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People too stupid to change?
There are a few different points that I meant to address from the lengthy interview with John Lash that I posted earlier in the week. In one section, Lash is talking about how his site is “dedicated to critical examination of beliefs”, yet explains….
But bear in mind that belief-change is neither an option nor a desideratum for most people. 99.9 percent of the folks can’t hack it.
And then later on, he is talking about why Gnosticism won’t get popular:
Frankly, I don’t think that Gnosis as a spiritual path will appeal to many people today, mainly because of stupidity, currently at record levels, and still rising. It takes exceptional intelligence, a certain kind of deep, intuitive and poetic intelligence, to grasp the Gnostic message.
I happen to think he’s wrong that it won’t appeal to people as a spiritual path. Just check out the ever increasing amount of gnostic blogs in my blogroll for proof. Or look around at books, movies, etc. This shit’s popping out everywhere. Lash later goes on to talk about how making people stupid has been a concerted directed effort on the part of those in power. And I tend to agree with that as well (to a degree). But in general, how do you guys feel about all this stuff that most people aren’t smart enough to be gnostics or aren’t smart enough even to examine their beliefs critically?
Here’s how I feel about it: if we take that attitude, we exclude people from the quest. We suggest that what we’re doing is special and that certain people aren’t invited. And this doesn’t need to be about gnosticism at all. It can be about spirituality in general, or how people live their lives. To me, it seems like a better angle to approach this whole thorny issue is to give people permission. You wanna find out about gnosticism? Go for it. We won’t tell you you’re stupid or unfit. You want to find out what it would be like to change your beliefs and live your life differently? Come on in, the water’s fine!
I don’t mean to pick on Lash here, either. I just find this to be a great illustration of a disturbingly common trend among the counter-culture and alternative religion crowd. There’s an aspect to this of wanting to have a private club where we control all the rules and membership. And sometimes that’s great. But if we’re going to be dealing with universals and the concept of divinity and salvation, doesn’t that concern everybody, not just those who we perceive as being smart enough to grasp it?
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August 17th, 2005 at 8:50 pm
right on, if my dumb dog and my dumb friends can’t come to “heaven” with me due to some bloody red-tape, then it’s not heaven and i’m not going there either.
i think that people who think people are too stupid to change their beliefs are too stupid to change their beliefs, so there.
i see stupidity everywhere but i’ve never seen this phantasm called intelligence. i’ve seen more evidence for ultraterrestrials. people with pretensions to intelligence are just the ones with the best disguise.
no, it just takes a bump on the head.
i like that
August 17th, 2005 at 9:15 pm
Sermon on the mount — Last Temptation screenplay style
–
JESUS
I’m sorry if I have to tell you
stories. But is seems to be the only
way I can tell you what I have to.
(pause)
A farmer was planting in his field.
Some seed fell on the ground and the
birds ate it. Some seed fell on rocks
and dried up. But some seed fell on
rich soil, grew into wheat and fed a
lot of people.
Long silence. No one has any idea what the hell he’s talking
about.
JESUS
Didn’t you hear me? Are you people
deaf?
ZEBEDEE
(indignant)
We can hear fine. It’s not us. Can’t
you be more… clear.
Jesus thinks for a moment. He is also hiding annoyance.
JESUS
I’m the farmer. The farmer’s me.
–
I think that sums it up. For some the seed is stolen, for some the seed dries up because they’re too hard to open themselves up to it, but a special few are like rich soil who allow the seed to enter them and reap the harvest.
August 18th, 2005 at 3:54 pm
We were all born smart enough, and all of us can potentially hack it, but first we have to overcome our training to be stupid. Stupidity is not a lack of intelligence but an active principle.
August 18th, 2005 at 11:25 pm
someone needs to spell divinity out in simple terms on billboards across america with a big enough budget that the message will compete with dogma. stupidity is the result of active campaigns. is a ground state. it is a media in and of it`sself. the stupidity is the ground for things like consumerism and pollution and divorce and lawyers and anger and resentment. if the media of stupidity is attacked then the contents will dissolve.
August 18th, 2005 at 11:46 pm
Yes! And that’s what I’m saying. If we can stop calling everybody stupid, that seems to me to be the first step. Get rid of that as a limiting belief and upgrade it for something more inclusive and useful.
August 20th, 2005 at 12:49 am
It’s a rare opportunity to be interviewed on your site. I came to the invitation with the intent to be as honest as possible, not deferring from what might be regarded as objectionable or offensive – although I could easily have done so. I inserted the remark about stupidity deliberately, curious as to how it would be taken. At the same time, the remark is not disingenuous. It reflects a sincere personal observation about the state of human intelligence today. It is just that: an observation, not a condemnation.
Since you personally saw fit to respond to this remark – and, I might point out, to ignore the other, more revealing language in which it is embedded, where I talk about the passion to learn – I would like to take a moment to respond to your response, as briefly as possible.
In the first place, it is not my “belief” that belief-change is difficult for people. This is a studied observation formed over many years. Imagine that I said, “Trekking in the Himalayas is difficult for most people.” Or “Serial endosymbiosis theory is difficult for most people.” I think you would accept those statements as rational assessments that anyone might make, especially someone who’s done some trekking or studied evolutionary biology. When it comes to belief, however, everyone is an expert, and everyone has something at stake, including you.
