Entries Tagged 'Debunking Myths/Mystiques' ↓

It's very common for people to think the world is getting more violent. See some online examples here. Nothing could be more wrong:

• The best talk about this Pinker's: violence has been steadily decreasing for the last few hundred years
• Surges like the the USA 60s crime rate increase were reversed -- and in any case this surge was a minor bump in a steep downtrend.
• Consider the extreme of our neolithic hunter-gatherer ancestors. Surely they weren't more peaceful than we are now, so violence must have decreased by several orders of magnitude over the last 10,000 years -- even if the last few decades have seen a sharp rise, "what with kids these days with their crazy ipods" -- this increase is negligible on the larger scale.
• More and more people are dying of heart disease, cancer and similar diseases. For much of human history a violent death was one of the most common causes of death. Today the chances of dying this "unnatural" death in the USA are about 0.7%
• Contrary to popular belief, WW2 was not history's bloodiest war, by percentage of population killed. Although it's hard to figure out the bloodiest historical conflicts exactly, they were almost certainly wars in Central Asia/China, which truly were unparalleled in the degree of wholesale slaughter.

Pinker has great reasons for the decline of violence, but I want to list possible reasons for the perception that violence is increasing:

• It seems a general feature of human brain to easily believe things are trending downward. Some "old school" historians (Gibbon too I think) genuinely believed the Byzantine empire was the Roman empire in decline (see this, noting the earliest dates). If that's true, the Byzantine empire declined for almost 1000 years, whilst producing some of the greatest works of art and scholarship!
• People have a cognitive bias of an idyllic childhood (unless you grew in in crap circumstances) -- when you were a kid you were deliberately sheltered from negativity. Chances are the number of war victims from the first 3 years of your life is several times greater than in the last 3 years.
• A change in reporting style, which shoves mor in your face over time. Sobering: compare this to this (from page 35!).
• The 20th century is peppered with memorable surges of violence. Because the spike happens all at once, it makes more of an impression on the mind compared to prior centuries (where a slow, steady but ultimately higher death toll was common).
• It's harder to empathise with times past: we can put ourselves in the shoes of most people killed in the 20th century, even from cultures very different to our own. Not so easy for the tens of millions killed, say, by the Mongols.
• As population increases (from peace! for without it advances in medicine, food, hygiene would be useless), the absolute number of people killed may increase. Even though your chances of dying "by the sword" may be falling dramatically, there may still be an increase in the absolute number of people killed.

Usual disclaimers about this not meaning there aren't terrible things happening now, that we need to do stuff about it, etc. But interesting to see this perception as an inherent part of human nature.

Mysticism is typically associated with peace:

• Mother Teresa is considered the ultimate mystic/ascetic/saint in modern mythology (however this is bullshit).
• There are of course older archetypes like Francis of Assissi
• Mysticism is seen as a "more advanced" version of a religion, in opposition to the "naive/literal" interpretation. eg. Sufis considered by many to practice a less dogmatic, more "spiritual" version of Islam.
• Mystics are often recluses -- surely they harm no-one, right?

Wrong. Mysticism has a VERY close connection with violence, one that goes way beyond a coincidence:

• Zen is famous for violent imagery. See koans 3 and 41 here. These are not just symbollic, Zen's nihilism played a major role in amoral creeds like those of the samurai and the rape of Nanking. It combined with Japanese nationalism to produce many other horrors in WW2.
• Mystical visions are often violent, eg. the Book of Revelation, other apocalyptic literature, the vision of Anne Catherine Emmerich that was the basis of The Passion movie.
• The term Assassin comes from the Hashashin sect. They kept members in a daze with mystical visions of paradise -- complete with hashish, indulgences in food and sexual fantasies -- after which they would do the murderous bidding of their master.
• The Nazis were fascinated with the mysticism of Tibet and sent an expedition there (headed by Ernst Schaffer) to find the Central Asian roots of the Aryan race. This book details their quest, if you look at the bottom right picture on the cover you'll see SS officers sitting with the Panchen Lama's people. This is not a reductio ad hitlerium it's a core aspect of mysticism that it attracts racist and genocidal ideologies.
• See this for more examples, a lot of the people in the article are mystics.

I think it's clear that mysticism is NOT benign. The reasons aren't rocket science: mysticism is all about:

• elitism and superiority
• secrecy
• a deliberate denial of the rational
• the notion of a hierarchy of mystic and follower, including blind obedience

This has obvious parallels in authoritarian dictatorships, complete with a cult of personality, secret police and a propaganda machine that panders to the people's worst emotions.

The New Age brings death, buyer beware (to quote the Simpsons, the yoghourt is poisoned!).

