Knowing and Believing

Here in the closing days of 2009, an adamant punditocracy demands a way to define not just the year, but an entire decade. The New York Times yearns for an appropriate nickname--like The Roaring 20's. Never mind that no one used that descriptor until years later. We need a solution--and we need it now.

At first glance, it would seem that for virtually all of the common historic metrics, during the past ten years not much has changed.

The business narrative spans an indecipherable distance from Enron on the front end to the Wall Street mortgage ruse on the back. Ken Lay to Bernie Madoff. Dust unto dust.

The unchallenged technological narrative of this decade is the Internet. It has infinitely expanded the availability of both knowledge and voice. It is so revolutionary that some think it too complex for its predecessors to grasp. But while it's easy to disparage Time Warner's ill-advised purchase of AOL in the first weeks of 2000...or the similar misstep by Rupert Murdoch assuming he'd control the future just by swallowing MySpace...it's more uncomfortable to blithely dismiss the thousands of newspaper people displaced from their professions. It is ignorant to believe nothing has been lost in the process.

And in the political arena, these last ten years have perpetuated not only the same puppet show--but the same crazed puppeteers pulling the strings. I assert that the singular historical event of this period was not 9/11, but the gathering of a small mob of faux 'ordinary citizens' in a courthouse in West Palm Beach Florida at the end of 2000...screaming and pounding on the glass walls of a room until duly appointed public servants quit their Constitutional duty of recounting ballots cast by their fellow citizens. And that begat modern day Tea Parties too manic for even a Mad Hatter to attend. The same political terrorists of the Republican Party controlled both actions. Their purpose is not to promote an alternate political ideology, but rather simply to obstruct.

Together, all this can support the perception that during a ten year span, nothing has really changed--certainly not for the better. In fact, a stronger case can be made for unquestioned societal regression. Indeed, scratching a little deeper beneath each of these examples, what emerges is a more fundamental and troubling truth. The ancient tug between 'know' and 'believe' has once again swung decisively to the 'believe'--to the detriment of us all.

Here's what I mean.

What Enron's trading operation and Wall Street's 'liar's loans' asserted is that you can, indeed, make something out of nothing. There is no need to provide an asset behind a promise when that promise can so deeply move the inherent greed of man. Yes, the truly rational people knew all along that the tech and housing bubbles would eventually burst. They understood that no one could keep generating the returns of a Madoff, or the profits of an AIG. But those dealing in reality not only constituted a small minority; more importantly, their input was systematically stripped from the mechanisms ostensibly constructed to avoid the consequences. If enough people devoutly believed that fiscal gravity could be defied, well, that was enough.

The technology and communications struggle between 'old media' and new is similarly troubling. For every 100 blogs brought to life (just like this one), another newspaper career is put to death. To some, this is not only acceptable, it's preferable. Why? Because the blogosphere is not 'controlled' by evil media overlords...it doesn't face a permanent and unrelenting deadline...and what's more, its proprietors are probably smarter than those pathetic, Neanderthal ink-stained wretches. But even if all these beliefs were true, a fundamental ingredient is lost in the transition. Because bloggers tell you what they believe; while reporters tell you what they know. At one time, every ambitious cub reporter working a police beat in the middle of the night dreamt of the day when he or she would be granted license to write a column...to leaven all that was known with the sequential conclusion of what should be believed.

On the Internet, that linearity is no longer required. As long as you believe, there is no reason to know.

And as these rivers of opinion flood the wide sea of fact, grotesque life forms evolve and build immunity. Manipulation and cynicism thrive. Once you could see clear from the surface to the bottom. But now the waters are turgid; 'belief' is the cloudy undertow.

Those who 'believed' there were weapons of mass destruction beneath a desert helped lead thousands of our bravest to their deaths. Those who believed the cost of these escapades could be moved 'off the books' drove us to the brink of fiscal ruin. Those convinced that our nation...our needs...and 'our' religion...were inherently superior, hurt America more deeply than overseas adversaries ever could. We've begun to slay ourselves from within. We've seen the cancer--and the cancer is us.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to entirely separate the idea of unsubstantiated 'belief' from the totality of religion. Yes, there are forms of belief--and dangerous ones--without religious component. But religious belief is the most powerful tool against fact. It offers the blessing of devotion: we know, so you need only believe. Because we think, you need only react.

Christians, who once responded uniformly to the call to help others, now also allow for a monstrosity called the 'prosperity gospel': God will reward you with material gifts...if only you will make a down payment through self-appointed ministerial mortgage brokers here on Earth. Spend and you will be saved.

Some rightfully scoff at this. But to many it is belief--a weapon of mass delusion that undermines our culture.

In the end, most frightening of all is evidence of absolute conflation between belief and knowledge. If they can be made one, there is no more place for reason.

A born-again New Zealander named Ray Comfort currently promotes every aspect of his interpretations of biblical truth from a pulpit in Orange County, California. He summarized a lengthy YouTube debate against a non-believing adversary with the following words: "I know what was in the beginning. You don't know. In the beginning God created heaven and Earth. You don't know--I do."

Simple as that. His belief is our reality.

Descartes once declared, "I think, therefore I am". Today, by eschewing evidence, data, science and fact, we are faced with an alternative: "I believe, therefore it is".

To borrow from Comfort's own belief system...and to reflect on what has transpired over the last decade...let me just conclude: God help us.