Our Crisis of Knowing
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I confess I am a philosophical dinosaur. I still believe that there is such a thing as truth, and that ascertaining truth is a virtuous, meaningful, and beneficial enterprise. Postmodernity, however, has little use for truth. The philosophical founders of this worldview were far more concerned with power than truth, and their priorities have had long-lasting effects.
We in the United States find ourselves in the midst of an epistemic crisis. In other words, we are in a crisis of knowing. It is increasingly difficult to determine truth from falsehood. We are rapidly losing faith in the institutions that we have long relied upon to help us understand the world around us, from institutions of higher education to news outlets. The very idea of “knowledge” as a shared set of intellectual commitments is under attack. Consider the following questions:
Are masks effective or ineffective in preventing COVID-19? If they are effective, what kind should we use?
Are COVID-19 vaccines necessary, useless, or harmful?
What value is there to alternative treatments for COVID-19 such as ivermectin?
Was the 2020 election stolen? Did Donald Trump actually win enough votes to retain the presidency, and were some of those votes suppressed?
Will the election results in 2022 and 2024 be reliable?
Is the earth getting warmer as a result of human actions, particularly carbon emissions?
With at least some (if not all) of these questions, your response was likely something like, “Are you kidding? Any fool knows that the answer is X!” I have people in my life on both sides of all of these questions, and most are completely certain of the veracity of their positions. Of course, being certain of something does not make it true. But how can we know if something is true or not? Or better yet, how can we put ourselves in the best position to receive and ascertain that truth which is available to us?
Doing Our Own Research
Many have committed to “doing their own research.” This is not necessarily a bad idea, depending upon how one undertakes it. It is difficult, however, to find sources of information that even attain anything like objectivity or balanced representation of disputed propositions. Consider the extent to which our major news sources have given up on the notion of objectivity in favor of editorializing. The three major outlets–CNN, FOX, and MSNBC–are all openly partisan. To understand why, we must bear in mind the primary goal of these organizations: to make money. Our news sources are not motivated first and foremost by a desire to report the news. They are for-profit enterprises. They sell advertising, and advertising revenue is driven by viewership. Straightforward reporting is less lucrative than controversy. Consider that between January and March 2021, CNN lost 36% of its primetime viewing audience. Why? Donald Trump left office. Trump was nothing if not controversial.
Many have abandoned cable news for social media, which is rather like going from a fist fight to a bar brawl. Facebook (now Meta) and Twitter are also overtly partisan companies. Conservatives are often demonetized by YouTube. Parler was supposed to be a platform dedicated to the free exchange of information and ideas, but it is dominated by right-wing ideologues. Perhaps more progressive social media denizens didn’t need Parler because Facebook and Twitter suited their proclivities so well. Regardless, I’m not aware of any social media platform that I would consider a consistently reliable source of information.
Additionally, the success of social media is predicated upon the emotional responses of users. From the dopamine hit we get when we receive “likes” to the rage elicited by trolls, social media creates spheres of discourse in which truth is often a casualty of ideological warfare.
Even peer-reviewed processes have become so overtly ideological that they are often untrustworthy. Academia itself is dominated by liberal professors and administrators, and academic discourse can be egregiously one-sided. In his book The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense (Regenry, 2020), Gad Saad writes,
A 2005 study conducted across eleven California universities uncovered a 5 to 1 Democrat to Republican ratio. Perhaps not surprisingly the most lopsided ratio was that of UC-Berkeley (8.7-1 ratio). When broken down by departments across universities, thirty-nine out of forty-two listed fields had a greater ratio of Democrat professors…. In a 2016 study of professors’ voting registration at forty leading American universities across five disciplines, the Democrat-to-Republican ratios were 4.5 (economics), 33.5 (history), 20.0 (journalism), 8.6 (law), and 17.4 (psychology). The total across the five disciplines was an 11.5 to 1 ratio favoring Democratic professors (63).
In such scenarios, there is little counterbalance to assure intellectual growth and an honest exchange of ideas. The “Grievance Studies Affair” demonstrates that ideological bias has seeped deeply into the pores of the peer-review process. To be clear, the problem is not that there are liberal professors. The problem is that there are so many liberal professors, and so few of other positions. The same problem would inhere were academia so disproportionately dominated by conservatives.
The great difficulty for people trying to seek out accurate information about everything from medicine to climate change to politics is that we often don’t know where to look. We don’t know which sources to trust. We are in a crisis of knowing, an epistemological maze of ideological posturing and misinformation. What often ends up happening, then, is that we gravitate toward sources that confirm our own biases. This is a natural human tendency–more natural, in fact, than we might think. Put differently, we are likely to engage in motivated research and reasoning.
The Elephant and Rider
In his important work The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, Jonathan Haidt discusses human moral judgments using the metaphors of the “rider” and the “elephant,” which represent different types of cognition. The rider represents “controlled processes, including ‘reasoning-why,’” and the elephant represents “automatic processes, including emotion, intuition, and all forms of ‘seeing that’” (53). Put differently, the rider represents more intentional consideration of ideas, while the elephant represents our intuitive judgments. Though we might at times conflate cognition and reason, it is a mistake to do so. We make unconscious, instinctive judgments all the time. Think how often you’ve heard someone say, “I just have a bad feeling about this,” or “That’s disgusting!” These are intuitive, emotional, cognitive judgments. Likewise, if you see a red-hot burner on a stove, you don’t have to think through the process of whether or not it’s safe to touch it. You simply know–immediately and certainly–that it’s not. These are decisions the “elephant” makes.
