The Land Of Purple

Postscript

When it comes to bringing to light the origins of sanctified dogmas, it is no secret why hidebound ideologues are not receptive to inconvenient truths. But the question remains: Why is there so much push-back from those who purport to be intellectually honest?  After all, one would think that most level-headed people would be willing to assess the available evidence; and–in due course–draw sound conclusions: letting the chips fall where they may.

Is it really so difficult to be forthcoming about following the evidence, wherever it might happen to lead?

Alas, things are not so straight-forward when facts jeopardize someone’s vested interests.  Even when it comes to well-adjusted people (who, in any other context, have common sense), there ends up being a myriad of pitfalls.  It turns out that one’s political, religious, and/or racial identity (replete with tribal commitments and institutional fealties) is a predictor of one’s reticence to accept unwelcome insights on a “charged” issue.  This aversion is amplified whenever tribalism is afoot.  And tribalistic mindsets–by definition–do no operate solely at the micro-level.  (After all, there is no ethnicity of one.)

More often than not, Reality-denial is a communal act, not an individual act.  In serving as a defense mechanism (undertaken to protect that which has been deemed sacrosanct), it upholds that on which the esteem of the group depends.  In such cases, the identity of the individual is a function of group-identity.  And a collectively-instantiated sense-of-self is intimately tied to that group’s sacred lore; regardless of how spurious that lore might be.  Consequently, members depend on certain (sanctified) dogmas being considered–by themselves AND BY OTHERS–inviolable.  This custom-tailored perception of the world–no matter how delusive–is necessary to maintain a sense of existential stability (read: to stave off existential vertigo).

The upshot of this is that ideological revanchism is an expression of IDENTITY.  Standing one’s ground is a means of orienting oneself in an otherwise bewildering universe.

It comes as no surprise, then, that those who are inextricably wed to this or that dogmatic system–illusory as it might be–are inclined to react with strident defiance to anything that threatens to upend that system (which, to reiterate, undergirds the esteem of the group with which they identify).  Staunch vested interests demand nothing less than the preservation of that which serves those interests.

To uphold a consecrated worldview in the face of countervailing evidence, endless rationalization must be employed.  When a tribalistic mindset is thoroughly ingrained, an instinctive bias in favor of the “in-group” (and, by implication, its worldview) is virtually irresistible.  And so it goes.

This posture–which can quickly translate to pathological obduracy–sets the stage for emotive volatility.  For any critique of the beliefs integral to that worldview is taken personally.  Indeed, challenges to the ideology are seen as a personal affront (an attack on my beliefs is an attack on ME).

Bringing foundational dogmas into question is tantamount to pulling the rug out from beneath an ideologue’s feet.  It is inevitable that this will elicit hostility.

Said rationalization goes far beyond run-of-the-mill confirmation bias…or even the sort of choice-supportive bias indicative of post-purchase rationalizations shoppers concoct to make themselves feel justified after the decision the fact.  Elsewhere, this has been called “perseverance bias”: Once we settle on a view of the world, we are strongly inclined to stick with it no matter what.  

Obstinacy (sticking to one’s guns come hell or high water) is the hallmark of the True Believer.  If forced to confront discordant facts, he will undertake mental acrobatics in order to rationalize ways around it.  Once invested, the True Believer is in it for the long hall, come what may. Sticking to one’s guns–come hell or high water–is seen as a mark of fidelity, not of obstinacy. Close-minded-ness and bull-headed-ness are taken as signs of dedication, commitment, even COURAGE.

Such biases translate to strict constraints about who is even permitted to discuss the issue-in-question.

In his disquisition on “The True Believer”, Eric Hoffer noted that the zealot is “mentally cocky, and hence barren of new beginnings.  At the root of his cockiness is the conviction that life and the universe conform to a simple formula–his formula [i.e. the formula he espouses].  He is thus without the fruitful intervals of groping.”  Critical reflection is anathema to the ideologue.  This is a necessary prohibition for sustaining the false certainty he so covets.

Once committed to an idea X with sufficient ardor, one will be strongly inclined to stick to one’s guns–no matter how erroneous X is shown to be.  Confirmation bias goes into overdrive; and objectivity goes out the window.  With enough vested interest, obduracy turns into defiance; and the more countervailing one encounters, the more one digs in one’s heels.

It is no secret that strong personal bias translates into selectively-adumbrated memory  in conjunction with wishful thinking (concerning the present state of affairs as well as about things to come).  It’s a blissful crucible of delusiveness.

