Believing Bullshit
Stephen Law has an excellent (and entertaining) new book, Believing Bullshit. It discusses eight “intellectual black holes” that can yank people into various delusional convictions. He names them “Playing the Mystery Card,” “‘But It Fits!’ and The Blunderbuss,” “Going Nuclear,” “Moving the Semantic Goalposts,” “I Just Know!,” “Pseudoprofundity,” “Piling Up the Anecdotes,” and “Pressing Your Buttons.”
They’re all good, but I think my favorite was “Pseudoprofundity,” maybe because it reminded me of my old Guide to Rhetoric, which alas disappeared in the transition from the old B&W to the new one. The subheads are very reminiscent: State the obvious; Contradict yourself; Deepities; Trite-nalogies; Use jargon; Postmodern pseudoprofundity.
He’s good on Karen Armstrong (in the “Moving the Semantic Goalposts” chapter). He points out that she deals with the problem of evil by saying God isn’t that kind of god.
“God,” says Armstrong, “is merely a symbol of indescribable transcendence,” which points “beyond itself to an ineffable reality.” [p 117]
No room for an evil god there, of course; a symbol can’t be evil; what a silly idea.
However, reading through Armstrong’s book, it becomes apparent her God is not quite so mysterious and ineffable after all. Indeed, Armstrong says that “God” is a symbol of “absolute goodness, beauty, order, peace, truthfulness, justice.” Not only does Armstrong appear here to be effing the ineffable, it seems she also thinks she knows things about this indescribable transcendence of which God is the name. [p 118]
Exactly. It’s a popular move though, so the many faith-huggers clutch it to their bosom while only the few faith-teasers notice that it’s a case of having it both ways.
And that’s how to believe in bullshit.
http://web.archive.org/web/20090208194151/http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/rhetoricprintall.php
Oh! Kewel – thanks, Iain.
“Pseudo-profundity” sounds like it’s related to what Daniel Dennet called a deepity.
“Effing the ineffable” made me think… something inappropriate.
#4: You are not alone.
Effed up.
Yeah, I remember catching onto that bullshit when I was a kid and I realized that people actually believed in religion. When someone wanted me to do something for Jesus, it all made sense to them. When I had would question why I should give a damn about it, they had all sorts of insight into what ‘God’ wanted. When I would dig a bit deeper, I’d get hit with “we’re not able to fathom the will of ‘God'” and “‘God’ works in mysterious ways” and “we can’t ever understand the mind of ‘God’.”
Funny how that works, isn’t it? No clue when someone asks a hard question, but they’re pretty darned sure about what we’re allowed to do with our genitals.
I effed the ineffable once… I got a “social disease” that required more than one penicillin shot to clear up.
I seem to recall that ineffable is also the punchline of an ancient joke, the theme of which was professors trying to think of a suitable synonym for virgin… I remember impregnable and inscrutable making an appearance.
ObOnTopic: thanks Iain!
I also used to get those inappropriate associations with the word, but now I actually looked it up, and the dictionary entry for “effable” says: ORIGIN early 17th cent.: from Latin effabilis, from effari ‘utter.’
And on “deepity”: I think Daniel Dennett actually attributed the word to his daughter. She might interrupt him while he was holding forth on some philosophical point at the breakfast table, saying “oooh – daddy said a deepity”. Or something like that. I guess more of us could use a daughter to put us in our place.
Timely, just downloaded this on my Kindle yesterday and reach pseudoprofundity this morning over breakfast. I like the book a lot, very clear expose of the tortuous routes humans take to preserve their beliefs in the face of compelling evidence against them.
Oh, and RBH: Law hat tips Dennet and “deepity”
I’m vaguely recalling something called “Shrinklits” from about 30 years ago… where “Lolita” became about ten lines. One of them was “…ineffable, and yet, as effable as she can get.”
http://www.amazon.com/ShrinkLits-Seventy-Worlds-Towering-Classics/dp/0894800795
Yup: notice that one of the subheads in the Pseudoprofundity chapter is “Deepities.” No flies on Stephen.
I guess I’m ordering that book. Crap. Not as if I don’t have enough effing books to effing read…
Sorry, hang on a mo’ … God is the name of the indescribable transcendence of which God is merely the symbol …
…
sounds even more effing ineffable than I thought…
…
…
God is…
…
…
…
…intranscribable descendence…
…
Oh come on! Give us a clue, then!
I used to have to remind my HDS classmates that if you know that “God stands with the poor,” then you have to explain why it was loving of God to burn down their slum, or that if you claim that “God watches out for good people,” then you really do have to explain why God let them get shot in Iraq.
Once someone says “God is…” my immediate visceral reaction is to laugh and point to an immediate contradiction between their claim about God and reality. But now, after many many discussion with Mr. Matt Lowe, I’ve come to the conclusion that when people start using the God2 wishy-washy non-specific language, you should let them finish their God Talk before you quietly point out the obvious counter-example(s) (you probably also shouldn’t laugh either…).
