Believing Bullshit: How Not to Get Sucked into an Intellectual Black Hole (28 page)

I don't mean she should be concerned about applying reason
generally
, of course. There's no reason for her to think twice about applying reason when filling in her tax return, calculating how many tiles she needs for her bathroom, or any other mundane matter. There's no harm, either, in her respecting the role of reason in science. At least up to a point. But get her to acknowledge that there are
limits
to what reason can reveal. Quote Shakespeare at her—“There are more things in heaven and earth that are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio.” That sort of thing. But also imply something further. Imply not just that reason
cannot
properly be applied beyond a certain boundary, but also that
it is wrong even to try.
It is
arrogant
and
sinful
to attempt to exercise reason and freedom of thought beyond a certain point.

Take a leaf out of this book written by these two Jewish scholars, for example:

We have been commanded not to exercise freedom of thought to the point of holding views opposed to those expressed in the
Torah; rather, we must limit our thought by setting up a boundary where it must stop, and that boundary is the commandments and the instructions of the Torah…. if a person feels that the pursuit of a particular argument is seriously threatening his or her belief in what is clearly a cardinal principle of Judaism, there exists an obligation to take the intellectual equivalent of a cold shower.
¹

Note this idea of setting up a
boundary
in the patient's mind. She must feel that, as she approaches this boundary armed with reason, warning bells are going off and red lights are flashing. She must feel that reason, fine in everyday contexts, is downright dangerous when applied to matters of faith.

Remember those Bible Belt church signs that read “A freethinker is Satan's slave”? Preachers erect those signs to encourage the belief that, when it comes to thinking freely about matters of faith, Satan will be at our elbow in a moment, leading us away from the Truth. Such preachers want their followers to suppose that, when it comes to
their
religion (it doesn't matter about other religions, of course) a freethinker is a fool whose arrogance will lead him to hell. A simple, trusting faith must prevail.

True, we have no Satan or hell with which to threaten our Followers. But we do have the reverse side of Glub: Boogle. Talk about Boogle to her. But remember, fear works best when aimed at something hidden and mysterious. Once the monster in the scifi film is seen, its terrifying qualities are inevitably diminished. Monsters from your own Id are always far more terrifying. Boogle must remain a cipher in the shadows. Hint at the existence of Boogle, but be vague. That way, her imagination can take over. Boogle will become her own
Room 101
.

Actually, none of this is to say that the patient should suppose her powers of reason can
never
be applied to our doctrines. They can be used, but only
in the service of
those doctrines, to deepen our understanding of them,
not
to challenge them! Given the tiresome, post-Enlightenment respect for this overrated thing called
“freedom of thought,” people will eventually accuse us of thought control—“You want to enslave minds, even children's minds. You want to
turn off
their ability to think and reason.” To this, we can truthfully, if very misleadingly, reply: “No, we
want
individuals to be able to reason and think well! In fact, we
encourage
them to question! Come along to one of our sessions, and you'll see.” What we don't mention, of course, is
the boundary
: the boundary that we have set up in the minds of our Followers, the boundary that is marked by a sign that reads: “By all means think as freely and as often as you want, but up to here and
no further!
”

And of course, having officially signed up to the virtues of reason and freedom of thought, we have the perfect excuse to endlessly fire off at our opponents what our Leader describes as the
Blunderbuss.
“Look!” we can say to our new recruits as we let off salvo after salvo of irrelevant or invented “problems” at the unbelievers. “See how
they
struggle to answer
our
questions! Their respect for ‘reason' is ironic, don't you think, when they cannot use it to answer us? You see, in the final analysis, both our belief systems are faith positions. Both require a leap of faith!”

Let our opponents try to dig themselves out from under
that
load of ordure.

Your affectionate aunt,
Tapescrew

The Bodgers Centre
Newcastle
February 12, 2009

Dear Woodworm,

Your last letter is a source of serious concern. Her brother is visiting for a week, you say. Bad news indeed. And not just because our patient will be reminded of positive features of her old life, her old habits, her old ways of thinking.

The brother is clearly aware that we're up to something. He is not a religious man. And he has been asking questions, you say. Questions rather more direct and to the point than we usually get.

This man clearly fails to pay the kind of respect that's usually accorded any sort of “spiritual belief.” The impertinence. This is a critical time for us. Even now the patient could escape our clutches. The arrival on the scene of someone our patient clearly likes and respects, someone who treats our teaching as if it were just
a set of beliefs like any other
, could wreak havoc.

The brother must be disarmed. You say you have been invited round for dinner to meet him? Here is your opportunity.

As that first glass of wine is poured, he will probably say, ever so innocently, something like this: “So,
you
are the person that has introduced my sister to these new beliefs she has been telling me so much about?” If you are not forthcoming with any details, he will eventually follow this up with a series of simple, straightforward questions, apparently expecting straightforward answers.

Do not, under any circumstances, give them. Our patient is not yet so caught up in our mindset that she will be entirely immune to the patent absurdity that a succinct and unvarnished statement of our teaching is likely to reveal. Yes, we have cast our spell over her, but the magic has not yet fully set.

I suggest you employ the strategy that our Leader calls
Moving the Semantic Goalposts.
Turn to the
Handbook
and reread that section with care. Whenever the brother matter-of-factly asks, “So you believe
such-and-such
, do you?” Suggest,
slightly condescendingly, that he has misunderstood our teaching. For example, you might say, “Oh, dear! You appear to have taken us literally.
That's
not what we mean.” Do not, however, edify him. Do not tell him clearly and succinctly what we
do
mean. That's for us to know, and him to find out!

