The thinking of the majority is not a criterion of truth. If the truth is the recognition of reality, it is not necessarily the opinion of the majority, nor the common denominator of different opinions. Therefore, to use as a supreme argument what most people do or think, can be an excuse or an alibi, but not a solid argument. In addition, invoking the majority as a criterion of truth amounts to despising intelligence. Some words from Fromm express it lucidly:
The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not turn those vices into virtues; the fact that they share many mistakes does not make these true; and the fact that millions of people suffer from the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people balanced people.
It is a great mistake to confuse the truth with the pure and simple fact that a certain number of people accept a proposition or not. If this identification is admitted between truth and social consensus, we close the path to intelligence and submit it to those who can artificially create that consensus with the means at their disposal. Adopting a majority position uncritically amounts to thinking that truth no longer exists, and that what decides who has the power to impose a majority of his opinion should be considered as such. In Shakespeare's version, we see that Brutus' speech to justify the murder of Julius Caesar before the Roman people is fully convincing: the people are, in effect, convinced. Nothing suggests that we would not have applauded Brutus equally, and that is disturbing. In fact, we must recognize that we accept and even warmly defend the sophistry of many intellectual and political Brutish people of our day.
We also found that lies can be imposed in many ways, and not only with the complicity of the mainstream media. Without them, with the effectiveness of what is transmitted word of mouth without truce, it reached Socrates more than two thousand years ago:
“Yes, Athenians, you have to defend yourself and try to tear yourself away, in such a short space of time, a slander that you have been hearing so many years from my accusers. And I would like to get it, […] but it seems difficult to me and I have no illusions. [...] Intriguing, active, numerous, speaking of me with a plan agreed in advance and persuasively, they have filled your ears with falsehoods for a long time, and they violently continue their slander campaign. ”
Socrates represents the situation of isolated man for defending fundamental ethical truths. It belongs to that class of men passionate for the truth and indifferent to the changing opinions of the majority. Men who committed their lives in the solution to this radical problem: Is it preferable to make a mistake with the majority or be right against it?
The majorities are a doubtful criterion of truth because in their intellectual nourishment the topics abound, simple ideas that enjoy great acceptance. The efficient work of the Japanese, the technical perfection of the Germans, good Brazilian football, English humor, Andalusian grace, and many others are topical. Its success consists in simply expressing a simple idea. However, a simple idea can also be false: for many Americans, Spaniards are bullfighters or guitarists, and all Spanish dance flamenco.
Acritically adopting a majority stance is equivalent to thinking that the truth no longer exists.
Normally, reality is complex, difficult to rationalize in simple schemes, but the media and advertising campaigns need to simplify it to make it understandable to the general public: that is how those ridiculously caricature ideas sometimes succeed. The problem arises when high cultural or ethical content is transmitted, because then the simplification at the cost of the truth usually has dangerous consequences. Thus, for example, Marxism led us to believe that every worker was a noble person because he was a worker, and that every businessman was hateful for the same reason. It was a simplification of the class struggle. It also simplifies who equates the use of soft drugs with the mere habit of smoking; or the one that identifies politics and corruption, elite sport and doping, etc.
As you can see, many topics are found in the foundations of environmental media culture, and are an easily digestible intellectual food. Therefore, to the extent that they express errors or half-truths, their level of acceptance is equivalent to their level of manipulation. The topics have always existed, but today it would be said that their proliferation seems to be produced by a powerful multinational. The following three examples are some of their best products:
The myth of progress
Miguel Delibes said, in his speech to enter the Royal Spanish Academy of Language, that our allegedly progressive society is, in the end, a ridiculous meanness, because it provokes the scandalous contrast between a part of Humanity that lives in delirium of waste while another major party is starving. These were his eloquent final words:
“If the adventure of progress, as we have understood it to this day, is to inexorably translate into an increase in violence and lack of communication; of autocracy and distrust; of injustice and prostitution of Nature; of competitive sentiment and refinement of torture; of the exploitation of man by man and the exaltation of money, in that case, I would shout right now, with the protagonist of a well-known American song: Stop Earth, I want to get off! ”
Galileo
Everyone knows that, in the Middle Ages, the Inquisition condemned Galileo to die at the stake for holding that the Earth was round. However, Galileo was never condemned to die, let alone at the stake, let alone by a roundness known to the Greeks and demonstrated by Magellan and Elcano. In addition, Galileo was a contemporary of Descartes ... that is: The Middle Ages had ended two centuries before.
The dark middle ages
As you can see, the Middle Ages gives a lot. In it the sun did not stop rising, but it is said that it was dark in other ways: because of the little we know about it, because of the brutality of the feudal system, because of its lack of culture ... However, medieval history is incomparably better known than the ancient history, although nobody calls it dark. In addition, only by a complete and suspicious blindness can be described as uncultivated at the time invented by Gregorian, chamber music, Gothic and Romanesque styles, and, above all, the superior form of cultured coexistence: the university. On the other hand, although feudal rhymes with brutal and bestial, feudalism has nothing to envy to Persian, Egyptian, Greek or Roman slavery. In addition, the records of cruelty attributed to the Middle Ages began to be pulverized from the French Revolution. Today we know that the wars and guerrillas of the twentieth century have ended with more human lives than the entire history of mankind.
posted by Cosmoxenus at 3/25/2006 11:01:00 AM
