Why is it that we are so drawn to other people on the basis of beliefs? The usual pattern is to enthusiastically flock together in that wonderful rush of “These are my kindred people! Finally!” only to be eventually and predictably followed by interminable arguments on minor points, power struggles, fights over correctness, angry exposes, hopes disappointed, and a final general falling apart and bitter disillusionment. Myself, I watched it within the communist party in my youth, then in America within the cabal formed around Ayn Rand, then the PC that killed feminism and the internecine squabbles among the Greens and anarchists. Now, as I watch the doomer, “friends of Ishmael” and “humane food” scenes, I see again that same virus proliferating.
It’s been 60 years since Eric Hoffer, a self-educated longshoreman, published a seminal book called True Believer. He noted that people who have been infected by true-believerism – a staunch commitment to (and psychological dependence on) right belief — easily move between different belief systems. Fanatical Christians turn into fanatical communists turn into fanatical feminists turn into fanatical Greens turn into fanatical anarchists. Merrily spins the carousel.
Only some of us are true believers, monomaniacal zealots who shape their entire lives around an ideology. My aim is to make a stronger, more encompassing claim: we are all believists. We have all been suckered into vastly overestimating the value and usefulness of ideas. I think of believism as the elevation of beliefs, ideas, mind constructs above living beings, accompanied by the conviction that shared beliefs are unifying and essential for agreement and successful collaboration.
When small groups of Greens were forming all around the country in the late 80s, the first order of business was to articulate the “platform” – a set of shared, strongly-held beliefs. This was seen as a necessary preamble to political effectiveness {cough, cough}. The Greens were convinced that in order to change the world, they first had to have a carefully crafted ideology. They were only the latest casualty of an approach that goes at least as far back as early Christianity.
The first Christians were small groups of people who tried very hard to follow Jesus, to live by the Golden Rule and the commandments to love God and love one’s fellows. They took care of each other so admirably well that they managed to make inroads into a hostile empire determined to suppress them through ridicule, loathing, and persecution. But two, three hundred years later, we see a very different picture. Believism had taken over Christendom. The early house churches had been infiltrated by people who were eager to alter their beliefs but not their way of living. In the “year of our lord” 325, the bishops at the Council of Nicea fell upon each other in a fratricidal war that focused not on how best to follow Jesus Christ, but rather on beliefs about him. Creeds and intellectual speculation, rather than day-to-day behavior, became the focus of the co-opted religion.
I present to you for consideration the possibility that believism is a trap. That it does not make sense to look for one’s kindred people on the basis of belief. Believing is cheap. It’s easy. Anyone can mouth the right words after a bit of study; might even feel convinced. But if they are an asshole, what’s the difference? The group will go down in flames as gazillions of those infiltrated by assholes have done from the beginning of time. Beliefs cannot cure a person who treats his or her fellows poorly; they only provide yet another way to bully people.
Believism rests on a lie. It stokes the fear that without shared beliefs, unity and cooperation is impossible. But examining the history of any belief-based movement from Christianity to communism and beyond shows that schisms flare up as soon as the movement makes some headway, and that intimidation becomes the cement to hold the broken vessel together. When we stop being entranced by its own propaganda, it’s easy to see that believism actually gets in the way of cooperation. People who end up fighting each other over shades of belief forget to look out for each other and to band together – are unable to band together – to stop bullies in their tracks. Believism divides us. Trying to “know” people by their beliefs and ideas rather than “by their fruits” is bound to lead to confusion and conflict. Believism divides us! It creates enclaves of same-thinking folks who are unable to get along with anyone else, and ultimately unable to get along with each other as well.
Don’t get me wrong; it is wonderful to be able to talk and work with people who are on the same wavelength, without the need for lengthy explanations or the need to establish basic common understanding. I have nothing against shared beliefs per se. They have their usefulness and their pleasures. But isn’t it time to stop getting seduced by pretty ideas? Like fire, they make good servants but bad masters.
Leaving Babylon 
April 14, 2010 at 10:46 am
Well-put.