By stating my personal assessment that most people have neither the inclination nor the intelligence to tackle belief-change, I am not putting myself in an elite category and shutting the door to the world at large. I fail to see how stating my personal view excludes anyone from the quest. Genuine spirituality is a self-selection process, a volunteer path. I can neither exclude nor enlist anyone, and I don’t. I would never presume to “give people permission” (your words) to enter the quest.
Perhaps what you’re responding to here is my deliberately non-encouraging stance. I could have said, for instance, “The Gnostic path of spirituality presents a steep challenge, but we’re living in an exceptional time when Gnosis is being recovered, so many people can rise to that challenge, and more and more people are attracted to do so.” I could have said that and come out looking pretty good, but I didn’t say it because I don’t think it’s true. I am not telling anyone personally that they are stupid or unfit for this quest. I have never spoken that way to anyone, as my friends and colleagues will attest. I am saying that I don’t think genuine, deep and enduring involvement in the Gnostic revival is going to be everyone’s cup of Starbucks.
I do not belong to “the counter-culture and alternative religion crowd,” but you are free to put me in that category, if that suits you. I am not engaged in forming a private club or cult following where I control all the rules and membership (your words). Tim, you are wasting your valuable time with distorted allusions like this. Are you responding to what I actually said, or dodging phantoms in your own mind? Why proceed on what you infer from what I appear to say, rather than get into the substance of what I really mean?
You site is a prime example of what I mean. It sparkles with intelligence. Your treatment of Gnostic materials and themes is lucid, relevant, lively, probing. I can’t compare your blogroll to other Gnostically oriented blogs on the Net, which I haven’t visited, but I would be surprised, and delighted, to find that anyone is doing as well as you are to integrate, clarify, and apply this arcane material. The day there are a hundred sites as lively and intelligent as yours treating Gnosticism, give me a sign and I’ll repent my ruthless elitism. Come to think of it, I’ll repent when there are ten sites.
But you may say, Why limit the possibilities with a negative, discouraging attitude? How can I, John Lash, tell how far this Gnostic thing is going to go? Well, I can’t, of course.
If I exhibit what appears to be a negative attitude, making offensive remarks about human stupidity, you might consider that I being brutally honest about my own experience on this path, that’s all. I am not enforcing or imposing my criteria on anyone. I do not gloat and sneer at the stupidity of the human species, although this attitude is clearly demonstrated in Gnostic texts. The degeneration of our innate sapience, the breakdown of the divine intelligence endowed in us, breaks my heart. It’s sad as hell, and has marked me deeply. I accept that you and others were offended by my language, but your response says less about what I said, and why I said it, then it does about what you need or want Gnosis to be. You want it to be accessible to everyone. Fine, I wish you the best. I’m telling you that as far as I know, it isn’t, never was, and never will be. “Not every soul is of truth, nor of immortality.” The Apocalypse of Peter, 75.12.
However, the fruits of Gnosis, the things seen and learned by those on that quest, are not hoarded by those who discover them. The purpose of Gnostic practice was to prepare the initiates to educate, teach and guide, to cultivate the genius in humanity, the dose of divine intelligence. Although initiation was a rare and secret experience, gnostikoi did not keep the primordial revelation to themselves, they generously imparted it. They were champions of human potential. As educators of the ancient world, they helped others to learn and self-actualize. In every instance where they encountered human stupidity, in the form of blocked and unrealized potential, they attempted to overcome it and enlighten it. I do the same, in my limited and fallible way. I just do not pretend that it an easy task and a popular calling, or that the odds of success are favorable.
August 20th, 2005 at 1:24 am
Hi John, as I said, I hope you don’t think I was attacking you, since I really appreciate your involvement in this conversation. I’m certainly not offended by your statements either. But that doesn’t mean I need to agree with everything you say, does it? I’m free to both respond to what you said verbatim and my perception about what you said. Both are equally valid. Your words stand as historical record about what you said. Any distortion I may have made to them also stands for all to see, and again that’s fine with me. I regret if I put words into your mouth, but I felt pretty clear in terms of what you actually said, and my own framing of it as my own opinion. This is after all my website, composed largely of my opinion. You’ve said your piece, and I’m trying to say mine. What’s wrong with that?
I appreciate the advice, but obviously this is an issue I need to work out for myself. So though it may seem like a waste of time to you, there’s something in this (whether you said it or me) that I need to understand and reconcile before I can proceed.
Well those are exactly the questions I am asking here, John. What’s the best way for people to do that? I don’t pretend to have the final answer. Just like you, I have to judge this based on my own experience and my own perhaps limited perception. I’m more than willing to admit that everything I have said or will say is totally flagrantly wrong. And I’m perfectly happy with that, because I’m just making my way through the world as it comes to me. Your suggestions and clarifications are duly noted and always welcome, as are I hope mine.
If nothing else, we seem to be united by a shared interest in examining our own beliefs and those of others, correct? This to me is all part of that process.
August 20th, 2005 at 12:07 pm
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Lash Update!
John Lash added some further insights into our conversation about the role […]