Possibility

I conceive of philosophy as the inquiry into unexamined assumptions. This could be done for its own sake, but philosophy also serves the useful function of generating hypotheses, specifically, that the assumption is false. In this way new possibilities are revealed. For example, one day it occurred to someone gazing at the sky that she had been assuming that the motion of the stars and planets (including the Sun and Moon) in the sky meant that they were all revolving around the Earth. This immediately suggested the hypothesis that they weren’t, but instead (or in addition) the Earth was rotating. Of course it won’t always turn out that one’s assumption was false; but the value of philosophy, or of this philosophical attitude, is that it raises a question that had never been asked before, which sometimes leads to a surprising and even Earth-shaking (or literally Earth-moving, as in rotating) discovery. 

Often we rely on science to carry the ball at that point to determine the answer, but just as often we don’t need science to show that our assumption was false once it occurs to us to question it. For example, once it occurs to us to question the stories about Santa Claus, most of us have basic evidence and reason enough at hand to disabuse ourself of the assumption that those stories are true. Indeed, in a short book I wrote called Maya, I have gone so far as to claim that pretty much the entirety of our everyday experience is illusory, and easily enough shown to be so. 

A third scenario is that neither science nor everyday experience will disabuse us of a strongly held albeit false assumption. This is itself something that would never have occurred to me without hard-won experience. In other words, for most of my life I held the unexamined assumption that once something was shown to be obviously false, people would stop believing in it. But I now know that this is almost the very opposite of the truth, since one would be hard put to name a belief, no matter how roundly disproved or even absurd, that is not believed by someone, indeed, by millions or billions of people. I have in mind beliefs or assumptions (note: An assumption is a belief that it has never occurred to one to question) such as that there are miracles, anthropogenic climate change is a myth, and all contemporary species have existed since the Creation. 

What has blown my mind even more – which, again, indicates that I had been harboring an unexamined assumption of my own to the contrary – is that even highly intelligent and informed people can and even commonly do have beliefs of this sort, that is beliefs that I myself consider not only false but blatantly and unequivocally and “obviously” false. I have found this over and over to be the case in philosophy and politics and ultimately all realms of life and thought. But this in turn leads to the even more head-spinning thought – and, yet again, contrary to an even more fundamentally held assumption – that what I myself take to be irrefutably true could be flat-out false. And, of course, this is true. 

And finally (?) the most basic assumption of all, which might now be thrown into question, is that there is such a thing as truth at all. And in fact I have now pretty much decided that is false too (even though on its face it is absurd to assert that it is true that there is no truth); see for example my essay, “Reality.” 

It so happens that several examples recently brought to my attention on the matter of anti-Semitism illustrate various of these claims about truth and assumptions. 

The arena. Just prior to the commencement of World War II in Europe a notorious gathering took place at Madison Square Garden, a large indoor arena in New York City, in which strident Nazi anti-Semitism was proclaimed from the stage to thousands (20!) of attendees packing the auditorium. A short documentary film consisting entirely of archival footage of the event appeared in 2017, called "A Night at the Garden." Anyone (i.e., of anti-Nazi persuasion) watching the film would be appalled, which was clearly the intent of the filmmaker. 

A prominent feature of the footage is the Nazi salute. Over and over we see people’s arm thrust out in that abhorrent but all-too-familiar fashion. However, by sheer coincidence I had had my mind blown shortly before seeing the film when I learned about something called the Bellamy salute. This really belongs in Ripley's, but it seems that up until War World II the American Pledge of Allegiance was taken with a salute that, for all practical purposes, is indistinguishable from the Nazi salute. (Just Google it or check out Wikipedia.) So when I saw the film, I could not help but wonder: Were people really giving the Bellamy salute, not the Nazi salute? 

After looking for evidence one way or the other on the Web, and even corresponding with the director and also a historian who has written about this event, I became convinced that it was the Bellamy salute and not the Nazi salute being given at the Garden, at least by most of the audience. There is no “Heil Hitler” on the soundtrack, the event was explicitly billed as a Pro-American Rally, complete with gargantuan image of G. Washington (not A. Hitler) center stage, moreover whose birthday this was, and young scouts march down the center aisle carrying large American flags and the Pledge of Allegiance being given by all. 

I finally brought this to the attention of NPR, which broadcast an episode on All Things Considered about the film and the event, and, lo and behold, they posted a semi-disclaimer or advisory on their Website, to wit: 

The audio version of this story referenced the attendees of the rally reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag while giving the Nazi salute. When the Pledge was initially developed in the 19th century, the custom was to recite it with the right hand raised, palm out, in a "Bellamy salute." By the 1930s, the Bellamy salute had become controversial, because fascists in Europe had adopted a similar salute. In 1942, the United States Congress amended the Flag Code, and the Bellamy salute was replaced by the hand-on-the-heart gesture we are familiar with today.