Wow, apparently talking about sex inspires comments -- who'd have thunk it? On the subject of social norms (and mystiques), indigenous people are also under a mystique -- the idea of the noble savage. This is just not true, and every instance of supposedly great features of the Noble Savage have glaring counterexamples (see this book by Steven Pinker for more). Indigenous people are meant to be:

• environmentally friendly -- often true but there are often cases of irreparable damage to the environment like the bird species hunted to extinction by the Maoris
• peaceful -- definitely false. Any indigenous society studied by anthropologists has a murder rate that exceeds the most violent cities by several orders of magnitude (a factor of over 100). See this summary of Pinker's talk.
• sexually uninhibited -- counterexamples with practices we can only describe as abhorrent are plentiful. See this interesting case (had a "complaint" about my graphic imagery in the celibacy post so leaving this one in the link..!)
• egalitarian -- even if we forget about forced circumcision, sexual inequality etc, there are more unusual practices that are enough to get the police in. In this talk a National Geographic journalist describes the "wonderful world" of indigenous people and tells of a tribe in Columbia who train children-destined-to-become-elders from the age of 3 to 18 in caves under glaciers. They're instructed in the tribal lore without ever leaving the caves. They only see natural light/the outside world when they turn 18. He was raving about what an amazing experience this was instead of reporting this to the authorities as child abuse -- I couldn't believe it!
• wise -- again this might be true in many cases but there's a problem. Someone who says all indigenous people are wise seems to be saying they are wise almost as a matter of definition. Wisdom might then be considered the property of those who are not literate, which isn't of itself very wise.

So what does this all mean?

• Political correctness and relativism mean almost no criticism of a tribal culture is possible. I saw this episode of Tribe where the host visits a Kenyan tribe involved in constant killings with neighbouring tribes (all armed with kalashnikovs) -- no indication that this might not be the best state for them to be in. Of course there's no point moralising in a documentary and repeating "violence is bad" a la Mr Mackey from Southpark, but still, judgement seems virtually suspended in modern contexts.
• This is of course bullshit -- tribal life is brutal, unjust and as "unnatural" as urban life.
• Of course this doesn't deny the genocides that have occurred. In fact cultural obliteration is far-reaching: of the 6000 languages spoken today, 50% are expected to go extinct soon. But it doesn't help to romanticise indigenous people out of some misguided universal respect (or the commendable desire not to be imperialist).
• Is all modernisation good for tribal people? No, simply because most of the time it's been applied in a thoughtless evil manner.
• BUT is some form of modernisation a form of -- I dare say it -- progress? Absolutely. More people change from "pure" tribal lifestyles to "decadent" urban living than vice versa -- because there is something essential about urban living.
• There is much that's lamentable about the disappearance of certain indigenous ways of life. But not everything is lamentable just 'cos it's gone. Human beings aren't mere inhabitants of cultural zoos for us to visit and marvel at their pristineness (denying them the fridge, car, house etc that WE have) -- and that's what the relativists seem to be saying.

Tibet is under a spiritual mystique. "Shangri La" is a term for any kind of mystical paradise. The Dalai Lama is supposed to be an icon of all that is good, spiritual and true in this world (even in an Apple ad). He's considered progressive, and not just because of his savvy marketing but also because there's an implication that as a Tibetan he has a lot to teach us westerners about life. It's hard to imagine a conference that wouldn't be eager to have him -- but almost no leader from any other religion is afforded the same treatment. Can you imagine TED fighting to get Ovadiah Yosef to come to their conference?

Reasons for the mystique (methinks):

• Tibet's obvious natural beauty and majesty
• Its remote nature (which brings in associations of pristineness)
• It's been a closed country for centuries (hence mysterious).
• Like the mystique of celibacy this stems from the yearning for more in our world. It's a difficult problem to figure out how to run modern society in a way that's emotionally and spiritually fulfilling and humane. It's easier to just fantasise, even if this doesn't match reality.
• A general mystique of Buddhism and mysticism in our society. More on that in another post, however as noticed here, it appears there's a sentiment of "western religion is bad therefore eastern religion is good," a bad argument for obvious reasons.

In reality, Tibet was a brutal authoritarian medieval theocracy

• Its closed nature was very probably influenced simply by xenophobia (in the same way as in China's history). In truth, both of these cultures at least had a lot to be arrogant about, but still...
• Much violence. Maimings for minor offenses (arms being chopped off etc.) and being flogged to death in public were commonplace. A long history of political massacres and more. Mysticism is very connected to violence (more in a future post).
• The monks were (are?) a parasitic class. Eg. until recently neighbouring Bhutan had a law requiring every family with 3 or more sons to give one up to become a monk. This is common to Buddhist countries, whereby tens of thousands of monasteries with even more monks/nuns spring up -- supported by a starving peasant population.
• Despite what many may think Buddhism is a very conservative and authoritarian system that has kept social progress (eg. see the Dalai Lama's actual views on homosexuality and Hitchens socking it to Tenzin).