The problem is, it’s hard to live as a skeptic. It’s just easier, more convenient, to believe in Big Pretty Ideas. It is, evidently, how our brains are wired. We need beliefs, and lots of them, to get through the day. I have no proof that the sun will come up tomorrow, but it sure would be a big waste of time to spend today worrying about whether it would. So, I just believe it will, and go on about my day.
Believism, as you have it here, is this same thing, seems to me. Christians, commies, Islamic terrorists, doomers (and their counterparts on the other end of the spectrum, the singularitarians) – they all believe in some future state that is destined to happen, though of course there is no “proving” this until, you know, it happens. At least Christians and the terrorists admit they have faith.
You may get besieged by doomers who will bleat on about all their proof, in the form of linkys to lots of nifty little graphs and etc. Have fun with that. I doubt many will take you up on the advice to read True Believer.
April 14, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Hey Court –
Actually, I have nothing against beliefs. What I am against is putting beliefs on a pedestal. I think the opposite to the hubris of believism is epistemological humility… the admission to oneself that certainty is not available to us humans, and that paying attention to the needs of living beings is far more important than any Big Pretty Ideas out there. But, as we all know, humility is in short supply in this day and age… 😉
April 14, 2010 at 2:30 pm
As I started reading this I thought you were talking about fanatacism. However, this is a more insidious problem. It seems to me that the big reason that this arises is because the group doesn’t have anything in common apart from the belief structure. (Which is to say that the group isn’t a community.)
It seems ironic to me that you argue against this kind of internecine struggle by firmly taking the side of “works” over the side of “faith”.
—
JimFive
April 14, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Heh. As the anabaptists say… faith without works is dead. 🙂
April 14, 2010 at 6:03 pm
I have a couple of thoughts on this. We all have the need to have a cohesive worldview. It’s natural for our brains to try to piece together information from many sources into one worldview. The main problems lie in a lack of open-mindedness and a lack of thorough investigation of ones one belief systems. Without these two things you end up with a worldview that remains in a infantile state, as it can never be updated to a more accurate model when conflicting information is presented. It also makes “you” the asshole. The worldview only gets updated when it collapses due to the severe cracks in it’s foundation.
There is nothing wrong with believing stuff. In fact it’s very important to believe stuff, such as gravity or that you should look before you cross a street. It’s when you fail to be open to changes that it becomes a problem.
I’m not saying that you should completely ignore people like this, but you should just take their beliefs and roll them around in your mind and see if they make sense or if they conflict with your model of reality. When you find conflicts then you have to consciously find the resolution in it. When you find close-minded people. Leave them to their close-mindedness. If you don’t fraternize with them they disappear for the most part.
April 15, 2010 at 10:10 am
I am not sure if I understand you, Nathan. In my experience, at least half of all humans do not have the capacity or interest for building a worldview or investigating it thoroughly. They accept what they inherit and coast. Is that infantile? Well, I don’t think I would call it that any more than I would call my rudimentary (and sadly un-updated) knowledge of astrophysics infantile. Different people have different capacities. And I would never *ever* call someone an asshole because they lack the capacity to update their beliefs.
In my world, an asshole is someone who bullies, or cheats, or does other dastardly deeds. And the emphasis is very much on deeds! Not so in your world?
For example, in contemporary America, many people whip up fear of those folks who believe in Young Earth and refuse to believe in the evolutionary model. I have spoken with a number of them, but I never had the feeling that I could expect getting mugged if we met in person, or that – having one as a neighbor – I’d have to live in fear of my jewelry getting stolen. I think this is crazy… the banksters are stealing billions from the taxpayers but we worry about beliefs!?
I am not talking here about close-minded people. I am talking about all of us. Particularly us pinheaded types. Who tend to assign way too much importance and weight to ideas, mind constructs, beliefs. And then come to grief while forgetting that some of the congenial-believing people are bound to turn out to be creeps.
I fear perhaps I am not coming across clearly. Let me know what you think.
April 15, 2010 at 5:45 pm
While the internet is lightning fast, it’s still not as fast or effective a means of communicating as pure conversation, because of all the possibility for misunderstanding that’s capable in text.