Notice that Haidt refers to the “rider” of the elephant, and not the “driver.” The rider is most often not in charge. The way we normally make decisions is that the elephant leans one way or another and begins to move in that direction. The rider, then, begins to develop rationales for the elephant’s actions. In other words, we human beings are often far less deliberative and rational in our moral decisions than we think we are. We are most often driven by intuition and emotion.
Is the rider, then, simply a shill for the impulses of the elephant? Is the rider no more than a PR agent? No, says Haidt, that would be an overstatement. In many cases, the rider can guide the elephant. Reason is not, as David Hume said, simply the slave of the passions.
When does the elephant listen to reason? The main way that we change our minds on moral issues is by interacting with other people. We are terrible at seeking evidence that challenges our own beliefs, but other people do us this favor, just as we are quite good at finding errors in other people’s beliefs. When discussions are hostile, the odds of change are slight. The elephant leans away from the opponent, and the rider works frantically to rebut the opponent’s charges (79).
Nevertheless, says Haidt,
“[I]f there is affection, admiration, or a desire to please the other person, then the elephant leans toward that person and the rider tries to find the truth in the other person’s arguments. The elephant may not often change its direction in response to objections from its own rider, but it is easily steered by the mere presence of friendly elephants … or by good arguments given to it by the riders of those friendly elephants…. (80).
Christians and Truth
Christians cannot give up on either the notion of truth or the quest for it. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being” (John 1:1-3). This Word of God is the logos, the divine reason, coherence, and wisdom that brought creation out of nothing and order out of chaos. It was this very logos, says John, that became flesh and tabernacled among us (1:14). The logos–the very truth of God, the meaningful order by which all things are sustained–became a person in Jesus Christ. For Christians, truth is not just an idea. Truth is a person. And so often we are like Pilate, standing in front of Jesus, not recognizing truth when we see it (John 18:38).
We must not, then, succumb to postmodern axioms such as, “There is no absolute truth,” “You have your truth and I have mine,” or “Truth is unattainable.” We believe in truth, and we believe that truth is good. Ultimately, every true claim, regardless of the realm of knowledge (math, science, literature, philosophy, theology, etc.), comes to us through the logos of God who came to us in Jesus Christ. Truth comes from the source of all goodness and is itself good.
Nevertheless, the truth of a given situation is often complex, and it is often difficult to ascertain. I want to suggest, however, that there is a certain approach to thinking and knowing that is innate to the Christian life. We believe that there is truth, that truth is knowable, that God can reveal truth, and that we are to walk in it. Here are a few practices, then, that can help Christians to negotiate the choppy, often murky cultural waters in which we swim:
Succeed with many advisors. Important decisions are not best made sitting in isolation. Rather, the counsel of other people generally provides perspectives we would not see otherwise. Proverbs 15:22 teaches, “Without counsel, plans go wrong, but with many advisers they succeed.” As discussed above, Haidt argues that we can best grow intellectually in conversation with other people, particularly people who hold different ideas than we do. Without some level of debate, we cannot make intellectual progress. Part of the section quoted above is worth repeating; “The elephant may not often change its direction in response to objections from its own rider, but it is easily steered by the mere presence of friendly elephants … or by good arguments given to it by the riders of those friendly elephants.” Actual love and friendship with other people, including those with whom we disagree, facilitate our intellectual gains.
Live in humility. Pride is not only a cardinal sin, but an impediment to learning and wisdom. Colossians 3:12 reads, “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” Engage in self-examination. What is at stake in this for me? What does it mean if I come up with answers I don’t like? What is God teaching me through this? Before you offer a rebuttal to someone with whom you disagree, try to consider honestly and carefully what that person is saying. Keep in mind your own fallibility as a thinker. If you are reading an article by someone whom you consider to be ideologically wrongheaded, try nevertheless to read carefully and understand what the author is saying. You may still end up disagreeing, but perhaps your own position will become more nuanced.
Practice patience. James advises, “Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger” (1:19). When people disagree with you, don’t cut them off. I’ve heard about family members who stopped speaking to one another over the 2016 and 2020 elections. Speaking personally, there have been times when I’ve felt that people I know and love have stepped through the looking glass. They have adopted sets of ideas that seem almost unthinkable to me. Likewise, my ideas probably seem utterly wrongheaded to them. In most cases, nothing is gained by severing the relationship. There are, however, intellectual and ideological bullies and trolls from whom we must walk away. In my own experience, some people who have claimed to want “dialogue” have been only interested in elevating their own platform. Ongoing conversation in such circumstances is unproductive.
Remember who you are. You belong to Christ. You have been adopted as a son or daughter into God’s household. “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption” (Rom 8:14-15). Our identity in Christ and the truth of God’s love form the first principles of our reflection. When we find ourselves in times of confusion, we trust in God to lead us forward. We believe that God wants us to walk in truth and live in ways that are consistent with his will. He has given us Scripture and sanctified the reason of the church through the ages for this very purpose. We also know that when the world around us is caught up in seemingly endless debate, sophistry, and one-upmanship, there is a more excellent way. Christ gives us confidence and peace even when we don’t know all the answers.
We in the U.S. are in a crisis of knowing, but there are ways of approaching the confusion around that help us to cut through the clutter, perceive the world around us more accurately, and prevent our contributing to the crisis. Go ahead and “do your own research,” but as you do so, remember that you are a Christian. The world is full of lies and the people who tell them, but God is truth, so we at least know where to begin.
David F. Watson is Lead Editor of Firebrand. He serves as Academic Dean and Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.