Mental Immunity by Andy Norman

Author:Andy Norman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harper Wave
Published: 2021-05-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Reason Unhinged

How thinking becomes ideological

The moment you declare a set of ideas immune to criticism . . . thought becomes impossible. —Salman Rushdie

The mind is born free, but everywhere it is in chains. These words make up the terrific opening line of The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s classic work of Enlightenment political philosophy. I changed it a little bit.

By “chains,” I mean ideological chains. Consider this fact: no one is born an ideologue. Now combine it with another: ideological rigidity is common among the elderly. Conclusion? Worldviews harden over time. Or tend to. Say what you will about old dogs and new tricks: in humans, mental inflexibility is acquired.

Of course, ideologues rarely experience their ideologies as chains. From the inside, their views just seem deeply, obviously right. From without, though, it’s often clear that the ideologue has a blind spot. Or—to pick a better analogy—a deafness: an inability to hear certain kinds of reasons. For example, a free market ideologue might be unable to appreciate a nuanced case for regulating economic activity. A devout Marxist might be unable to process certain critiques of Marx. In both cases, an ardent philosophical commitment makes it hard to think straight. Incidentally, these cases are perfectly representative of the entire class: ideologues generally are trapped in a way that prevents them from hearing certain sorts of reasons. The falcon cannot hear the falconer.

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