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Mind control. Brainwashing. Indoctrination. Propaganda.
Peter I agree with Mintaka on this point - it can be done.
Let’s look at the definition of Mind Control (Wiki)
Mind control (also referred to as brainwashing, coercive persuasion, and thought reform[1]) refers to a broad range of psychological tactics thought to subvert an individual's control of his or her own thinking, behavior, emotions, or decision making
Methodologies of coercive persuasion used in to("reconstruction", "change", "altering") a believe or thought-patterns. Like the Maoist regime in China who transformed chinese people with a "feudal" or capitalist mindset into a "right-thinking" member of the new social system during the Korean War with brain washing [Wiki]
I think the same can be exsplained when Indoctrination & Propaganda is used because again your persuasions are used to change your believes.
I cannot think of one instance where everyone subjected to propaganda believed it. One can be encouraged to believe something or convinced with rational argument, but never forced.
A slight majority is not sufficient to indicate that they were forced to believe it. Since most people tend to believe what the majority believes anyway this proves nothing. You could hold a gun to my head and force me to say something, but you cannot force me to believe it.
I’d go so far as to say that most people will always believe what the majority believes!
But seriously, have you never during any stage of your life believed in anything ridiculous, even the tooth fairy? And if you did, why did you abandon that belief?
LOL, oops. Inadvertent tautology there. :-[ What I meant to say is that many people will believe something precisely because the majority believes it. This is a rather silly reason for believing so it’s not surprising that these “mind control” techniques are largely effective.
Yes, I once believed silly things for silly reasons, but those beliefs were not forced on me. I have since re-evaluated those beliefs, but no one forced me to do that either.
Getting back to my original point: To claim a right to a belief is ridiculous since no one can control another’s thoughts. I also doubt that anyone is actually able to control their own thoughts either, so to claim the right (or even the ability) to believe whatever one wants to seems even more so. What one can claim is freedom of expression, which is directly opposed to this freedom of belief idea since false beliefs can generally only be maintained by ignorance. If someone has the “right” to believe something then that necessarily means that I must lose the right to argue with them about it. This limits my free speech and I’m not having that!
Interesting points. Though my interpretation of “freedom to believe” or “right to believe” is that one shan’t be prosecuted or discriminated against because of ones beliefs. Or indeed, as you said, for voicing them.
If someone has the "right" to believe something then that necessarily means that I must lose the right to argue with them about it. This limits my free speech and I'm not having that!
Peter, well put and I must agree you have a point. My understanding of "right" was as Mintake noted -
prosecuted or discriminated against
I also doubt that anyone is actually able to control their own thoughts
Now this is interesting - because as I understand I can "steer" my thoughts in certain directions aka positive thought patterns and NLP. Or am I totally off point now ? This is something that always fascinates me and must confess I am a personal motivational junkie ;)
@r0n1n Cool avatar BTW
Thanks :) - the only way I can smoke these days is by using a smoking avatar ;)
Freedom of expression covers all of that anyway, since the only way we can possibly deduce what it might be that someone actually believes is by how they express those beliefs. Demanding the right to believe what one says is a bit like demanding the right to tell the truth.
Thanks ;D
OK (see above), but why bring it up?
I try not to, it reminds me too much of religious guilt. I find there is much more joy to be had in an unfettered mind.
I’m really sorry to hear that dude. Health problems?
I think the right to believe is protected to avoid negativity (like persecution, ridicule or just plain unhappiness) that a person is not equipped to handle. The belief should be replaced with facts when the person is ready deal with reality. As an example I use my children who attend a public primary school where Christianity is still highly valued and promoted. I don’t promote any religion at home, but I let them believe what they are taught in school. In other words I withhold my right to argue and I protect their right to believe. I don’t lie to them, and have seen (with the toothfairy, Santa Clause, etc) that the sign that they are ready to find out the truth is when they start to ask questions. The oldest doesn’t believe in Santa but the youngest does. The oldest therefore follows my example of hypocrisy by not telling the youngest that Santa doesn’t exist.
