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| Downtown Monroe |
Humans are tribal. We need to belong to groups. We crave bonds and attachments, which is why we love clubs, teams, fraternities, family. Almost no one is a hermit. Even monks and friars belong to orders. But the tribal instinct is not just an instinct to belong. It is also an instinct to exclude.
Yale Law professor Amy Chua
From her book Political Tribes
Former USC philosopher Dallas Willard writes:
"There is a certain logical exclusiveness built into knowledge as such, and it must be respected... This is due to the fact that knowledge (not mere belief, commitment, sentiment, or tradition) involves truth. Truth by its very nature is exclusive in the following sense. If any belief is true, that by itself excludes the truth of any belief contrary or contradictory to it. And this “exclusion” is not a matter of what anyone wants or hopes to be true or false. For example, if “Sue’s dress is red” is true, then “Sue’s dress is white” and “Sue’s dress is not red” are false. It does not matter what anyone may think or want. It is simply a matter of the objective logical relations between the beliefs (or statements or “propositions”) involved."
- Dallas Willard, Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge, pp. 170-171
Truth marginalizes. Truth excludes.
You have a worldview, a set of beliefs through which you interpret reality and experience. Your worldview excludes masses of people.
Here is an example.
When I was speaking in India, the hotel I stayed in had an altar in the lobby. Every morning a young Hindu priest, dressed in a white skirt, lit incense sticks on the altar, and offered prayers to the god of the hotel. This scene can be captured in the following statements:
1. There is a god who watches over the hotel.
2. Appeasing this god with the burning of incense and other sacrifices helps ensure that the hotel will succeed financially.
3. Uttering prayers of worship to this god increases the probability that the god will show favor towards the hotel.
4. To not perform #s 1 and 2 may cause the god of the hotel to be angry, and bring harm or disaster to it.
Take statement 1. If it is true, then I, who think it is false, am wrong. Such is the nature of truth. The Hindu priest knows something I do not. I am logically excluded from such knowledge.
I think statement 1 is false. If I am right, then statements 2-4 are false, since there exists no "god of the hotel" to be appeased.
It is not rude or impolite to talk like this. It is not disrespectful. Marginalization is epistemically unavoidable. Willard writes:
"It is not arrogant and unloving merely to believe that you are right about something and that others are wrong... There have, after all, been many people who were strongly convinced of the rightness of their beliefs, in religious and other matters, without being arrogant and unloving." (Ib., 170)
What if you embrace the belief-system of postmodernism? And you claim, We can't know truth. I have two thoughts about that. 1) You just excluded me and all like me who believe we can know truth; and 2) You just made a truth claim which, on your postmodern thinking, is self-contradictory.
In embracing the truths of your worldview, you have excluded many. That's just the way truth works.
In embracing the truths of your worldview, you have excluded many. That's just the way truth works.