I think we atheists also have to realize that some people have a sort of “God Fetish” that satisfies their desire to feel like every decision they make has ultimate cosmic significance. I find that a lot of folks who make the transition away from “organized religion” to “New Age” philosophies use a lot of similar hyper-specific details about some aspects of the divine, while being simultaneously “enraptured by the infinite mystery of God’s vicissitudes.” These folks probably won’t be convinced by rational reasoning, but there’s no sense not trying.
God,” says Armstrong, “is merely a symbol of indescribable transcendence,” which points “beyond itself to an ineffable reality.” [p 117]
By using the term ‘symbol’ Armstrong is admitting that she’s painted herself into a corner,it’s only a matter of time before she ‘comes out’ as an atheist.
God is…
…
God is a merely a symbol of intranscendible describence which is a symbol of real ineffability…which is a symbol of…
…
Still struggling here…
Well quite, and the trying may at least make them acquainted with the fact that their beliefs aren’t just self-evidently true or well-supported.
…which is a symbol of…
…
the ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE!!
…
umm, the absolute ultimate…thing, sort of…
:- )
Jonathan:
I’ve been told by many former New Age wooists that, while they would never admit it in person, their beliefs were truly shaken up by that sort of thing. For many it was part of their eventual dismissal of nonsense. It’s hard to know who will and will not respond, of course, and you may never know. Deconversion is a long-term process and most of us aren’t around the person to witness the end result.
But there’s also value in being seen by bystanders to refuse to silently defer to these kinds of public declarations of religious foolishness. It helps change the culture. It can embarrass wooists, which is valuable, because being embarrassed or out of sync with the crowd are powerful motivators (yes, I know, it’s a double-edged sword that can be used for evil. But it is a part of the human condition.).
Yes, but in the meanwhile emotional appeals can’t hurt… in this case that they are full of sour owl poop.
Owls don’t have poop, they have casts – little lumps of hair and bone that they hawk up and spit out.
I thought you’d like to know that.
Talking about shaking up beliefs:
While I have been pondering the infinite abyss of ultimate theological profundities I have spared a brain-cell or two for Chris Hallquist on Luke on the WLC’s stupendous ability to (not) smash every atheist atom in sight, and was directed to Chris H’s open letter to believers on the problem of evil. It’s rather good.https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B-V14a2GFExHZjA4ZDQ3NDUtNGE0My00ZjEzLWI0MjYtMGI0ZDg4NDQ5NDcz&hl=en
I struggled through Karen Armstrong’s latest book and found it almost unreadable. It came VERY well recommended by many people whose thinking I admire and I was DEEPLY disappointed. I appreciated the historical analysis of how religions have thought about God over time, but when it got into contemporary theology I though it was basically worthless.
I am lost in admiration, James, that you only found it almost unreadable. I managed the first seventy-odd pages of that, that whatever about the Bible before throwing it and out and vowing never to have such a thing in house again. I weakened, alas, when I came across a second-hand copy of that to which you refer, thinking that I really ought to improve my education, but so far I must concede failure: starting, indeed, with her idea of what she calls history.
Well damn! Now my keyboard has coffee in it! A numinous sort of coffee true – but it definitely exists
Owls do so poop!
We should so resurrect the word “effable”. At the moment it’s one of those fossils, like “ruth” from “ruthless”, but it should be dug up and put back to work.
Dan
Ok owls do so poop, but the casts are much more exciting.
James do you still admire the thinking of those people?
That’s not a purely facetious question. Armstrong’s book seems to me so transparently evasive and sentimental and bordering on misleading that I really can’t understand how anyone with good sense can recommend it. (I think you mean her latest but one – I reviewed her actual latest for The New Humanist. I take you to be talking about The Case for God.)
I assumed that James meant A History of God. It is filed under A in my bookcase, but seems nevertheless to have attracted a pool of ineffable blackness all to itself. For some reason it haunts the bookcase in a deep and dark and malevolent way, and represents a place I really don’t wish to visit. Nevertheless, I have, at times, while suitably drunk, or something, taken the thing out and looked at it quite carefully. And then have put it quite carefully back again. Do I really need to look at The Case for God ? Oh please… Back in the late 60s and early 70s I read a lot of theology, and I therefore recognise Armstrong’s particular brand of rubbish. I am reminded of John Robinson’s (much better) book Honest to God and C S Lewis’s immortal riposte: “I would rather be honest than honest to God”. Unforgivable, but also true.
@31
I’m with you, Dan. Together we can gruntle and shevel the world!
Oh lordy no, Gordon, there’s no need to read it. If one wants to know exactly what kind of nonsense Armstrong talks in that book then that’s a reason to read it; otherwise, no. (And I’m sure you already know; samples are representative.)
