The Incredible Truth

"How do they reason it's owed them?"

She shrugged. "Because someone from the palace said so. Said they were entitled to it. Said all the people were. Some . . . believe in it. . . So they sit and wait, to be given, to be taken care of, instead of seeing to their own needs. They fight over who should be given the gold first. Some of the weak and old have been killed in those fights."

--Blood of the Fold, Terry Goodkind.

I've got a lot on my mind today. My poli-sci class always gets my political ire up a bit. I started my day thinking about two things: a quote from Ayn Rand, and a cutie in my class. The quote from Ayn Rand concerns the cutie in my class.

"The corollary of the Big Lie is the Incredible Truth." --Ayn Rand

That's the quote. It's packed, and I do mean packed with meaning. A corollary is a self-evident truth arising from a previously accepted truth. As such it must be accepted if the first truth is accepted. The "Big Lie" refers to any idea or set of ideas that is a) false, and b) so widespread, so pervasive that it has ceased to be truly controversial and settled into the status of conventional wisdom or "common sense." The "Incredible Truth" refers not only to the actual truth opposing the "Big Lie," but also that those that espouse the truth are regarded with pity, or as deluded, misguided, crazy, fanatical, zealouts, or heretics. The actual truth is so unbelievable as to be not believed.

There's are psychological observations buried in this statement, for both the believer of the "Big Lie" and the "Incredible Truth." Believers in the "Big Lie" have no reason to question it, and are therefore appropriately skeptical of anything that comes along to challenge it. Believers in the "Incredible Truth" should expect to be greeted with skepticism and develop a degree of epistemological finesse and personal patience with people when challenging the conventional wisdom.

How does this relate to the cutie in my class? She gave me homework. A few weeks ago we were assigned to debate whether or not federal legislation should be passed banning smoking in all public places on the grounds that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer and heart disease in non-smokers. I argued against such legislation on the grounds that it should be up to each business owner whether or not to allow smoking in his/her own establishment. I further argued that there is no evidence linking secondhand smoke to the diseases mentioned. I challenged my fellow students to look this information up for themselves.

A week later, the cutie in my class brought me three newspaper articles on the effects on SHS Second hand smoke). I pointed out to her that none of the articles had any actual data in them, that they were simply collections of quotations from scientists claiming ill effects from SHS, but nothing to prove it. I pointed out that the articles gave no other sources of documentation, did not identify whether or not the organizations the scientists quoted belonged to were political activist groups, etc.. I promised to bring her some real information.

In my mind I called this my "hottie homework." I described this to my friends as homework she had assigned to me, but in reality this was homework I was assigning to her. I wanted to know how she was going to respond to the information I gathered. Among other things, I pointed her to this article and this study. I gave her these materials last week just before our test. Given that our teacher lets us leave immediately after we've taken our tests, I didn't have time to talk to her after the test.

Today knowing I was going to see her, I thought of Ayn Rand's quote. I was unprepared for the response I got. She didn't say she had a problem with the study I have her; nor did she say that she had accepted the conclusions reached by the study; neither still did she say that she didn't have enough information to come to a conclusion on the issue, and that she would continue to research it further. See, these ideas were my optimism in humanity. I was already impressed that she had bothered to do the research to find the articles she had given me; I had convinced myself that this meant that she took ideas at least somewhat seriously: I was wrong.

What she said was: "I think it's all just subjective, just a matter of who you want to believe."

... Stunned silence ...

It was on the basis of this "subjective . . . who you want to believe" feeling that she wanted to enact legislation telling business owners what they can and cannot do with their own property. She has admitted that her position has no objective value, and that she refuses to defend it on those terms. I began to argue with her--just barely; then I realized that I was wasting my time. Her standard for what she believes is that she wants to believe something. Even if I brought her to my side on this issue, it would be for the wrong reason. Objectivity, to her, doesn't exist. She has renounced even the desire of it. Bringing those articles in to me was not an attempt at reasoning, but an attempt on voting on the truth: "If enough people believe like me, it must be alright to believe like me even if I don't have good reasons."

Disgusting.

It's amazing how quickly a woman who only a few moments before quickened my pulse at merely the thought of her, could cause me to feel utter revulsion. I felt dirty that I had spent any time thinking of her at all.

Then class started and we started discussing the role of the Supreme Court. My teacher likes to give these assignments where we all get into groups and argue some point or another. Tonight my we were all tasked to decide whether or not various Supreme Court decisions were examples of judicial Activism or judicial Restraint. After debating Brown vs. The Board of Education for awhile, I decided that the whole issue of Activism vs. Restraint was irrelevant. This is how people get caught up in the Big Lie in the first place: by getting bogged down in meaningless minutiae. The Supreme Court is Activist and Restraining. But it doesn't really matter: what matters is what agenda they are pushing, and whether it is for or against Individual Rights, Life, Liberty, and Property.

Okay, rant over. On to better things--tomorrow is the day that Halo 2 comes out. I'll be busy playing that this next week. :) Thanks for listening...