal mentality negates information that contradicts the ways that the tribe believes. Additionally, it is wired to soak in more information that supports the group’s beliefs. The recommender systems in the Facebook, YouTube search results etc essentially works the same way. So, we are what we watch and read. One of the scientific papers pointed out that the frontal cortex of a human brain developed only by 25 years of age. So, until one is 25 years old, emotion and irrationality can easily get reprioritized in anyone’s brain. This is why religious dogmas are easy to wire into an individual as infants, i.e. most of us are born into a religion, it’s not by choice as adults. This is also the reason why some people find it easy to believe that the CIA is behind most issues around global problems, Bill Gates as the reason for Corona, Akbar as the cruel emperor who destroyed India and vegetables from Tamilnadu as the main reason for cancer in Kerala. Please note that only 3% of the cancers in Kerala are related to chemicals in food.
Obviously during hunter-gatherer periods in history, the need for aggregating in groups would have definitely been beneficial for survival. The evolution of our brain tilting favorably towards tribal group attitudes then seems ok. But the human race has progressed, and if we have to acknowledge that the world we inhabit isn’t primitive and tribal. So, if someone shows too much group affiliation, you can easily say he/she is showing tribal mentality and the chance of exhibiting other tribal attitudes towards outsiders of their group too is high.
Scientific temper
The fundamentals of a scientific and rational approach are that it always navigates from studying phenomenon; and then towards the conclusions/laws/principles. Tribal groups always postulate the law first and define the phenomenon so as to match the laws.
Since religion is one of the biggest tribal groups, you can substitute religion in all places where the word, ‘group’ or ‘tribal’ is being used in this article. Though it isn’t the only one we see nowadays floating around on FB, WhatsApp or even our TV talk shows.
So, what is the way out of a biologically coded mental state that prefers by default tribal groupism? As Richard Dawkins said, “Humans are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have power to rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.” Our societies have advanced from where we before enjoyed war-like gladiatorial games, to fair games like football, cricket etc… where a footballer still scores for a team. Even in individualistic sports like Tennis, the rules and fairness are definitely valued and the sport is no less gladiatorial. We can divert the energy in social interactions to induce logic and fairness in all our dealings. Biology is not destiny. By using a developed or fully grown brain, humans can overcome the genetic temptations and that is the way of life for a modern mind or a rationalist.
Then voices of women, or people who don’t conform to the binary gender, or needs of other sections of society who are in less privileged situations, etc can be listened to rationality. Issues only arise if we listen to these with the rigid laws of the ‘group’ which is sacrosanct. Please note that religion is not a prerequisite to be kind towards other people in society. For illustration of an opposite outcome for this, check-up news articles related to Buddhist monks’ leaders in Myanmar who while preaching to avoid killing even mosquitos, pushed for the killing of more than thousands of people from the Rohingya community [2].
As per Wikipedia, “the Scientific temper is a way of life which uses the scientific method and which may, consequently, include questioning, observing physical reality, testing, hypothesizing, analyzing, and communicating”. Scientific temperament is the easiest way for anyone to start thinking freely and follow their needs rather than bending their principles towards (real or imaginary) tribal leaders’ wishes. “Scientific temper” describes an attitude which involves the application of logic. Discussion, argument and analysis are vital parts of scientific temper. Elements of fairness, equality and democracy are built into it. The Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru was the first to use the phrase in 1946 in India [3]. Since Nehru is the reason for “most” contemporary changes and it is required in all places, I conclude this article with this historical fact.
References
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_…
2.https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/may/12/only-takes-one-terrorist-buddhist-monkreviles-myanmar-muslims-rohingya-refugees-ashin-wirathu
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_temper
LakshmiDas