Of course the Chinese have been committing nothing less than genocide there for decades -- but that doesn't mean that the Tibet of old (or a potential future theocracy under the Dalai Lama) is anything to sing about.

There's a mystique about celibacy. Supposedly it gives you superpowers:

• The cliche from martial arts movies of the Shaolin monk whose extraordinary kung fu prowess stems from his celibacy. I've even had friends (jokingly) refer to martial artists who aren't celibate and vegetarian to "not be doing the real thing".
• In Sex and the City, Samantha pursues her yoga teacher who is celibate. She sees this as arousing and mysterious. Of course it's a challenge for her too but she is neither repulsed nor does she wonder which psychiatric hospital she should refer him to.
• In fact avoiding orgasms for a man is supposed to lead to a thousand tantric possibilities a million times greater than the "mundaneness" of material pleasures.
• and many more!

Funny how this mystique applies to Eastern religions only, huh? People are more likely to associate Catholic celibacy with pedophelia. Probably has a lot to do with the general mystique of things eastern in our "mundane" world, as tens of millions working soulless jobs yearn for More.

Funny how celibacy only has a mystique when it's a man's conscious choice, huh (look at the examples above)? In our society it wouldn't make sense for a woman because it would be her rejection of the potential for a man's affection which is never seen as justified.

Reality's a lot less yummy (besides the obvious):

• Health problems. If you're male, you need to ejaculate at least 4 times a week to stay healthy. If you're female, for "some reason" this hasn't been seen as a fit subject for study (compare these search results to these). But I'm willing to bet within 10 years scientific consensus will say the same thing: orgasms=health.
• Psychological problems. Rather than the paragons of enlightenment, celibates (west or east) are very often unstable and simply sexually frustrated. This leads to criminal cases like this, where a Thai monk lured a teenager through a social website and raped her.
• It doesn't really exist. What do you think really happens when a large number of "celibates" of the same gender live in close communities? It's been quite well documented in places like pre-Chinese-invasion Tibet: it was a very, very common occurrence for male monks to have sex with each other. Of course they tried to avoid breaking the vows too explicitly by engaging in "alternate" methods (like intercourse with another monk's armpit).
• I'm deliberately ignoring "evolutionary purposes" arguments because these are problematic.

Can an ideology that places celibacy as an ideal be called anything but Evil? Making up some bullshit "higher" purpose that's above the mundaneness of our physical bodies is elitist -- and causes heaps of physical and psychological damage. So I'd say no. And it's not really a person's own choice if by being celibate they are causing damage to others (and placing a strain on the health system).

The monks' example reminded me Tibet itself is under a related larger mystique. Will debunk next time.

(First blog post -- but rather than some hello world thought I'd at least post some content -- so here's this is an oldie recycled and edited)

When I was a kid, I was lent a book about the paranormal. Being a naive kid, I read with interest. One of the "amazing" things mentioned was a cave painting found in Armenia which depicted a circle and four stick figures: one standing upright, the other upside down on the bottom of the circle, one on the left etc. It was completely "obvious" what this meant - these ancient peoples knew that the earth was spherical! The author said the only plausible explanation for this is -- they were told this by aliens since this is a fact that's deluded the entire world until very recently.

The myth of the flat earth has only been around for about 150 years or so, and it seems to just refuse to die its death. This myth goes something like this. Until very recently, the whole world believed the world was flat. And not only "commoners" but scientists and ESPECIALLY the church. People have been burnt at the stake as heretics for proclaiming the contrary. And it was only dispelled with (here come different versions):

• Columbus -- and before he sailed out, people thought he'd fall off the end of the flat earth.
• Magellan -- when he sailed round and came out the other end people caught on.
• Copernicus (or better still Galileo) -- and this was apparently the subject of Galileo's trial!

All of these things are false. Not just untrue but quite astoundingly false, and the real story is much more interesting.