If he tries yet again, just continue to move the goalposts around some more, “Ah, I see you have
again
misunderstood.” Perhaps add, “Of course, you must remember we are using the language of metaphor and analogy—it's rather foolish to take such language at face value, you know.”

If he asks exactly what the analogy is, waffle. Use words like “spiritual,” “transcendent” and “ultimate” a lot. Wave your arms around in a vague way and look up, as if you are have some profound insight and are searching for just the right words to convey it, but you can't quite succeed.

In this way, you can endlessly give the brother the runaround. True, in some contexts, that you are employing such a sleight of hand with words would quickly become clear. However, some things really are difficult to express properly, aren't they? Our subjective experiences, for example, can be difficult to articulate. How we feel about something can often be communicated to others only in a rather fumbling and imprecise way, which allows much scope for misunderstanding. There's no denying that saying, “Ah, but that's not quite what I meant,” is
sometimes
an entirely reasonable response to a criticism.

Use this to your advantage. Your patient believes she has had an experience of the transcendent, of the “other.” You must stress that our access to what lies beyond is inevitably restricted. We can at best catch only glimpses. It's all very much “through a glass darkly.” Admit that it's hard to capture using our everyday vocabulary. And of course, because what she had was a
feeling
, it very probably
is
very hard for her to put it into words! So your excuse will look plausible.

If any picture you paint of what lies “beyond” is inevitably vague and impressionistic, then it will inevitably be vulnerable to
misinterpretation. But then any criticism of what we teach about what lies beyond can conveniently be put down to some misunderstanding on the part of our opponents.

Indeed, try saying this: “You see, what we ultimately believe is ineffable, is beyond the ability of language to express.”

Trust me—this works. I have applied this same wheeze over an extended period of time without it ever dawning on my opponents what I was really up to. Do the same!

A little character assassination can enhance the effectiveness of
Moving the Semantic Goalposts.
Remember to imply at every opportunity that her brother is being terribly crude and unsophisticated in his ham-fisted attempts to characterize and criticize what we believe. Notice I said “imply”! Your patient no doubt loves her brother and may not respond well to a direct accusation. So never
explicitly
accuse her brother of being an unsophisticated, unspiritual twit. Rather, adopt an air of calm intellectual and spiritual superiority. Be just a little bit condescending. But—and here's the key—even while adopting that air of superiority, it's important to keep reminding them both how terribly
humble
you are. Admit that you cannot articulate the essence of that in which you believe, that you are struggling vainly to express in mere human language what you nevertheless know in your heart to be true.

Your humility will be sure to impress the patient, and the contrast between your calmness and the brother's mounting anger and frustration as you endlessly shift the goalposts about will become more and more obvious to her. You will seem humble and open-minded. The brother will increasingly appear dogmatic, unspiritual, and, I very much hope, aggressive.

This exercise in character assassination will be nicely rounded off with a suggestion of arrogance—get the patient thinking that her brother is being arrogantly dismissive of things that
he doesn't even properly understand.
Remind them both that there are “more things in heaven and earth” than are dreamed of in
his
philosophy. Shouldn't her brother be showing a little humility?
Notice the delightful switcheroo we pull here. We are the ones claiming certainty, yet
we
end up appearing humble while he is portrayed as the arrogant know-it-all! You'll enjoy the delicious irony! But remember—don't be caught savouring it.

There is a second strategy that will also prove invaluable in dealing with the brother—the
Way of Questions.
Look it up in the
Handbook
and study it well. Don't let the brother be
your
interrogator. You must become
his.
For every question he asks you, ask him three back. Get him on the back foot.

Of course, you must not come across as inquisitorial. Pretend your questions are merely for “clarification”—you just want to understand more clearly where the brother is coming from, so you can properly address his concerns. But here's what you actually do:
hit him with a series of thorny philosophical puzzles with which he'll inevitably struggle.
I recommend two in particular:

1. Ask him why he supposes the universe exists. Why there is something rather than nothing.

2. Ask him how he is able to know right from wrong. How is he in a position to say that something truly heinous, such as slavery, is wrong? Or, better still, the Holocaust?

If the brother is an atheist or agnostic, he's not going to have pat answers to these Big Questions. As you will know from that training in moral and religious philosophy we gave you, there are awfully deep and difficult questions to which there are no simple, easy answers (one of the reasons we provided that training is precisely so you can use it to tie people like this irksome brother up in knots).

The fact is, we don't have good answers to these questions either. But we
pretend
we do. We say,
Glub
is the explanation for why there is anything at all. We say,
Glub
provides us with our moral compass in this otherwise treacherously uncertain and increasingly morally depraved world.

Our patient will be impressed by the fact that, while her brother struggles with such tricky moral and metaphysical questions, we do not. We offer quiet, calm, simple certainty. As your patient looks back and forth between—on the one hand—your serene, wise, and confident expression and—on the other hand—the look of exasperation creeping across her brother's face as he struggles and fails to provide an adequate justification for condemning the Holocaust, your job will be more than half done. Indeed, the thought might even cross your patient's mind that her brother is
morally rudderless
!

Even if the brother manages to deal successfully with your first round of questions (which, he almost certainly won't), you can just ask another “clarificatory” question, and then another: “Ah, I see. But then let me ask you this. …” “Hmm, that's interesting, but what do you mean by. …” This will tie him up in knots, very probably leaving your patient with the impression that you are the winner in this little intellectual exchange. The truth, of course, is that you never dealt with
his
penetrating questions. But the chances are your patient won't even notice this or even remember what his questions were, after half an hour or so of the Way of Questions!