Demagogues can use this to their advantage.  Some are calculated in their engineering of False Consciousness.  In his landmark work from 1895, “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind”, proto-fascist thinker Gustave Le Bon cynically noted: “The masses have never thirsted after the truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.”  (He saw this as an opportunity, not as a tragedy–foreshadowing Machiavellian thinkers like Leo Strauss.)

Meanwhile, those of us interested in elucidating TRUTH are forced to contend with those who are much more interested in upholding sanctified dogmatic systems…which often requires the protection of certain narratives.  Removing the “history” label from a sacrosanct etiological myth is no easy task; as one is tampering with the sacred…thereby offending those who bank on things not being tampered with.

But tamper we must.

Though the present task is one of illumination rather than of obfuscation; many would prefer that certain things just be–shall we say–left alone.  Broaching contentious subjects (e.g. the dubious credence of the cherished hagiography of a folk-hero) induces what might be called “narrative transition anxiety” (NTA).  Indeed, feeling as though one is being pressured into disassociating oneself from a coveted Grand Narrative can be rather disquieting–nay: quite aggravating.  This is especially so if it’s the only Grand Narrative one has ever known.  Few enjoy being cajoled out of their comfort zone; and nobody likes to feel as though they are being coerced into relinquishing something into which copious amounts of time / energy / emotion have been invested.  Consequently, anyone considering such a transmutation will probably experience NTA.  And anyone seeking to instigate such a transmutation in others will surely be confronted with an epidemic of NTA–and thus a prodigious amount of push-back.  I have sympathy for this condition…up to a point.  Indeed, pulling the proverbial rug out from beneath another’s feet can be construed as an untoward gesture: gratuitous or even mean-spirited.  Religionists of ANY stripe will surely feel existentially marooned (or even lost at sea, in turbulent waters) should they be deprived of a Weltanschauung on which they’ve come to depend for existential ballast.  We should have sympathy for THEM; but not for their delusions.

For an accessible discussion of self-deception, see Robert Trivers’ “Folly Of Fools”.*  As Trivers put it, “A very disturbing feature of overconfidence is that it often appears to be poorly associated with knowledge.  That is, the more ignorant the individual, the more confident he or she may be” (p. 14).  Thus confidence is generally proportional to the severity of the delusion–as Socrates tried to demonstrate 24 centuries ago.  The worst kind of ignorance, he noted, was ignorance of one’s own ignorance.

In his book, Trivers noted: “Once information [about the outside world] arrives in our brains, it is often distorted and biased to our conscious minds [according to our sensibilities / interests].  We deny the truth to ourselves.  We project onto others [unpalatable] traits that are in fact true of ourselves–and then attack them.  We repress painful memories, create completely false ones, rationalize immoral behavior, act repeatedly to boost positive self-opinion, and show a suite of ego-defense mechanisms.”

Thus, our minds “bias information, from initial avoidance, to false encoding, memory, and logic, to incorrect statements [made] to others–from one end [of the process] to the other.  Key mechanisms [for doing this] include denial, projection, and perpetual efforts to reduce cognitive dissonance” (p. 2).

On cognitive dissonance, Trivers points out that “the more a person commits to a position, the more he or she needs to rationalize the commitment; and great rationalization apparently produces greater positive effects” (p. 72).  This is the psychological mechanism at work when one makes an imprudent purchase (of a consumer product that one can’t return).  Pursuant to such sunk costs, every rationalization will be concocted to make oneself feel justified in the commitment…even when all evidence is to the contrary.

Similar psychological mechanisms are operative when it comes to anyone who has invested a prodigious amount of time / energy / emotion into a certain system of dogmas.  While economists refer to it as “sunk costs” (and the ensuing syndrome as “post-purchase bias”), it actually involves a psychical process known as “irrational escalation of commitment” (a.k.a. “commitment bias”).

Hidebound ideologues thus “create an artificial world and then choose to live in it” (p. 109).  Trivers further explains, “Self-deception is intimately tied to false historical narratives”, which are essentially “lies we tell ourselves about our past, usually in the service of self-forgiveness and aggrandizement” (p. 6).

Trivers reminds us that deception “always takes the lead in life while detection of deception plays catch-up.  As has been said regarding rumors, the lie is halfway around the world before the truth puts its boots on.  When a new deception shows up in nature, it starts in a world that often lacks a proper defense” (p. 7).  Regarding the transmission of information (i.e. the propagation of memes): “At every single stage–from its biased arrival, to its biased encoding, to organizing it around false logic, to misremembering and then misrepresenting it to others, the mind continually acts to distort information flow in favor of the [espoused narrative]” (p. 139).  