It's true that most ancient cultures assumed some kind of flat earth (I don't even know if there's evidence of a major civilisation or tradition without this belief -- if anyone knows, let me know) until the ancient Greeks. There were probably many people who came up with the idea of a spherical earth but the most famous is Eratosthenes (of the Eratosthenes' Sieve fame, for those who have had to suffer through that in high school maths...). He (around 200 BCE) went on holiday over a thousand kilometres from his home and noticed that the local sundial made a different angle at midday than at home. He reasoned that the earth was spherical and therefore each place is at a slightly different angle to the sun. He made the fortuitous assumption that the sun was big and far away -- not a little object just hovering over the earth. He even used the difference in angles to measure the earth's circumference and got a surprisingly accurate result.

Other evidence available to the ancients:

• ships on the horizon seem to sink as they get further, but then they come back without falling off.
• as you change latitude, the elevation of stars changes as if you're on a sphere.
• during a lunar eclipes, the shadow is always a circle and not an ellipse and the only shape that could cast such a shadow from all angles is the humble sphere.

Most educated Greeks came to accept this idea, although it was still hard to imagine an upside-down world on the other side of the earth (the Antipodes).

Along comes Aristotle, who among his million and one achievements comes up with an entire theory of the universe. The earth is a sphere at the centre and the planets and the rest move in concentric circles with the same centre. Also, because he believed a stone falls to the ground because all things naturally tend to the centre of the earth (which is also the centre of the universe), there was no problem of the Antipodes. The mythological peoples around modern day Australia, South America etc. may have been seen to be weird, but at least they, like all other things, tended to the centre of the earth and did not fall off.

This kookyness did not catch on universally but it grew. There were regular objections to the round earth theory from scholars and natural philosophers. However, these were more like individual voices in a growing tide of non-flatism. These voices became quieter and by I think the middle of the Dark Ages (!) they were not taken seriously. Instead, we have a Church with influence in the early period by Augustine who was a round-earther and in the medieval period by Thomas Aquinas who in effect "brought Aristotle to the church" and hence his cosmological view was very spherical indeed. Of course, in the early period, many clergymen were reluctant to accept this as a manifestation of the vain, heathen Greek science. Again, this attitude ended much sooner than people think.

The view that was entrenched was Ptolemy's adaptation of Aristotle's system with the shape of the earth unaltered. Others came to make observations and changes. There was Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, Clavius, Galileo, Newton, etc etc. All of them took the spherical earth as a very natural, commonly held and firmly established belief. Here's an ebook with more.

Whence the myth then? Historical consensus is that it it originated with the writer Washington Irving (possibly as a joke!) when he wrote a novel about Columbus. I haven't read it but maybe he didn't intend for it to be a serious historical novel. Or he did and screwed up as many of us do on our best days. All in all, in the novel, before Columbus sets out, people are worried he'll fall off the edge. Another alternative is that this was concocted by anti-religious enlightenists to show the perceived ignorance of the church.

Yes there is an anti-religious sentiment attached to the myth, at least a little. This is the idea of religion being a cause of ignorance, and something that slows down "progress", at least of the scientific kind. This may be true in many specific historical instances but it's not a universal law. Certainly, this is a good myth to believe for those who aren't very fond of religion. Those who went against the spherical earth did it largely for religious purposes, but these literalist interpretations didn't catch on. And no, no matter how much those who are anti-Bible and anti-Koran scream about both of these books espousing a flat earth view, we just don't know for sure. Neither are written in textbook format - the "cosmological" references are in both cases extremely poetic and mirror our own everyday speech. That we say "sunrise" is NOT evidence that we belive in a flat earth, neither are those texts when they use metaphors. The only argument is that because we see many other cultures around the Bible Koran to be flat-earthers, we can assume these were. Nothing in the TEXTS however proves it. On a similar note, it's very easy to read the idea of a flat earth from, say a medieval world map. But those who know how hard it is to violate the spherical earth and bash it onto a flat piece of paper will know that any map created before trigonometry and other tools were developed will look flat. A lot of these maps must have been made by round-earthers.

The second sentiment in accepting this myth is I think an even more prominent one - the anti-historical sentiment. This is the idea that our society is special and enlightened and that the previous ages were crap. The idea of the flath earth then becomes a metaphor for the blindest kind of ignorance - this is how stupid they were (or for the more open-minded, this is how stupid WE as humanity are) - we/they believed in a flat earth, the most obvious of bad ideas! This may not be how the myth started but I think this is why we as a society continue to believe it. There's an obvious self-congratulatory aspect, even if many people wouldn't know much about the science of working out if the earth is flat or not.

I was looking one of those logic/puzzle quizzes (the Reader's Digest puzzle magazine) and it had a few general science knowledge questions. One of them was something like "(true or false): Copernicus the first person to suggest that the world was not flat". And the answer? "False, Aristotle also known to have suggested this". Yeah thanks! Perhaps that mythical period between 550 and 1492 (or later) weren't the only dark ages!