Very early Monday morning, September 2, 2019.
“Examination of a Witch” by Thompson H. Matteson. 1853. University of Virginia Library Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project.
Clearly there are limits to the use of skepticism. There is some cost-benefit analysis which must be applied, and if the comfort, consolation and hope delivered by mysticism and cynicism and superstition is high, and the dangers of belief comparatively low, should we not keep our misgivings to ourselves? But the issue is tricky. Imagine that you enter a big-city taxicab and the moment you get settled in, the driver begins a harangue about the supposed iniquities and inferiorities of another ethnic group. Is your best course to keep quiet, bearing in mind that silence conveys assent? Or is it your responsibility to argue with him, to express outrage, even to leave the cab---because you know that silent assent will encourage him next time to think twice? Likewise, if we offer too much silent assent about mysticism and superstition---even when it seems to be doing a little good---we abet a general climate in which skepticism is considered impolite, science tiresome, and rigorous thinking somehow stuffy and inappropriate… ---Carl Sagan, from "The Demon-Haunted World".
As far as I can figure, the essay in “The Demon-Haunted World” I’ve been quoting from, “The Marriage of Skepticism and Wonder”, was written sometime after 1984 (the date, not the book, of course) but not very long after or Sagan would have had on hand newer poll than the one he cites. For the sake of discussion, let’s put it in 1985 only because that was one of my favorite years and, ah yes, I remember it well. In 1985, Marianne Williamson had only recently moved to Los Angeles and was just beginning to make a name for herself as a spiritual guide and lay minister and teacher. It’s possible Sagan had heard of her. If he had, though, he’d likely have lumped her in with countless self-appointed spiritual guides and self-help gurus like her. The point is this taxi Sagan hypothologizes has been plying for hire and annoying passengers in just this way for nearly thirty-five years. Marrianne Williamson stands out in the crowd because her books sell and her preaching style is warm, witty, personable, and---here comes one of my least favorite words---”relatable.” That is, she puts on a good show. Well, she did major in theater in college. She knows how to play a part, and she’s cast herself in the role of a lifetime for a lifetime. In this season’s story arc, she’s running for President.
There’s no doubt that if Sagan was still alive he wouldn’t be conveying any silent assent, either in the backseat of that cab or to the face of the likes of Williamson and her flocks of disciples and voters. He’d be making the rounds of the talk shows---Colbert, Oliver, Myers, Noah, and Kimmel would be thrilled to have him on. I imagine, with disgruntlement, Maher would be too and he’d probably have a regular seat at the table. A forum’s a forum.---writing and giving lectures, talking about climate change, white nationalism, the death of expertise, and the Trump administration and the Republican Party’s war on science, education, fact, and truth. He’d probably be more explicit in categorizing religion as superstition. He’d still be kind, temperate, forgiving of human weaknesses, and as cheerfully and humorously more encouraging of scientific thinking than dismissive of “belief”. “See with your heart and not with your eyes” says the marquee in front of a church near here. Sagan would enthuse about the wonders and treasures of seeing with your eyes without disparaging the heart’s point of view, and he might add, with characteristic impishness, "But have your eyes checked regularly." But I think there’d be more of an edge in his voice. And it’s likely he’d be incisively critical of the political media. For at least the thirty-odd years since Sagan wrote the paragraph up top, they’ve been conveying silent assent to that cabbie, that is, to the racists, bigots, white supremacists, know-nothing and yahoos he’s a synecdoche for, you know, the economically anxious just folks and regular Americans who voted for Trump and to the Right Wing fundamentalists who are Trump’s and the GOP’s real base.
But “The Marriage of Skepticism and Wonder” isn’t a polemic against superstition as much as it’s a caution to scientists, intellectuals, and academics against arrogance.
We’re far from repeating anything like it, but it’s worth keeping in mind that the Salem witch trials were a “scientific” inquiry. The prosecuting judges and ministers saw themselves as being on the side of rationalism versus superstition. They were rational men, open to the scientific thinking of the day. The Reverend Cotton Mather, notorious for his role in legitimizing the trials, was a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. Isaac Newton was president of the Society when Mather was elected. He owned over 3,000 books. He was a proponent of inoculation, an early 18th Century anti-anti-vaxer. He was criticized even mocked for it too. By free-thinking liberals of his day. Ben Franklin’s brother James was one of them. James might have been one of those too skeptical skeptics Sagan identified as a type who actually get in the way of understanding and progress with their grumpy adherence to what has been proven over what might yet be proven. The goal of the trials was to end the dangerous superstition of devil worship. That some of the judges and ministers actually believed in magic as a “scientifically” proven fact isn’t beside the point, but it isn’t the whole point. What they were out to do was discourage people from looking to magic as the solution for their problems. They discouraged nineteen people by hanging them and one by crushing his chest with stones. But Giles Corey could have saved himself simply by admitting to superstition and promising to give it up. Two-hundred people were accused of witchcraft. The reason more of them weren’t executed is that executing witches wasn’t the point. Conversion was---re-conversion, a return to the truth faith. Instead of relying on magic and superstition, people were meant to think for themselves and rely on science, law, and rational faith---well, ok, religion and religious authority---to help them, as Sagan put it, “figure out how the world works and what our place in it might be” and not incidentally create a just and well-ordered society. In his popular and influential "Essays to do Good", Cotton Mather urged ordinary New Englanders to take on greater civic responsibility.
I’m simplifying, possibly to the point of being simplistic, but there’s a reason Massachusetts became the most liberal state in the Union.
Carl Sagan's objection to objections to astrology<---What came before.
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"The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" by Carl Sagan is available in paperback and for kindle at Amazon and as an audiobook from Audible.
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