I think noble stands must be made whenever unsubstantiated arguments are publicized, if for no other reason than for the sake of quality-control. For here is the danger: If a Boston Globe or New York Times columnist states a premise without supplying evidence, his readers will likely accept that premise fully. But what is a premise? A premise is the basis on which a logical argument is based. And if the premise is flawed, the conclusion that is a result of the logical argument will both be false and likely produce a number of contradictions. And if the conclusion that is a result of a flawed premise becomes generally accepted, history then is at the mercy of armchair historians; our popular account of history becomes suspect.

Matthew Starrs is arguing several points: One, that morality is not a product of reason. He also utilized the word ‘misnomer’ in relation to his argument. A misnomer is merely something that has been misnamed. He did not state what exactly had been misnamed, so it is safe to exclude this word altogether; it sounded neat but I don’t think it was the word he was looking for. ‘Misnomer’ refers to the inappropriate use of a name or place, as in a legal document. Moving on: If morality is not a product of reason, of what is it a product? Morality refers to the conforming of an individual to right conduct—the ability to distinguish from right or wrong. It is in the nature of man to wish to live—the jury definitely is in on that point: human beings perform countless acts every day to ensure their survival. It is agreed that this is a pursuit congenial to all human beings. It is accepted implicitly that to live is, indeed, right. I observe this right in my friends, family, acquaintances and neighbors. These same people observe this right in me. How did this observation of ‘the right to live” come about? It is an explicit product of man’s ability to reason. Choice requires the powers of reason. And reason is the offspring of consciousness. Conscious beings are capable of morality by virtue of their ability to reason. So, how is morality not a product of reason?

Matthew Starrs next argues the following: Human beings are at the mercy of ‘herd mentality.’ Firstly, there is not a study that has ever successfully confirmed that human beings are herd animals. Cattle are herd animals. Sheep are herd animals; geese flock, which is similar in some respects to herding. Human beings do not herd. We have no requirement, bodily or otherwise, to herd. Have you ever heard anyone say, “Oh look, there’s a herd of humans!” Human beings reason as a matter of course; they do not herd, and consequently, they are not subject to ‘herd mentality,’ as a prerequisite of herd mentality is instinct, and human beings are simply not instinctive beings—humans are conscious beings. Philosophy, on the other hand, does have the ability to make large numbers of people behave similarly over extended periods of time. And the relevant portion to which we are referring is the Holocaust. Starrs suggests, taking his cue from Jacoby, that the Holocaust was the brainchild of atheists. This is not the case. The topic of the Holocaust deserves careful consideration, so for the purposes of this particular post, I am going to summarize a few of its philosophical underpinnings. The first was its overtly dogmatic nature. What do I mean by this? Dogma refers to an explicit system of belief. Those dogmas are most successful that have consequences. The dogmas inherent in the Germanic flavor of National Socialism had consequences. Several years before Auschwitz and Birkenau a failure to comply with the social and economic dogmas laid down by the National Socialists was social ostracization, imprisonment and very often execution. More often than not, Germany’s citizens complied to the letter at first with a vague disbelief and then with total acceptance. “Well,” you ask, “how could a people be so silly? They had minds of their own. Why didn’t they just revolt?” And the answer is philosophy and more specifically the pervasive philosophical, psychological and art movements of the Weimar Republic which prepared them, unknowingly of course, and unintentionally by the philosophers of record themselves, for dictatorship. Who were these philosophers, psychologists and artists? The roll call is a long one, but the most crucial players were Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, Jung, Kandinsky, Klee & Thomas Mann. This is an incomplete list, but it is an important one nonetheless. Each of these thinkers, Kant especially, owed a great deal to Plato, for at root, they were Platonists. Platonism was the foundation on which many of their philosophies were based, perhaps the most insidious of which was Kant’s “great leap of faith.” It may be said that Plato was the father of Kant and Hegel, and Kant the father of Marx and Nietzsche while Hegel served as their dour uncle. And in turn Nietzsche had the ear of Hitler.

It is too often stated as the obvious that it was merely propaganda and Hitler’s charisma that moved an entire people into blind allegiance. This is a false premise. Propaganda is a tool, and it can only meet with success when it falls on ears that have been prepared in a philosophical sense and the people of Weimar Germany had been very well prepared; prepared by a heritage steeped in Platonism, mysticism, Kant, Hegelian dictums, naturalism, self-reflexive theater, symbolist aesthetics and a body of literature that had had reason in its crosshairs for almost a century and a half. This is a country well-versed in Marx; that took the idea of altruism literally and pandered to it, and no reasonable people will tolerate broad-based altruism for an extended period of time without succumbing to the whims that are its aim. This is a country steeped in mysticism, not an atheist ethic; it is one of the most pronounced hosts in Europe of Eastern mysticism and Buddhism. This is a country whose headline philosopher, Kant, was the self-proclaimed ambassador of all things irrational; that no man can come to knowledge by the powers of reason; that it required a ‘leap of faith’ to make peace with life; that freedom is his that embraces the irrational, that feels, that acts, that moves, but must not under any circumstances reason! These are the facts. This is the climate that made the German people ripe for Hitler. It was the long-term subjugation of a people to the tenets of illogic, unreason, subjectivity (Freud). It was the philosophical pogrom of Hegel that denounced the notion that knowledge can be gotten from rational observations of the world. Concerning Kant and Hegel, this was a tag-team philosophy, with the sole aim of soldier-making and stealing minds. It was not Hitler’s charisma alone that compelled party sympathizers to turn a blind –eye to the systematic annihilation of between 9 and 26 million human beings. It was not this wildly unsubstantiated claim that atheism was the banner under which Nazism reigned. These were mystics, living irrational lives in a thoroughly subjective world. The road to Nazism was paved by philosophy, NOT by reason. I beg you do your homework. I beg Mr. Jacoby do his. I beg you read and read and read some more. For the future of man’s mind hangs in the balance. Our path in the free world today is a path with eerie parallels to Weimar Germany; paths paved by Platonism run amok, by blind faith, by too many souls feeling too much for all of the wrong reasons and at the expense of reason.

