Sharing Thoughts: Why Does Dogma Beat Rationality?
A friend asked recently why rationality must submit to dogma- why although we are technically capable to make rational decisions, we easily follow the wind and salute what's there instead.
As a child, I tried to drive my actions and decisions by rationality as often as possible. I recognised that I could avoid negative outcomes by premeditating trajectories and making decisions based on possible hurdles along the way. And although this worked out great when practice-packing my suitcase a week before a family holiday, I find myself using this line of reasoning less and less.
There are limitations to our foresight. It can be hard to correctly predict how to prepare and behave in new situations among people we're unfamiliar with in places we’ve never been- especially when the stakes are high. So when our rationality is based on a context different from our new environment, and we're too lazy to research it, we go on emotion. On instinct. And this thoughtless way of acting is irrational. But it feels right- and it usually works out somehow.
And it's not just a gentle afternoons' musings that reach this conclusion. Research has shown that when we don't know quite how to behave in or react to a given environment, we panic. And when we panic, we look to our immediate environment and generalise what we see there as clues. This allows our associations with objects, what other people say and even background smells to then influence our decision making. Even if it's all irrational, we'll at least feel good for making the most of our immediate environment- and not wasting our time with critical thinking and research, or rationality.
Emotion and instinct don’t have the stamina for rationality. Our primal needs only need a quick-fix. And this is how dogma thrives. It acknowledges our weaknesses by offering us a quick and easy cure so we can move on. And as it addresses our immediate and often subconscious needs, we're then left unwilling to even conceive what rationality has to offer.
Let me know what you think- let's have a discussion in the comments section. Why do you reckon people often ignore the rational options?
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Following your instincts and habits has nothing to do with dogmas. Dogma is "a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true."
Instincts and habits differ from dogmas because they are actually quite effective for survival (because you can react quickly and without spending too much energy), and thus quite rational.
Thanks for your comment :) You have a good point there.
When writing the post, I took the dictionary definition into consideration too. I figured that the authority laying down the principles could also be your environment- a powerful leader with many followers or any other general consensus. In this way, following dogma could be just like following an instinct or habit for survival- going with it means you can react quicker and thus save time and energy on figuring out an alternative behaviour/ opinion, as well as more likely be accepted by those around you.
In this way, instincts and habits can be made from dogma, as well as produce dogma themselves, even though we are technically capable of having other, maybe more rational thoughts and actions. The argument here isn't that instincts and habits are the same as dogma, rather that they thrive from similar needs of quick decision-making, approval and gratification.
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