When I used the word infantile, it is with relation to what it could be. It is immature. For each of us, certain areas of our mind are going to be immature, just due the vastness of the universe. That is not an issue in-and-of itself, but as time passes we will be exposed to new information which allows for the formation of more and more mature and accurate worldviews. If for example, the first person you or I dated was a complete dick, we could choose to remain stunted with the understanding that all possible partners are dicks or that all the partners we choose are dicks or that we have bad taste in partners.
By “assholes,” I was assuming you meant it as people who take their beliefs as faith and force it on other people of differing faiths. I might have misinterpreted you here upon rereading your original post. I totally agree that you can judge a person only by their actions and not their beliefs. I also feel you can find some truth in all people, so I try to find what’s true even in the assholes beliefs.
Beliefs still are incredibly important. With regards to bankers and other white collar criminals. Many people hold the belief that people with money and fancy suits or uniforms are successful. That they are the best of the best. This is a belief that prevents them from seeing that they are shoveling money onto that bastards yacht for no good reason. The problem isn’t the bastard. He’ll get his right coming. The problem lies in the person not being able to see what’s right in front of their own faces. Similarly, we are taught as a society, that you are worthless if you can’t even provide for your own family, but that is also a limiting belief, because as a society we place the highest burdens on the poor and middle classes. It is not entirely their own fault, if their world is one where the path to success is significantly more challenging than one of a higher class. This limiting belief will make them feel as if they are the problem and will prevent them from seeing that they are paying for their house three times before they actually own it.
Action is incredibly important, but the action of others pales in importance to the action of yourself. Your own beliefs are what allow you to take the actions that you need to take to end up where you want. In our society, the belief of worthlessness and inability is all-pervasive. This belief prevents us from doing the actions that lead us to happier lives.
April 18, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Good dialog just above, between Nathan and leavergirl. Just need a better understanding of what is meant by each other’s terms i think. I feel like i “agree” with you both…well, the only thing i’d challenge of Nathan’s right now is the assertion that face-to-face discussion about material like this is more effective than this medium. Myself, I like apples as much as oranges, each a highly effective fruit in different as well as similar ways. Overall, though, i’ll take face-to-face if i have to make a choice, cuz it’s the fabric of genuine community that gets stuff done.
leavergirl wrote: “I present to you for consideration the possibility that believism is a trap. That it does not make sense to look for one’s kindred people on the basis of belief. Believing is cheap. It’s easy. Anyone can mouth the right words after a bit of study; might even feel convinced. But if they are an asshole, what’s the difference?”
Jay D responds: This I found to be, intended as humorous or not, the funniest piece of dark comedy I’ve come across in a good while, maybe my favorite use of the “A-word” ever. Got a good healthy laugh out of the shock value; thanks! Now to “get serious”…
LG: The group will go down in flames as gazillions of those infiltrated by assholes have done from the beginning of time. Beliefs cannot cure a person who treats his or her fellows poorly; they only provide yet another way to bully people.
JD: An important point made there, after the important point that we all seem to be suckered into over-estimating the imporance of beliefs. Both appear to be true.
I’ve a head start on thinking about this lately because coincidentally, very recently I was at a long weekend conference-camp, in which a certain degree of commonality of belief was taken as sort of a given by a group leader and facilitator, only to have that challenged by a few voices standing up for diversity. One woman was particularly uncomfortable with the resemblance of the vibes to her long immersion in the periphery of an inside circle of one of the overlapping Christian movements of the 60s. (As we know, while the hippies were doing their thing, all that Jesus-focused community was adding up to an overwhelming juggernaut which has basically continued since. Not so much the hippies.) To these compassionate and gentle dissenters against groupthink at the camp, it was compellingly pointed out (to over-distill a complex situation) that though a certain resonance of alignment and shared beliefs was being preferred and to some extent taken for granted, and seemed uncomfortably like religious zealotry to someone(s) there, the difference was that this group openly embraced the expression of those views.
Refreshingly, we were connected by something larger and deeper than these “belief-level” forces. It was said, and shown, that the main advocates of the prevailing paradigm which was present there (e.g., that a new culture is needed and we can co-create one by coming together and building closer community) were more open-minded than we were dogmatic. Indeed, the leader most put on the spot by this, who was calmly taken to task as he was uttering some controversial buzz-concepts, handled it pretty skillfully and convincingly.