I hope you don’t take this information lightly. It’s a blog post, and horrendously incomplete, but it’s a start—a necessary start. I am naming names and I am defending reason because there is too little room left in this world even for an ounce of irrationality.

Finally, no civilization that esteemed reason and made reason its aim, devolved into anarchy. I challenge you, Mr. Starrs, to name 1 such civilization.

If there were one more thing that I would have liked for him to respond to, it would be the assumption that (in the absence of religion) morality was derived from reason and intelligence. This is sadly a misnomer.

Sociologists would most likely want to refer you to “Social Contract Theory”. In a nutshell, I treat you in a way that obliges you to respond accordingly, and we all get along just fine.

The problem is that the herd mentality is malleable, and has been abused repeatedly throughout history by groups and individuals in order to achieve their own purposes. Some of these have utilised religion. The worst offenders are those cited by Mr Jacoby and they utilise atheism.

That is because it is much easier to pervert a morality that is built on social norms (which are easier to change) than it is to pervert a morality built on ancient traditions, especially those embodied in religions.

What you are actually advocating for is called “Anarchy”. That is where (to quote the bible) “every man did what was right in his own eyes”. This would not be a problem if our species had a greater propensity for benevolence, but the truth is, because we are universally selfish, what is good for the “other” will always come a distant second to what is good for “me” . . . . . . This, of course, is the very problem that Jesus Christ came into the world to address.

Dear Mr. Jacoby,

How and when morality became tied up with discourse on religion is beyond me and well beyond my powers of reason–perhaps anybody’s powers of reason. Morality is the offspring of one’s ethics, ethics which determine the values by which one chooses to live; values that are shaped by reason, by the intellect, not by something mystical, not by some undefined feeling, not by stirrings in one’s heart.

Man’s finest inheritance from his ancestors is this faculty of reason, which alone enables him to appraise his world with the intellect; to observe, consider and understand that world, informing by a reasonable method, the values by which he is to live.

What you are encouraging in your recent article “Atheists’ Bleak Alternative,” is the acceptance of a method that constitutes the single most grave moral failing available to man: rejecting all standards of intellectual honesty. If indeed it is your aim to usher in a new Dark Age, than your method is a keen one; it is a method wholly capable of achieving that end, and swiftly so. And for the sake of that ignominious end you would ask that your readers accept a proposition for which there is no evidence. You would ask that your readers dispense with the scientific method; you would ask that he sublimate the single greatest power that he has at his disposal–reason–in exchange for faith, which has been shown to divide man decisively, with impunity, age after age. This is the moral failing and intellectual failing that you would ask your readers to assume, to internalize.

The costs of your position are known; one need only consult recent history. It is the secular position to which you refer that is the responsible position. It is the position that would regard all men in the light of reason. And reason exacts its reward: peace. Peace, not the supernatural, should be in man’s interest.

Sincerely,

Thomas R. Fahy

And here is Mr. Jacoby’s response:

Dear Mr. Fahy,

Thank you for your note. But you might consider your own admonition: “The costs of your position are known; one need only consult recent history.”

Recent history teaches me that the “faculty of reason” you seem to venerate can lead human beings into the darkest of all Dark Ages. It was the “faculty of reason” that brought about the Soviet Gulag, the Chinese Great Leap Forward, the Cambodian genocide, the Nazi Holocaust. As I wrote in the column, religion has certain been perverted by many villains over the
course of human history. But we for bloodshed and suffering on the most massive scale, we can thank men and movements that were relentlessly hostile to religion and and any gods higher than themselves.

All the best,

Jeff Jacoby

A meagerly reasoned response reflecting a forgiveable ignorance of the philosophical underpinnings of said atrocities, but a response, nonetheless. This is how good debates are initiated. Mr. Jacoby’s argument is flawed and in my next post, I will tell you why, using the Holocaust as an example. And I aim to encourage further participation by the Boston Globe and Mr. Jacoby.

The trick is to make people afraid of the consequences of the truth.

So first they either reject the premise–the reality of a godless world, or the reality of government complicity in the pretext for the “War on Terror”–then go on to imagine how horrible the world would be if everyone felt the way we did.

Hmm …

Perhaps we’d better keep quiet.