A recent post over at Brief Essays with Pictures got me thinking. If Libertarians are taking the approach that they are "the only ones who are being rational," what does that mean? Don’t we conservatives do that when we talk about liberals and their emotional illogic? Don’t atheists do that when they reject faith?
Here’s my answer to the mistake of thinking that we are the only ones being rational, or that rationality alone is the answer to abuses of faith and emotion.
It’s not just libertarians who define themselves as rational thinkers – it’s atheists, and often, religious conservatives.
What they are really doing is railing against the forces of irrationality that they often rightly perceive out there – but usually, they throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Atheists see religious dogma as unthinking and irrational, even anti-rational. And in abusive cases where people have abandoned reason rather than making a useful marriage of Faith and Reason, of course they are being irrational. Atheists and secular materialists respond by despising, discarding, disregarding, or marginalizing faith rather then seeing how dogma (in tradition, human wisdom, and dare I say revealed faiths) can balance our limited and often self-deceptive use of reason.
Conservatives see emotional fanaticism as unthinking and irrational. And when environmentalists, for example, would rather allow thousands to die of malaria than to moderate how we use DDT, conservatives are right to scream "we need scientific environmentalism, not emotional panic reasoning."
In fact, not only have anti-global warming panic conservatives thrown out the environment with the panic mongers, some environmentalists are realizing this error, but instead of rejecting environmentalism as some have, they have written a book charting a smarter strategy – see Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility.
CONCLUSION
This type of "we are the rational ones" is a reaction to those who fail to balance reason with faith and emotion. We should, however, look for the balance rather than the "reason only" solution, since both emotion (i.e. intuitionn. • direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process; immediate apprehension.
• a function of the spirit rather than the mind
More, gut feeling, love, compassion) and faith (wisdom, revealed truth) have something to contribute to the guidance and management of mankind and his resources.
I am disappointed by the silence of the atheists on this one.
Seeker,
The rationality that I’m speaking of is a very defined rationality used by economists to judge human behavior. In it, only actions which better you financially are considered rational actions, because to these economists (and not ALL economists, mind you) we are walking cost-benefit calculators. Obviously, I find this sort of logic somewhat poor. While I accept the notion that we are cost-benefit calculators, I think that the costs and benefits we calculate are much more complicated that simply financial; thus, I think that it is impossible for anybody to make what might be described as an irrational decision.
That said, you continue to make the same mistake that you always have: you excoriate anybody who you think believes differently than you do, and then turn around and believe in exactly the same manner. In other words, the libertarian economist believes that he is “rational.” You think he’s wrong for not including X, Y, and Z, and then proceed to claim that, in fact, you’re the one acting appropriately and everybody else is wrong. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
you excoriate anybody who you think believes differently than you do, and then turn around and believe in exactly the same manner.
Sam, you’ve missed my point entirely. I haven’t excoriated anyone – I have merely described a self-reinforcing and self-congratulatory ruse that many of us use to convince ourselves that we are right, and that our opponents are wrong – in fact, I mentioned not only the libertarians (sorry if I misunderstood your use of the word “logic,” but I think my application still applies), but the atheists (which is why you may be upset), and conservatives (one of the camps I inhabit).
And in the end, I wanted to return to my assertion that logic and reason alone, while good things (TM), are insufficient in and of themselves to answer all questions and problems that humans face – it is a very limiting and unbalanced view, neglecting the other faculties of man, i.e. their emotions, intuition (on which many books are now being written such as ), and faith (the healthy kind, not The Atheist’s Caricature of Faith).
But thank you for commenting on this, I was disappointed that no one else did.
So my point is, even us conservatives should not make this error.