So this appears to be an example of an unquestioned assumption, namely, that a certain arm gesture in the 20^th Century represents Naziism, being shown to be likely false or at least plausibly questioned, and even at an overtly Nazi-sponsored event! This seems almost comical. I am reminded of the scene in A Shot in the Dark where Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers in the movie) is reciting a list of facts in a murder case that point damningly to Maria Gambrelli as the murderer; but when he asks his assistant Hercule what to conclude from the evidence and Hercule answers that Maria Gambrelli is the murderer, Clouseau explodes with disdain and indignation that he could draw such a conclusion. Clouseau is in effect making the same move I am in the Nazi case by dismissing overwhelming circumstantial evidence as an unexamined assumption. “What? You think that just because we have a film showing thousands of attendees thrusting out their arms at a Nazi-sponsored anti-Semitic rally we can conclude they are giving the Heil Hitler salute? Absurd!” Of course in Clouseau’s case the real humor comes from his presumed own unexamined assumption that somebody as young and pretty as Maria Gambrelli could not possibly be a murderer. There is no parallel to being unaware that there is such a thing as the Bellamy salute. 

 Please understand, then, what I am going on about in the Garden case: I do not for one second doubt that the arena that night was packed with anti-Semites and Nazi sympathizers. But for the sake of historical and journalistic accuracy (and to ward off having the main message lost amidst accusations of anti-Nazi propaganda), isn't it important to get the details straight? And think of the implications for, say, jury trials and, ultimately, all facets of life and even science. Assumptions are always lurking at the heart of our every belief and then feeling and action. Thus it makes sense to be of a skeptical turn of mind as a general rule. There are even folks, such as the notorious philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend, who argue that the scientific community should go out of its way to promote contrarian hypotheses at all times, as a way of keeping themselves honest, so to speak. No belief is ever a settled matter forever. And if we get our beliefs wrong, especially the most fundamental ones, trouble is sure to follow. 

On the other hand (if I may be contrarian), this road could lead to chaos in human affairs, which in turn could breed totalitarianism as a desperate antidote to uncertainty. The flip side of readiness to question any belief is readiness to embrace any (“contrary”) belief, or at least to place all beliefs on a par, regardless of the evidence or our intuitions, which, ex hypothesi, are themselves subject to question. I think we are even approaching this point in Trumpian America as I write. 

Ergo …? Well, don’t look to me for an ergo. This is why I have said I am skeptical even of truth as such. What I do still believe in, however, is … belief … and desire. Thus, even with my new assumption of analetheism (there is no truth), I recognize within myself and everyone else the ineradicable tendency to believe and to desire. And so I do not fear for a truly paralyzing skepticism. Thus, I for one continue to accept the findings of science as a rule (but not in all cases) or as the default, and I continue to desire to live in a world guided by the findings of science; and so forth. Granted, this is probably largely due to utterly contingent factors, such as my particular upbringing and schooling and other circumstances in 20^th Century America. So had I been brought up elsewhere or elsewhen or under different circumstances (not to mention been somebody else with different genes etc.), then it is certainly possible my default would be to ignore or even disparage science, etc. 

Truth is naturally conceived as the Tertium Quid or Third Factor that would decide between the beliefs of the actual me and those of that alternative me (or someone else). And I still do believe there is a world or reality that serves that purpose. For example, if we deny climate change, it may happen anyway. So when I now say that I doubt even truth as such, what I mean specifically is that I have come to doubt and even reject the idea that any of us has assured or practicable access to that ultimate arbiter. What we have instead, and which I feel is sufficient for getting on with life, is the capacity and even proclivity for believing and desiring. That is what makes the world go ‘round.  It also makes for perpetual conflict, since our beliefs and desires are determined largely by contingencies that are relative to our circumstances and nature(s). But if we seek anything “firmer” than that, we risk, I submit, subjecting ourselves to supernatural fairytales and very real dictatorships, cognitive as well as social and political. (So the fear of totalitarianism underscores arguments both for and against retaining a robust notion of objective truth.) 

The sidewalk. Another example of a similar nature to the Madison Square Garden misidentification was the report of a swastika spray-painted on the sidewalk in a nearby suburb to me where there happens to be a large Jewish community. Naturally there was outrage and a call for investigation. But it turned out that someone from the local Indian-American community had done the deed in celebration of the Indian holiday of Diwali. The swastika is a symbol of good luck and prosperity that has been of great significance for thousands of years all across the Eurasian continent. It is only relatively recently and locally that it took on the special racialist meaning given to it by Hitler. 

            Nevertheless – and this relating to another of my points about assumptions – many Jews and others, even knowing about this other use of the symbol, would be hard put to accommodate it, and might even harbor very negative opinions about Indians or Indian immigrants for “ignoring” or “flouting” Jewish sensibilities in this matter. (NPR has a very interesting opinion piece about this.) 

