How do we get our beliefs?
Maybe there are many ways that we arrive at our beliefs.
Are some passed down to us from the culture that we grow up in? The received beliefs? The cultural assumptions? Do those prejudice us to accept other beliefs that seem more or less compatible with what we have received? And so, we expand our beliefs based on backwards compatibility? As cultures shift and change, does that provide another avenue for new beliefs to become common? Do we have some kind of social epistemology, in which we believe things because most other people around us believe them? That is verification enough. Plus, who wants to be the odd person out, the ostracizee? Are the cultural and social realms two sides of the same coin in determining our beliefs?
Or, maybe something feels true, so we believe it? Isn’t that sort of what Colbert called “truthiness”? But what is it that makes it feel true to us? Is it that backwards compatibility? Or, does it serve us in some way towards furthering our own agendas? Is there social value in adopting a belief or set of beliefs? Cash value? Even romantic value?
Do some of us trust in the expertise of others who are more investigative than us? We look to the scientists, the historians, the researchers to tell us what is worthy of believing? But how do they know what to believe any better than we do? Does a lifetime of studying one topic or one phenomenon give someone a leg up on what to believe? At least in their particular disciplines? I don’t know. I don’t know what to believe. But I might be inclined to trust their hunches better than my own. With some things.
Are there renegades among us who always look to subvert the received beliefs? To criticize them? Upend them and show everyone how wrong they have been? Is the renegade actually constructing new beliefs or just deconstructing the old ones? Do some people disparage, discredit, and damn the renegades? Do some people adopt the renegade’s belief? Why are some willing to change and some want everything to stay the same? Do our beliefs offer some comfort? Or are they the problems we must overcome? Both? Does whether the renegade is constructing or deconstructing determine who will go along and who will reject?
Or, do we all have intuitions? We see things, hear, things, smell things, taste things, feel things somatically that lead us to intuit the way things are around us? Wouldn’t this require being very observant, keenly aware, mindful of our sensations? Could those intuitions provide the bases for our hunches that we extend into the world as our beliefs? Maybe the people with the strongest intuitions become the scientists, the historians, the researchers, the experts with better hunches that go out and investigate, road-test, reshape belief into theory. Maybe they erect frameworks to explain and extrapolate empirical evidence to convince us the theory is worth believing? Was it the intuition or the science that lead to the theory? Or was it both?
Are we convinced by the theories? Why do we accept one and reject another? Is it the backwards compatibility issue again? Sometimes? Is it the social epistemology? What is everyone else believing? Is it that a renegade proposed the theory? Or, a visionary? Who decides which is which? Which is the renegade or the visionary? Which is the convincing theory? Are some easier to verify than others? Does that make them more believable or the dominant theory? Or the correct one? Can we ever know? I mean really? Can we ever know anything? Or the answers to any of these questions? Have we always just been conflating believing with knowing? Generating theories that are beyond unprovable yet totally believable?
Does this all mean that knowledge is only theoretical? In that, everything we think we know is really just theory? So, the concept of knowledge itself is merely theoretical? Nothing is actually knowable? Is what is knowable, knowable? Can we answer that? Yet, we have convinced ourselves that what constitutes our knowledge is practical, provable, and plausible?
Is that the delusion of living in this moment? Or any moment over the last 10,000 years or so? We just wandered this planet generating beliefs and theories that would constantly recombine, reiterate, and reconstitute into something new until they made themselves useful for a while? And then new theories would come along? Over and over? For the new one to make sense it needed to refer to the old ones? Isn’t this how everything refers to everything? There are no new ideas? No new theories? Just rehashing the same old stuff in different reconfigurations and recontextualizations? Because the theories themselves are part of the context that keeps changing? We still can’t decide who has human enough status to deserve equal rights, equal opportunities, equal say? Back and forth we go from theory to theory, over and over? Sometimes we declare universal human rights? Sometimes we pass laws restricting ballot access? Sometimes we declare equality for all? Sometimes we pass laws to segregate and subjugate?
It all depends on the reigning theories? The ideas that most people buy into?
Why does all this matter? Who cares who believes what? Do the dominant theories explain this moment? Bend the arch of history whether toward justice or injustice? Do you see injustice around you? Do you believe it is injustice? Whose theories do you subscribe to? What are the practical consequences of believing those theories? Especially if a lot of people believe in them? Do they create discord, disconnection, exclusions, and inequality in society? Or do they attempt to work toward harmony, connection, inclusion, and equity?
We live in strange times where someone always wants to manipulate us for some reason: financial gain, status, power, appearance, or to make a change. Who should we listen to? Who should we trust? Who should we believe?
The people who believe in saying anything to get our money? The people who believe they must have all the power? The people that believe only appearances matter? The people who believe we should deny our sensory perceptions and believe everything is fine? Or was better way back when? The last time we tried one of those extreme social experiments of inequality? Who did we hate back then? Who do we hate now? Let’s wind back the clock, we have new old theories to try out again even though they didn’t work out the previous few thousand times societies have tried them. But things do change. Maybe this will be the space-time? Or, are there historical lessons to learn?
Or, do we believe the people who allow us to perceive the reality before us, acknowledge the facts, the feelings, and want to take a real stab at creating more harmony? People who have compassion for self, society, and the living world, because they realize those are all part of the same system? People who only want the power to change the power structures? People who realize that dividing people is only a way of conquering them? Not a way of liberating them? Inclusion is a choice? Is it a choice of freedom for all because you never know when you will be the one to not be included?
What we believe matters? It determines whether we believe we are free or not? And who and what else should be free?