This tendency becomes even more salient when it comes to orality.  Most of us are completely unaware of the biasing that takes place during hearing, information processing (a.k.a. encoding), and then in re-telling.  All of it is susceptible to self-deception and projection;  any part of it may involve cognitive dissonance.  “However much we champion freedom of thought, we actually spend much of our time censoring input” and thereby allowing our memory to be distorted in order to suit our own purposes (p. 140).

How does this work?  A “quick-biasing procedure is available to us when the information is preferred because it boosts our self-esteem…  There are few more powerful forces in the service of self-deception than personal fantasies; so when these are aroused, selective attention is expected to be especially intense” (p. 142).  Thus, “many processes of memory can be biased to produce welcome results” while keeping unwelcome results at bay (p. 143).

Trivers concludes: “False historical narratives widely shared within a population can easily be exploited to arouse sentiments in favor of [enmity regarding THE OTHER].  At the same time, political success often may turn on the ability of leaders to arouse the belief in people that something is in their self-interest when it is not” (p. 67).  (See the American G.O.P. vis a vis working-class America; and all other forms of right-wing populism.)

In the event that a threshold is passed by which one becomes emotionally vested in X to a sufficiently high degree, one may well defend it to the death–even in the face of overwhelming countervailing evidence.  It is with that obduracy that one must contend when brazen enough to question the official narrative.

Exceptionalism tends to require manufactured history: a trumped-up heritage.  After all, legacy can be translated to destiny with a little hand-waving.  The repercussions of this false pride according to group membership (that is: insecure self-esteem based on tribal affiliation) are clear, especially in the context of tribalism.

Robert Trivers explains: “When a feeling of power [i.e. of “chosen-ness”] is induced in people, they are less likely to take others’ [read: outsiders’] viewpoint and are more likely to center their thinking on themselves. The result is a reduced ability to comprehend how others see, think, and feel.  Power, among other things, induces blindness toward others” (FOF, p. 20).  Thus tribalism engenders staunch parochialism, fetters open-mindedness, and severely attenuates empathy.

The staunch vested interest a dogmatist has in upholding is sacrosanct “truths” precludes him from engaging in an sober, objective critical analysis.  He is constitutionally predisposed to not be open-minded and impartial.  A prime case-study of this is addressed in my essay: “The Forgotten Diaspora”, which describes a Jewish diaspora that was forgotten BY DESIGN.  This is a reminder that those who deign to re-write history tend to do so for readily-identifiable ideological reasons.

After GENERATIONS of assiduous archeological activity, not a shred of evidence for Biblical verity has been discovered in the Levant.  YET, there is an extremely well-funded effort by ardent ideologues to find something–ANYTHING–that might possibly, kinda-sorta seem to corroborate this or that morsel of folklore.

Anyone who is even remotely familiar with the archeological record knows that the Exodus never happened, and that the wall of Jericho collapsed due to an earthquake centuries before Joshua would have lived.  The closest revisionists ever came to a discovery that might have served their ideological agenda was the site at “Khirbet Qeiyafa” near the seacoast…which, to their chagrin, turns out to have been built by NON-Hebrew Canaanites.  (I explore other archeological discoveries in my essay on the history of Jerusalem: “City Of The Beloved”.)

False certainty precludes free inquiry.  Investment in X precludes one from being able to assess X objectively.  It should go without saying that insights about indoctrination (of any kind) can be proffered by the indoctrinated.  What the indoctrinated CAN provide is their own testimony, which itself (tacitly, though not explicitly) DESCRIBES their indoctrination.  The rest is for impartial observers to sort out.  Testimonies of the True Believer can only ever give us the outlines of the belief in question; they contribute nothing to an AUDIT OF those beliefs.

A program for assessing things can’t be used to assess itself.  This is one implication of Godel’s Incompleteness theorem–whereby a system cannot get outside itself in order to audit itself.  (Ludwig Wittgenstein had this insight about the totality of fact / pictures of which the world is comprised.)  Put another way: A diagnostics system cannot be used to diagnose ITSELF, as any glitch it may have may itself prevent it from recognizing the glitch.  Thus a potentially defective diagnostics system cannot be used to diagnose its own (potential) defects; which explains why paradigms can’t be evaluated within themselves.

