To Open The Sky
Tools To Clothe Minds
A parable commonly used to describe ideas which are "incompletely perfect" is the tale of The Emperor's New Clothes. In the English-speaking world, it is well enough known that the title has become a metaphor1 denoting any case where someone in authority adopted such an imperfect but attractive idea and sought to impose it on others.
I want to turn that scenario around. Rather than the authority figure who is seduced by brand new hokum, I want to look at ordinary folks who cling to comfortable old hokum.
Carl Sagan told of catching a cab in New York City one rainy night. Recognizing him, the cab driver began to question Sagan about various kinds of pseudoscientific hokum: Bigfoot, the corpses of alien flying-saucer pilots in cold storage at Area 51, and so on. Debunking these claims, Sagan watched the cabbie grow glummer and glummer. "I was dismissing," said Sagan, "not just some errant doctrine, but a precious facet of his inner life."
A lot has changed since I created this page in 2002. American children born in that year are now old enough to vote. And voting is now much more important — not merely a choice between two political candidates with mostly rational policies, but almost literally between reason and lunacy. There's no need to go into the many ways the Republican Party has devolved into a cult. Suffice it to say their twice-impeached leader Trump is now under four indictments with a total of 88 counts. Despite this, he remains popular with Republicans, is now the Party's nominee for president, has taken over the RNC, and has been able to delay completion of most of the legal actions facing him.
This dangerous imbalance is one facet of a larger distortion of United States politics. This is not the place to discuss the details. But it is the place to point out the reason: Too many Americans are like that credulous cabbie. Ignorant of civics, economics, history or science, they tend to make decisions based on how they feel at any given moment and are vulnerable to anyone who gives them a good story and a warm handshake.
The question becomes what can be done about this? A comprehensive education is the ultimate answer; but educating people well takes time and serious funding. Carl Sagan advocated what he called "baloney detection kits."
