19 November 2004
So maybe the book I have to write is about faith: Blind Faith, Bad Faith.
I think the election was about too many people having faith. Having blind faith in a man with blind faith. And it will turn out to have been bad faith.
But then, I think all faith is bad faith. I'm a scientist. I don't like faith. I don't understand faith. I have no faith in faith. I don't understand some peoples' need for faith. I fear faith. I fear what people do in the name of faith. I fear what people do out of blind faith (as in this election).
I need to understand faith so I can fight it. So I can persuade people to dump it. I honestly think it's brainwashing / child abuse / a social disease. If people weren't brought up to believe in the necessity of religion, would they truly feel it? If there were secular rites of life passage as deeply entrenched as today's religious rites, would anyone still need religion?
I understand that some people want facile answers to life's mysteries and difficulties and finitude. But wouldn't it be just as easy to train people to accept scientific answers (including "We don't yet know") as to train them to accept ridiculous faith-based God answers?
Damn, I wish I lived in a secular society!
Maybe I need to write an s.f. novel so I can invent that world and write about it and make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why do new phony religions (think Scientology) get all the publicity and followers and money? How in the world did Elron pull in his first gullible "believers"? (Or was it just money all along? The current believers continually and knowingly fleece the newcomers.) Why is such obvious horseshit more exciting than science and reality?
You can't even talk about this in polite society. You can't say, "Religion is crap." We're not allowed to be that dismissive of peoples' holy (crap!) faiths. Religion is treated with such unthinking, unquestioning respect. I don't believe in unquestioned authority.
And holiness! Don't get me started! The bullshit shielded under "holiness"! How can any thinking person believe that there could be any such thing? And how could anyone living in today's world believe it, when the ideas they hold holy are in direct conflict with the ideas someone else holds holy? What a concept! What a crock of shit. And how infuriating that I can't say so out loud! I hate having to bite my tongue.
8 October 2006
So this is kind of disappointing.
I've put up a web page of our British Columbia trip. [After the "British Columbia" title, it said in large bold type at the top: "Victor Ordaz and Rodney Hoffman August 2006" and then had a dozen captioned photos, including two of us together, and one of Victor.] I'm getting a lot of nice comments about the photos, and almost nothing about Victor and me being a couple. Well, I can put up with that, although I sure would welcome the opportunity to talk about the bigotry that keeps us apart. Oh, well, that's OK, I suppose. At least part of it will hopefully register and be remembered.
But get this: I called Judy to wish her a happy birthday. I spoke to both Steve and Judy. Each had seen the web page, and commented on the trip. But each asked about Warren and the woman he's dating (Lisa), and each got all excited when I said they were engaged. Each said they'd have to call him and talk about it.
Dammit, Judy and Steve were the first relatives outside of immediate family that I told I was gay. But they don't mention Victor, don't ask anything about Victor, don't seem to care how long we've been "dating" or what our situation is. But just mentiona heterosexual engagement, and, oh, my, how thrilled they are. Shit.
Am I bitter? Yes. Shouldn't I be?
2 April 1976
(Prompted by a passing comment today):
I was startled to be unable to think of anyone I know who I would acknowledge is greatly more intelligent than I. In fact, I was further startled to realize I can't even imagine such a person. It can't just be a matter of definition, for I can think of people who I would say are definitely less intelligent than I. What gives? This curious revelation requires more thought.
11 April 1976
The solution to my "intelligence" quandary: It's simply that I view as the keystone of intelligence thinking for oneself and intellectual curiosity (not just about issues but about any everyday question). There is a continuous gradient here, but I really see only two classes: those whom I deem significantly below me and the vast majority of humanity I would term intelligent. Those beneath me — call them stupid — are characterized by closed-mindedness: they cannot or will not objectively analyze an issue; they won't see things from another point of view; they won't accept that the other side has some good points. And not just on a few issues, but on nearly all. And, crucially, not just out of conviction, but out of a real fear that they would be confused. What this boils down to is that I consider relatively less intelligent those who (through their willful, fearful closed-mindedness show that they) consider themselves less intelligent. I also think most of them could open their minds if they tried, but their fearful refusal, their implicit insistence of their stupidity forces me to agree with them. (Degree of) intelligence (as with so much else) is a matter of self-concept, is a self-fulfilling concept.
So thinking for oneself is the keystone of intelligence. Oh, some do it more often or quicker or better in certain fields than others [the continuous gradient], but that neither makes them geniuses nor labels them stupid. To my way of thinking, anyone who consistently thinks things out for himself, who shows some intellectual curiosity about things, is intelligent. Ther's a certain dividing line — you've either fot it or you don't. Having it and never using it is equivalent to not having it. It's very few people whom I deem unintelligent. By the same token, it is no intelligent person (by this definition) that I would ever call either less or more intelligent than myself. [That which is measured on an IQ test is, as I've said before, test-taking ability, quickness, and facility for formal abstract games. Granted that these talents are useful, granted that they correlate well with grades, jobs, etc., and granted that I excel at them — still they do not characterize intelligence for me.]
The fact that I can't imagine anyone greatly smarter than myself is a reflection of the fact that I can't imagine myself being so awed by another's thinking as to accept his ideas without questioning them, for that's what would have to happen before I could mark a second qualitative dividing line in the continuous spectrum. I've never met or heard about or been able to imagine anyone doing anything intellectual that I felt was utterly beyond my own capabilities. Physical, certainly. Artistic, probably. But purely intellectual, no.
Curiosity + intellectual independence = "intelligence"