Alas.  Confidence–nay, stridency of conviction–is often inversely proportional to in-touch-ness with Reality.  This “Dunning-Kruger Effect” exists because false certainty is one of the hallmark symptoms of ignorance (being as how obliviousness to one’s nescience is–in effect–tied into one’s out-of-touch-ness with Reality).  Here, conviction is proportional to delusion.  Confidence is inversely proportional to the warrant for that confidence.  When people are throughly-enough wed to an idea, they INVARIABLY convince themselves that they are certain.  After all, false certainty is a corollary of ideological commitment.  The question becomes: How do we handle ignorance when those who are most ignorant believe themselves to be (uniquely) “in the know”?

Those without wisdom lack the wisdom necessary to recognize their own lack of wisdom.  Their ignorant state entails seeing that state as erudite: an integral part of ignorance is ignorance of one’s own ignorance.  Senescence often construes itself as sapience–like the faulty diagnostics system that diagnosis itself as operating splendidly.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is exacerbated in cases where a tribalistic mindset is involved (as tribal honor needs to be upheld).  And it is especially pronounced when the conviction is doctrinal (when that which is sacrosanct needs to be protected).  After all, to be doctrinaire is to be blinded by own’s own ideological commitment.  Hence the Dunning-Kruger effect is most severe when it is undergirded by cult activity.

Embellishments (especially those that are self-serving) have a ratcheting effect: once a meme is instantiated in one’s sacred lore, it is almost impossible to rescind. Once firmly in place, it tends to calcify; and the surrounding lore becomes more and more dependent on it remaining “as is”…lest the dogmatic house of cards risk collapsing entirely. As I discuss here, the meme “Land of Israel” has come to enjoy an indelible place in modern Jewish vernacular. However, the term’s existence obfuscates key historical facts; and only serves to mislead. For Revisionist Zionists, this is precisely the point, as the term makes the supposition that the Abrahamic deity is a real-estate agent all-the-more-plausible. In other words: It has ideological utility; as it makes it easier to pretend the Torah is a title-deed. Ancient folklore can thus be invoked to justify present-day territorial claims.

It is easy to suppose that the current (favored) semiotic reflects the way things have always been. In my essay, “The Progressive Case For Cultural Appropriation”, I discuss how this occurs with iconography. The so-called “Star of David” was a medieval development; appropriating a symbol that had been used for over a thousand years in other contexts. The original Judaic symbols were a menorah and a lion. Hence: Two instances of supplanted iconography.  Note below the menorah used on the Triumphal Arch of Titus from the 1st century; then the Lion Of Judah used in a mosaic (depicting the anointment of David) at Dura-Europos from the early 3rd century:

Through Late Antiquity, these were the two symbols most associated with Judaism.  

So what of the hexagram?  That symbol has a long history.  The Shinto (Japanese) Kagome crest dates back to the 5th century B.C.  The Hindu “Cakrasamvara Tantra” (which uses the hexagram to symbolize Vajrayogini in a tantric mandala) dates from the late 8th century A.D.  (Meanwhile, the “Shatkona” uses the hexagram to represent the union [“ardhana-rish-vara”] of Purusha and Prakriti (alt. Shiva and Shakti / Parvati); as used by the Kushans.  The symbol is also used for the “Anahata”.)  The first appearance of the “Magen David” in Judaic material occurs in the Masoretic “Leningrad Codex” from the early 11th century. **

Today, unscrupulous historical revisionists proceed as follows: This is how we think of things now; so we must pretend that that’s how it’s always been.  We haven’t altered anything.  Canaan has always been “eretz Israel”; just as Yah-weh decreed thousands of years ago.

In the end, people will believe what they are determined to believe.  Those with the gall to upset sacred apple-carts will be vilified. By whom? Well, by those who depend on those apple-carts for a sense of existential orientation. Curious inquirers should not be deterred by such obdurate revanchism; as obsequious-ness has no role in scholarship.

{*  On this matter, Scott Atran’s “In Gods We Trust” and Adrian Bardon’s “The Truth About Denial” are also worth reading.  Akerlof and Shiller’s “Phishing For Phools” makes some fascinating points about mass-manipulation; as does Robert Cialdini’s “Influence”.  When it comes to how people process information, another interesting read is Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking Fast And Slow”.}

{**  The synagogue at Capernaum in Galilee (erected c. 400) has carvings of both pentagrams and hexagrams—indicating that various symbols (including both five- and six-pointed stars) were used at the time.  Another Galilean ruin (from around the same time) has a stone in one of its arches in which some sort of hexagram seems to have been engraved.  The symbol was clearly not the pre-eminent icon for Judaism in Late Antiquity.}