Oh Ophelia, I am so relieved. I thought, I thought…But no! Oh goodness, what a terrible nightmare…Phew. Well, if someone would let me know if she becomes chief secretary to RDF, or marries Tony Blair, or, or…(sinks into merciful stupor…)
First, second, third and fourthly God is as much a verb as a noun and not just the answer, but the question as well. That’s not bullshit, it’s a testimony to the understanding required to comprehend the ‘force’ that created the Universe, which according to several schools of theoretical physics, is one of any number of Universes.
There’s a malaise right now and it’s clear. Popular science has been feeding a generation now that science is truth, it’s accessible and complete. This is a fiction. Science is good with the forensic stuff, even very good but when it comes to feelings (important for humans) it’s a poor model for explanation and music, drama, poetry, literature, art etc and yes religion are mediums which capture the human condition more effectively and meaningfully.
It’s been 152 years since Darwin’s ‘Origin’ and despite 10+ schools of thought on this there is still no accepted theory of mind or culture from evolutionary theory, and yet according to a number of the posts here it’s as if science has it all worked out. That really is a faith position.
Believe in God, or believe there is no God but don’t extend the range of what science has proven (and failed to prove) with words and narrative all the while overlooking that assertion is one of faith and personal conjecture, and not scientific. To argue at this stage in human epistemological development that we are qualified to discount the idea of God to the levels suggested in this forum is again to succumb to the fads and flows of a popular science that is all too often popular over scientific.
Dennett has been mentioned a few times on this page and he’s still peddling memetics as the evolutionary based theory of culture. It’s nice to see that believing in bullshit is not just something targeted towards people of faith, because this is Grade A stuff from Dennett and Dawkins who freely concede in lecture and interview that humans are “the only intelligent designers on the tree of life.”
Does that prove God? Absolutely not, but a long as that is the case, and science struggles with human beingness, mind and culture and human exceptionalism remains (narrative aside) then you can be sure that there will be a fair amount of pseudo-scientific bullshit around as well.
Thanks for mentioning this, I’m halfway through now.
Well, you can define God according to your ideas. The problem is that there is no way of showing that God conforms to any particular idea: that is why there are so many ideas — and gods.
Yes, I think it is a fiction. Certainly I’ve never heard it before, though I’m an avid reader of popular science. Science isn’t very accessible, but obviously popularisers do their best. I don’t think they mean to suggest that it’s complete, but they certainly do aim to show how science can uncover truths about our world. I think you are overstating things here, and it’s misleading.
I’d rather say that music etc express important aspects of our human condition, and obviously science can’t do that; nor is it meant to. Scientific explanations of emotional states etc are obviously not the same as what those states mean to us and do not invalidate those meanings.
Be careful not to equate evolution with all of science. Theories of mind and of culture are not expected to arise from evolutionary theory, even though it is possible — for all I know — that evolutionary theory might shed light on them, just as, for example, plate techtonics sheds light on biology.
We have been saying that the theology under discussion is no more than an emotional effluvium of meaningless words, or at least to the extent that any meaning can be discerned it is self-contradictory. So far, you are the first person to have mentioned science at all.
Dennett has been mentioned, once, I think, and “deepities” has also appeared. And he’s not the only one who thinks that memetics is a good way of explaining processes in our mental and cultural life. However, I am not sure that he would go so far as to say that he “believes” it, though he would certainly disagree about the bullshit. I take it that this is where your link between evolutionary theory and mind and culture comes from. Not sure what “Grade A” means: in Britain it means “First Class”, but I suppose you mean “Elementary”. Dennett and Dawkins are objectively correct about us being the only intelligent designers on the tree of life, unless you are supposing that somehow God has evolved by natural selection: that’s not even Grade A in your sense.
“As long as something doesn’t prove God, and science struggles…” I’m confused. At any rate, “human beingness” is not a scientific concept, at least, not in the sense I take you to mean, and in any other sense I don’t think it’s a word. As far as pseudoscience is concerned, we already know about creationism and numerology, so what’s your point here?
Whoops: plate tectonics
Oh, I think I’ve just got your “Grade A”. Obviously a bit slow. Makes no difference to my point, though.
I think I might have got the second bit of it, “as long as science struggles (with h-b, m and c), and human exceptionalism remains….
I don’t think you need to worry that scientific reductionism is going to reduce human beings to meaningless entities. It is because we don’t think we are meaningless entities that we do science, as well as a lot of other things. Reductionism is just method, it isn’t like moral judgment, and it doesn’t make us victims. As to pseudoscience, it remains to be seen whether any new hypothesis is scientifically valid. You shouldn’t discard an idea just because you don’t immediately grasp it.
Looks like a fun book along the lines of Julian Baggini’s The Pig that Wants to be Eaten and The Duck that Won the Lottery.