To sum up, I think the right to believe exists to protect the innocence of children, the feeble minded, and the meek that Mark 5:5 refers to. I am not saying I am right, but
One should remember that our current ideas about individual liberties owe a great deal to the United States Constitution, in particular the first ten amendments thereto, collectively known as the United States Bill of Rights. (To be sure, these initiatives derive from the ideas of European thinkers, but they played out in practice for the first time in the USA.) The framers of these principles had witnessed large-scale oppression and abuse under British rule, and objected to being governed from a quarter of the world away by authorities who knew very little about the society they governed and who had even less regard for its needs and aspirations. Eventually, the oppressed unilaterally seceded in 1776 through the United States Declaration of Independence. Based on their experiences of the British, the founding fathers held that basic individual liberties, equally applied to all, were indispensable for guaranteeing the overall freedom and success of a society, and equality within it, in order to avoid all forms of subjugation. As a side note, it was largely over the issue of extending these ideas to include slaves that the American Civil War was fought.
The short of it is that certain individual liberties, including the right to believe as one wishes, are necessary for the success and prosperity of a sophisticated society because it obviates forced conformity and oppression, encourages individuality, and allows individuals to succeed on their own terms. While it is a doomed exercise to attempt forcing people actually to believe a particular thing, a state that exerts pressures and punishments to coerce people into behaving as if they believed something that they don’t actually believe, such a state is not sustainable in the long run. Various (European) revolutions and assorted demises of communism attest to it. It could thus be argued that affording everyone a minimum of individual rights is more a sound business decision than a socio-political or ethical one.
But, as always, with rights come responsibilities, a fact that is altogether too often glossed over. In matters of belief, one has a strict responsibility towards oneself and one’s peers not to believe unsubstantiated stuff or – worse – stuff that is contradicted by good evidence and/or reason. Here, I distinguish two endpoints of belief that enclose a spectrum: from objectively testable fact to subjectively aesthetic opinion. The trouble is that the perception of an inalienable right to untempered belief across the whole of that spectrum completely overshadows its concomitant responsibility of being factual in the case of beliefs that are principally objectively testable. With frightening regularity one hears defences such as, “Well, your reality isn’t my reality!” as if that settled the issue by making reality negotiable, a subterfuge which can, of course, never succeed because it undermines the very notion of “belief” (senses 1. & 3.) to begin with.
You miss the point: how do you propose to divorce the right to believe from the remaining corpus of common rights?
Based on their own considerations of and reflections on evidence X, each individual has the right to conclude, and so to believe, that evidence X supports contention Y. Based on your own reflections on and considerations of the matter, you have the right to conclude, and so to believe, that a “right to believe” is an unnecessary right, variously an indefensible one.
If you disagree with the above, it would help if you defined much more closely what it is that you mean with this “right to believe” that you’re objecting to.
Thanks Mefiante, I want to state this as clearly and convincingly as possible.
Corpus is body right? I think this would be done most effectively by showing that every time a “right to believe” is seemingly infringed upon, it is actually one of the other real life rights like expression, equality or association which is being infringed upon instead.
In this example we are both considering and reflecting, which indicates that we already possess freedom of thought. Any rights we claim are based on that fact. Claiming as a right that very ability which gives us the power to claim rights undermines the entire argument. If freedom of thought could be taken away there would never have been a need for any rights in the first place.
And if you turn your scheme around you get that an infringement on, for example, the “right to free expression” is actually an infringement on the right to believe because it attempts to silence the expression of belief. What in your view distinguishes the “right to believe” from these other rights? What makes these other rights in a sense “prior” to a right to believe? How exactly does it do this? It seems quite foolish to argue that the Spanish Inquisition was aimed primarily at curtailing free expression or equality or association, rather than ensure that people actually believed Roman Catholic teachings. Or that assorted flavours of communist re-education weren’t driven by a perceived need to eliminate “subversive” beliefs.
How does “freedom of thought” suddenly equal a right to believe? Sure, the one often assumes the other but they’re hardly the same thing because many beliefs do not spring from free thought and nor does free thought always produce belief. And how does claiming “freedom of thought” as a right “undermine the entire argument” if our conception of “rights” springs from thought in the first place? I think you’re somewhat confused about what “rights” actually entail, philosophically speaking.
All the other rights are observable and they can be limited directly. A right to belief has to be inferred.
For someone to limit your right to believe they would have to restrict your freedom of thought. Since this cannot be done directly they would have to attempt to do so indirectly by infringing on one of your other rights. However, it cannot always be guaranteed that this will have the desired effect.
