Yesterday, Paul Krugman kicked off his Column with an observation that goes to the crux of THE PROBLEM. He wrote:
When I first began writing for The Times, I was naïve about many things. But my biggest misconception was this: I actually believed that influential people could be moved by evidence, that they would change their views if events completely refuted their beliefs.
Paul, a Nobel Prize winning economist, understands that the affairs of humanity must be viewed from a very practical standpoint rather than from the standpoint of dogmatic ideology. As an economist, he believes in managing market activities by trying to keep the playing field level through rules and regulations and by continuously tweaking economic settings. His view is analogous to navigating an automobile along roads and highways. Observe the traffic laws and try to stay between the lines. Speed up or slow down as conditions dictate, and hope that nothing breaks down catastrophically. I disagree with his economic theories, but at least his evidence-based view contrasts powerfully with belief-based views, such as ideological free-marketism asserting that unfettered markets will naturally self-equilibrate.
At a fundamental level, our ability to understand the world must be based in some belief. But the nature of that belief varies. Most belief is dogmatic. It is immunized against disconfirming evidence. It stands the learning process on its head by placing conclusions before evidence. In my life’s experience, it appears to me that there is no antidote to this poisonous process of bending evidence to foregone conclusions.
A regrettably rarer form of belief is one in which we believe that our beliefs about a world that is in continues flux, are by their very nature always imperfect and fallible. Belief in the fallibility of belief instructs us to constantly listen for signals given off by the voices of the processes in which we are immersed. In conditional belief, we believe that we must use those signals to continually transform our system of belief in accordance with our aims and the new evidence that is always forthcoming.
The only constant is change. Belief that fails to embrace the fallibility of belief, is no more than blinding stupidity.
Isn’t Krugman’s insight pretty common though? I recall when I, having recently emerged from graduate school, believed strongly that evidence and rational discourse would bring about change. Sound familiar (Rogerian ‘insight leads to change’)? It took years to abandon this believe. Ironically it was, as you point out, my belief in this belief that was one of the biggest barriers.
But now, where do I sit? I’m afraid I’ve only grown cynical. Evidence and reason do not prevail. Karl Rove knows this very well.
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