Failing the 'Reality Check'

Do you ever come across an article that instantly clears up your confusion over some topic in the news? The ol' cartoon light bulb goes on in your brain, and in this piercing new illumination the situation makes sense.

That's how I felt about this recent piece from John Steinberg of Raw Story, in which he explains our nation's current failure to face even the most basic precepts of reason about our dark political circumstances. (It's a fairly long article, so I'll just excerpt a few of the high points. I highly recommend the whole shebang, which you'll find here.)

One of the basic questions about how we make our way through the world is, “What do you do when belief and data collide?” A core tenet of post-Enlightenment Western society is that a rational person will drop a hypothesis that is contradicted by good empirical evidence. It is the scientific method enshrined by Descartes and Bacon, and, for good or ill, it has given us every scrap of technology and science. But we see evidence in every corner that this is not how people live their lives.

Bizarre hybrids like “Creation Science” notwithstanding, fundamentalist religion rejects reason. Reason embraces the possibility of error; absolutist religion must deny it. By definition, Fundamentalists maintain belief by rejecting the data.

Look at the declining role of science and reason in our society and wonder how we could be anywhere but this sorry juncture. A 2001 Gallup poll found that 45 percent of Americans believe evolution is flat-out wrong; the Washington Times reports that more than 60 percent of Americans believe that the Biblical Genesis and Noah’s Ark stories are literally true. True believers are pulling their children out of public school by the thousands to avoid contaminating them with unwanted questions. All of those children are being bred to believe what they are told, and that the world view of their parents and teachers is correct — simply because they say so.

The brilliant cynic Karl Rove saw that the religious right had manufactured millions of Americans programmed to follow without asking questions or demanding accountability. In short, America’s heartland had produced a substantial population that believes rather than thinks. Rove understood that all he had to do was provide a leader callous enough to speak their code and claim the shepherd’s mantle. The subtle part of Karl Rove’s subtle genius is that he has positioned Bush not merely as President, but as Messiah — the touchstone of a belief system. That he accomplished this feat while flying under the radar of the mainstream press is one of the great feats of modern politics.

If you think of the Bush White House as a Church, many things begin to make sense. Religious leaders don’t take hostile questions at press conferences, or debate policy with non-believers. Followers do not debate their infallibility. Non-believers are hectored, then ignored, and finally scorned. And most significantly, fundamentalists create belief systems that banish critical thinking. As the Catholic Church learned hundreds of years ago, reason cannot be tethered to dogma, and inevitably contradicts it. Fundamentalist leaders know this, and tie reason to the devil instead.

Accept that reason is no longer essential to decision-making, and a host of policies snap into focus. The decision to invade Iraq is now the most obvious assault on reality-based decision-making, but there are many others. Global warming is denied in the face of virtual consensus among scientists; billions of dollars have been transferred to defense contractors building missile defense systems that most experts agree will be useless; energy policy assumes infinite resources; environmental policy suspends belief in cause and effect. The old separation between church and state has become a separation between church and reality, and government increasingly stands opposite reality.

As the actions and polices of this Administration show, faith-based government obviates the need for Constitutional protections. Any American sixth grader should know that “checks and balances” form the basis of our system of government. What we usually talk about are the ways each of the three branches of our government limits the excesses of the others. But at root, they all depend on a more fundamental kind of checking and balancing: the reality check. And when reality ceases to be the touchstone for policy, the very concept of checks and balances loses meaning.

The result has been a tragic symbiosis. Its value to Bush et al. is obvious: as Mel Brooks once said, it is good to be the King. God’s powers are by definition absolute, yet God, despite His omnipotence, takes a pass on accountability. The worse things become, the more tenaciously true believers cling to their views of Him. A tragedy like 9/11 might make others question their faith, but not the Bush disciples. A dangerous world increases the need for comfort, and if filling that need requires a belief in the objectively false (like Saddam-9/11 links, or Iraqi WMDs), so be it. Pointing out that Bush did nothing to prevent 9/11, or has made us less safe with his new crusade, is unavailing. The faithful vest in the object of their faith attributes based not on reality, but the size of the hole they expect him to fill. A sickening spiral ensues: the further Bush drifts from the moorings of reality, the stronger the support from his disciples becomes.