Platform Address by Randy Best
North Carolina Society for Ethical Culture
Sunday, May 1st, 2005
As I wander through the world of ideas, I occasionally bump into something that reaches inside me right down to my ethical core, the core of my humanity. This core is plucked like a solitary low ìEî note – it vibrates and resonates producing something – an emotion, an observation, an idea.
I had such an experience when I attended the Palestine Solidarity Movement Conference at Duke University this fall.
I attended a workshop on ìArt and Activismî where a young woman named Ellen OíGrady spoke about the art she was making for a book inspired by her experience living in the West Bank as an observer for the International Solidarity Movement. Her stories and the slides of some of her paintings plucked my ethical core.
I encountered her work again a few months later in an Art Gallery at the local community arts center. It was just before closing, I was alone in a room surrounded by her art – powerful paintings with texture and dark colors. Haunting images conveying strong emotions and meaning. A copy of her book was part of the exhibit. I stood alone in the silent room, I read it.
Again I felt a feeling at the core of my being, not a low solitary note this time – more like a dissonant chord.
The book was called Outside the Ark it is a testimony to human compassion in the face of adversity, beautifully illustrated and I recommend it highly.
Many of you will remember Ellen OíGrady – she spoke here recently – so the story that I relate from her book will be familiar to you.
Outside the Ark begins with a story about stories.
Ellen remembers being a child and sitting in Sunday School. The teacher was reading the story of Noahís Ark and the flood. The book shows a picture after the flood with the Ark and a beautiful rainbow on a verdant green plain. Ellen was taken with this beautiful image until Joel, the boy next to her, exclaimed, ìWhere are all the bodies?î
ìWhat are you talking about?î – the teacher responded somewhat annoyed. Joel squirmed in his chair and replied anxiously, ìThe bodies of all the people and animals that died in the flood.î
The teacher said that Joel was a ìvery rude boy.î
But when Ellen looked at the picture again she saw the bodies - lifeless bodies lying across the weather beaten landscape. Some bodies lived in the safe and protected ark, while other bodies drowned in the holy flood.
This is when Ellen realized that there can be a story behind a story – a story that we try to hide.
I was shaken by the power of Ellenís idea – for it rings true.
There are often stories behind the stories that we hear and tell. Stories that we refuse to recognize – stories that we try to hide.
I am here today to stand up for Joel – to celebrate the contributions of very rude boys and girls, rude people everywhere, who have shown the courage to express doubt. Who have the imagination – and the determination to look for the stories behind the storiesÖ to find these stories and to tell us about them.
Today I will reflect briefly on the virtues of doubt for I believe that doubt is a virtue and, on the whole, I believe that doubt is generally a good thing.
In the Rolling Stonesí song Sympathy for the Devil Mic Jagger sings ìI was around when Jesus Christ had his moments of doubt and pain.î
When doubt causes us to reassess our deepest beliefs, it can indeed be a source of deep emotional, personal pain, the pain of existential anxiety.
Questioning – expressing doubt is one way that we assess our experience of the world – construct our understanding of reality.
Felix Adler, who founded the Ethical Culture movement, experienced the pain of doubt. He experienced this pain when he questioned the religious beliefs of his youth and lost his belief in a personal god.
As the Zen mantra goes: Great Doubt: great awakening. Little Doubt: little awakening. No Doubt: no awakening.
Doubt is nothing new. Doubt has a long history.
The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates was an early advocate of doubt.
Socrates claimed that he knew nothing but was wiser than most, since at least he knew that he knew nothing.
He was a gadfly who challenged all assumptions and authority - everything, including the gods.
Socratesí doubt is depicted in Aristophanesí play The Clouds.