The theatre. A clearcut example of the latter sort of phenomenon was the following. A friend told me that another friend of his had witnessed a man yelling “Heil Hitler! Heil Trump!” with outstretched arm in a theater in Baltimore during a performance of Fiddler on the Roof. My friend presented this as evidence of growing anti-Semitism in the United States due to Trump’s presidency. But already this struck me as an odd way to be anti-Semitic; on its face it seemed to me to be anti-Trump. So I examined the item closely, and also a video of the incident. In the video it’s just this old guy, looking kind of clueless and shaky, who is escorted out by security. A news report I found then explained that he was drunk and had meant to be expressing his contempt for Trump’s spreading of hatred throughout the land and, in particular, was prompted to shout out in the intermission immediately following the eviction of the Jews from their beloved hometown of Anatevka because it made him think of Trump’s despised immigration policies. 

            Granted, this was a serious disturbance of the peace, especially in light of a recent unprecedented act of violence against Jews in the United States, which is presumably precisely what was disturbing him. He apologized profusely afterward to everyone he could think of. But the article also reported that “Since the outburst, [he] said ‘the hate coming back has been unbelievable’ and affected his family. His son, who lives in Kansas and shares his name, has received death threats, he said.” And my friend, who is highly intelligent and educated, remains skeptical. No evidence I could adduce would convince him that this was not an instance of anti-Semitism. 

The classroom. Another recent incident had even more drastic, and, to my mind, even more absurd immediate consequences for a supposed anti-Semite. A long article in The New York Times Magazine Education Issue reported on the firing of a math teacher at a Friends (Quaker) School in New York City for making the Nazi salute in a class. The story is that he was illustrating a geometric problem involving an acute angle and happened therefore to stretch out one of his arms at an angle to the other, which, in the moment, suddenly made him realize that it looked like he was making the Nazi salute. So he jokingly said, “Heil Hitler.”  

            What he realized in the next instant was that this joke might fall flat with a student body consisting of people too young to appreciate Mel Brooks-type humor. In other words, he had mistakenly assumed that humor is objective, whereas Charlie Chaplin said he would not have made The Little Dictator (a work of comic genius in my opinion) if he had known about the death camps. (But why not? I wonder. Isn’t humor a great weapon? Well, I can also understand how someone might feel that humor could undercut the outrage needed to motivate forceful action.) So the math teacher apologized (for having been obtuse when making light of an acute angle in the way he did – if I may inject some puniness into this discussion of inapt or inept humor!). 

But this was not enough to assuage influential parents and donors when they got wind of the incident, and he was let go. The absurdity is that he had taught there for 34 years with no complaints, he was the only Quaker teacher at this Quaker school, and two of his great-grandmothers were killed at Auschwitz! (You can’t make this stuff up. Things that are made up are usually made to sound plausible. This does not sound remotely plausible.) I understand that he was eventually re-hired after union action. But those calling for the teacher’s removal assumed that some things are simply not joked about, even to the point of the offense being actionable, because of the attitude they reveal, much as some people object to assigning Huckleberry Finn as a work of literature, presumably because of the way Jim is made fun of in one part of the story. However, Twain was making fun of a runaway slave (and despite the work as a whole being a moral classic in my opinion), whereas the math teacher was making fun of a dictator. I still see the reaction as over the top, therefore. 

            So what is the takeaway from all of this? Well, I began with a disquisition on the profound influence that assumptions have on our lives. This was a way to show the importance of a particular conception of philosophy, namely, questioning everything, including our most fundamental or “self-evident” or even unconscious assumptions. This need not refer to the formal academic discipline of philosophy but, more basically, maintaining a skeptical attitude when deciding what to believe or do. I then gave a set of examples, which happen to focus on anti-Semitism because I have recently been involved in a discussion with fellow Jews who are very concerned about its apparent re-emergence in American society under Trump’s presidency. I was struck by the shakiness of some of the evidence in several incidents that could be adduced. They seemed to me to illustrate the danger of reaching conclusions without scrupulously examining one’s assumptions. 

            Therefore …? Well, again, I am not really prepared to draw a final conclusion of my own. As much as I would like to say, “So always be skeptical and don’t act until you are sure your assumptions are correct,” I know this recommendation would be impossible to carry out and is absurd in its own right. For, as I have noted, assumptions are always at work, and so even the questioning of our assumptions will involve the making of yet other assumptions; and there can be no end of it. In the meantime, life calls upon us to act all the time, so we cannot wait forever to decide what to do … unless we are privileged enough to be able to engage in philosophical inquiry for its own sake (and enjoy doing that sort of thing!). 

            And when it comes to anti-Semitism in particular: I am acutely aware that the kind of attitude I have been “recommending” and certainly indulging in in this essay might very well have led me right into the gas chamber in the 1940s. So who am I to dispute erring on the side of paranoia about the resurgence of anti-Semitism in America? 

            I suppose if I have a final conclusion, then, it would simply be to recommend that we strive for balance between seeing the forest (believing something) and seeing the trees (skeptically questioning all the assumptions that undergird that belief). Or just call me jesting Pilate.