So yes, this subject bears a good bit of discussion, which I’ll now steer into what I’ve brought with me from my distant past. This I believe about belief: I don’t believe in believing in. I believe in direct experience. E.g., do you “believe in” karma? God? Do you, can you really, have direct experience of these things that is in any way objective? And therein lies the trickiness we must take on. That it all depends how we define belief, or else it can be just another semantical thing. Important to “sort out”, but where’s the big insight? I think there IS one, at least one, to be found here, and it’s good to be finding things with you folks.
April 22, 2010 at 9:10 am
Heya, Leavergirl-
Haven’t read True Believer in years…much water under that bridge. I’d venture that the attraction to belief is based in our primate-ness, our very real need for a tribe or band of the appropriate size (originally a couple of dozen) and affiliation. Once it was local and familial, now it is tribal or political or intellectual or whatever. We need to belong, and want to belong to those like us. Belief serves to bind.
The human mind has been capable of storing vast knowledge for millennia; once upon a time the data related to the terrain and food within it, and predators we both hid from and learned from, the availability of food as it ripened seasonally, how weather behaved, blahblahblah. Even today hunter-gatherers maintain an incredible amount of data, very sophisticated and shifting, but and here’s one key; it’s all related to other data in their lives, handed down from loved or respected ones or direct experience.
Now the data is a flood, much of it unneccessary or extraneous, and modern life is untethered to, let’s say, reality. Many of us never spend time outside at all. What to relate the data to? How to keep it out, especially if you like me have a dearth of cannabinol (sp?) to forget the un-needed? It’s overwhelming, and the sad part is most of it is just stupid data we don’t need. What we do need is a way to sort it out, to organize it, that we can wrap our minds around it and not go crazy. What we need is someone to tell us what to think of things. Priests, leaders; assholes, as you note. Cream rises to the top, but so does shit.
Watch your parking meters…
Anyway, gotta run, but glad to find this place where villagers hide. I dropped in to Nature Bats Last just to lurk, and dropped out again but at least followed the link here. Hope you don’t mind, I always found your comments stimulating whether I agreed or not. No sheep, you. Nor I.
April 23, 2010 at 5:26 pm
My apologies, fellow thinkers and dreamers; I have been preoccupied by issues swirling around my aging father. Heavy family stuff.
Lessee if my brain is up to functioning.
Nathan: I am vastly relieved that we are much more in sync than I feared initially. I guess I shoulda defined “asshole”! Heh! I think I mean the same as you do when you say “dick.” Basically, people who treat others poorly, of which there are endless variations. I was trying to contrast people’s beliefs with the behaviors they exhibit in the world. For example, I recently had a discussion with a defender of status quo animal research (I fall into a “some animal research” position, with greater restraint than is current). Well this gent was rude from the get-go though willing and able to debate the pertinent facts and beliefs. When it became clear to me that he was going to continue his verbal abuse, I bowed out of the discussion. He failed to understand that if I could not trust him to treat me right, all his expertise and professed good will mattered little. If he was a dick toward me, could he be trusted not to be a dick toward the monkey?
I share your concern about beliefs, but along with Dave Pollard am tending in the direction of assuming that what we care about is more important than what we believe. I believe I should drink more water, but I don’t, because I don’t care enough to put it as such a high priority that I won’t forget. I will keep on tweaking my beliefs; I have found it fruitful, but I am going to pay far more attention to how I treat people regardless of beliefs, and how they treat me.
JayD, thank you for appreciating my bit of mischief. A bit of a jolt never hurt a human, especially if it tickles a bit, nah? 🙂
I too think that experiential knowledge has been underrated in our culture, and a better balance would not hurt. It’s good to know there are groups out there daring to be closer-knit than our culture is comfortable with, and finding ways to do it without falling into believism.
Vertalio, welcome! Glad you found this little spot… where sheep fear to tread. 😀
Yes, belief serves to bind, but we forget that belief also serves to divide and fragment. I am groping here toward a new understanding where the like-mindedness needed to bind a group is mellowed by a focus on embodying caring behaviors.
As for experts to help us sort it out, by all means. I am not against leaders. As long as they are kept in their place. Power corrupts; once corrupted, they no longer have what it takes to help us sort it out. Make sense?
June 13, 2010 at 12:10 pm
[…] of the recent posts is on the perils of Believism – Why is it that we are so drawn to other people on the basis of beliefs? The usual pattern is to […]
June 13, 2010 at 12:17 pm
Hey Leavergirl, your pingback has led me to read your recent posts. Am massively impressed (and as you’ll have seen from my Dire Mountain post, I am v. easily unimpressed). LOVED your point that beliefs don’t save someone from being an asshole. Aldous Huxley has a great line in his Buddhist propaganda with humour novel “After Many a Summer…” to the effect that you can have all the virtues, but if you don’t have compassion and understanding, you can still be a thoroughly bad human being.
Have just read Edward De Bono’s “Po: Beyond Yes and No”, which is good (I say that with reservations) on humans not liking ambiguity.
I think the ‘last word’ on this was said by Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 30 years ago “The gourd! The sandal! The gourd!! The sandal!!!”
Am now going to keep reading your wonderful wonderful blog posts.
June 16, 2010 at 9:50 am
Ah, shucks. 🙂
Truth is, your comments made my day! Will look into Aldous.
My sense is not so much that humans don’t like ambiguity; I have been *much* more comfortable within the ambiguous world than I ever was when still grasping for certainty. My sense of it is that humans are trapped in the unambiguous world, and lacking the tools to free themselves, conclude that’s all there is.
Or perhaps, trying to improve their situation, they just keep on digging. 😉
May 25, 2013 at 12:27 pm
I dunno. I don’t pick my friends based on similarity of belief (sometimes more on difference–probably because I’m a contrary soul). I have more friends who are Christians on account of my education and my job, but most of the time I try pretty hard to surround myself with people (even if only virtually) who have different perspectives and beliefs than I do. We may never agree with each other about them, but it’s enriching to me at least, and I like to think it’s mutual. I agree beliefs shouldn’t be used to evaluate people (or evaluate how one is going to serve people) or be put on a pedestal, and I suppose they often are, but I’m still not convinced to stop trying to articulate mine.
Also–I think it’s convenient to idealise the first Christians and vilify the not-first-but-early ones, but I don’t believe it’s accurate. The New Testament is rife with indicators that the first churches were even then riddled with power struggles–even the disciples, walking around with Jesus and getting to know Him face to face succumbed to those tendencies. I think it has more to do with human nature than beliefs per se. Some people–presumably you–are a little better at caring for people than some of the rest of us, but I still think Jesus could have just as likely said, “Where two or more are gathered . . . there’s bound to be a dust-up,” as opposed to the other thing.
May 25, 2013 at 12:59 pm
Jenn, I agree that conflict always pops up. Abuse, however, is optional.
The point I was trying to make is that shared beliefs do not create unity, not the way people think they do. Which opens up the question, what does? I feel a post coming on… 🙂
Are power struggles part of human nature? I think to some extent they are. But so is regard for each other as equals… they both coexist within us.
There is plenty of indication that the early churches had women running them, at least some. And that women played a prominent role. Also evidence of radical sharing of resources…
Have I suggested that you should stop articulating your beliefs? I am aghast you should be hinting at such a thing! But it was you who said that doctrine unifies, and I am trying to put that in perspective.
May 25, 2013 at 1:13 pm
Always glad to have my thoughts put into perspective! I thought you were implying something of the stop-articulating-beliefs sort–forgive me for misinterpreting. I certainly didn’t mean to make you feel aghast! 🙂
And yes, if one of your points about the early church is that, IN SPITE OF its conflicts, it was also more effective in treating people according to their inherent value than the next generation of churches, well, I wasn’t there, but that does seem to be the case. I’m fully on board with the women thing!
May 25, 2013 at 1:42 pm
Whew! What a relief! 🙂
May 25, 2013 at 2:12 pm
🙂
May 25, 2013 at 2:18 pm
Incidentally, according to my husband, I tend (all unwittingly) to read into things that people say ALL THE TIME. I’m sure he’s not wrong.