In this play Socrates operates a ìThinkeryî and his philosophy dismisses the gods. His neighbor, an aged farmer asks him who makes it rain if there is no Zeus? Socrates answers that the clouds make it rain. If it were Zeus, he could ìdrizzle in an empty sky while the clouds were on vacationî. The farmer asks if it is Zeus at least who moves the clouds. Socrates says, ìNo, not Zeus, the convection-principle!î The farmer reflects, ìConvection, thatís a new one! So Zeus is out and the convection-principle is in.î Still he asks that lightening must be Zeus striking liars? Socrates replies - think of all the un-struck liars that you know – besides lightening often strikes Zeusí own temples. Socrates then demonstrates a model of the universe according to the convection principle. Initially, the farmer is convinced but later he recants and condemns Socrates to death.
In life – as in Aristophanesí play The Clouds – Socrates stood by his doubt, his skepticism, his irreverence for authority and was condemned for it.
The lesson from this is that too much doubt may not always be a good thing.
But I suggest that lack of doubt – unwavering certainty – is rarely a good thing.
A contemporary voice recently stated:
I'm the Commander, I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation....
President Bush is sometimes praised by his supporters for being decisive but, while too much ambivalence can be a bad thing, there is a lot to be said in favor of the ability to doubt.
Bertrand Russell summed it up:
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Doubt requires the courage to question the certainty of others. Doubt is necessary for us to find our own certainty. Doubt is often unconventional, non-conformist, and opposed by those in authority.
Those in power often see doubt as undesirable.
As a consequence, doubters are often persecuted.
Just ask Galileo or Copernicus.
The need for Doubt has not diminished.
Doubt is crucial at this point in history – where politicians who sacrifice truth to achieve their political ends are supported by an uncritical, complacent media. When we are drowning in a sea of lies – Doubt is our lifeline.
In Daybreak Friedrich Nietzsche wrote about how Doubt is viewed by those in power. He wrote about viewing Doubt as sin.
Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature - is sin! And notice that all this means that the foundation of belief and all reflection on its origin is likewise excluded as sinful. What is wanted are blindness and intoxication and an eternal song over the waves in which reason has drowned.
Doubt is not sin.
Doubt is a virtue when it is an expression of our use of reason to find the truth.
The inability to doubt leads to false convictions.
Too much doubt may cause uncertainty, paralysis and decent into
so…lip…sism 'sO-lip-"si-zum,
Solipsism comes from the Latin solus alone + ipse self
It is a theory that our self, our mind, is the only thing that exists. Nothing exists outside of our own consciousness.
Some religious traditions have versions of this idea. The world is illusion and we are all ultimately part of the universal godhead, the infinite cosmos. Understand the illusion and you merge with the infinite into bliss.
I find these philosophies fascinating, after all I am in favor of bliss, but for me they are not compelling. I favor the certainty of a real world, with its sorrow and bliss.
Rene Decartes said: Nothing is certain.
I find this to be true.
He also said:
I think therefore I am. But what, then, am I? A thinking thing, it has been said. But what is a thinking thing? It is a thing that doubts, understands, [conceives], affirms, denies, wills, refuses; that imagines also, and perceives.
Descartes statement, I think, therefore I am, is a statement of faith.
An affirmation of self. A statement of certainty without proof.
Some foundational assumptions, assumptions taken on faith, are necessary to reach outside of ourselves and be in the world.
I think, therefore I am. I have faith that I exist – for ultimately, I cannot prove that I exist.
I believe that there is an external world, independent of my existence. I cannot prove it. I take it on faith. It is a necessary assumption for me to be a part of the world.
The type of faith that I am talking about concerns accepting certain foundational premises that cannot be proven. This type of faith is categorically different from supernatural or superstitious faith, yet it is faith none-the-less.
Ludwig Wittgenstein explores this type of foundational assumption in his work On Certainty.
Every belief is always part of a system of beliefs that together constitute a world view.
It is hard to realize the groundless(ness) of our believing.
My life consists in my being content to accept many things.
To accept, to believe in without grounds, most of my memories and perceptions of day to day life, the uniformity of nature, historical facts I am told –
"But, if you are certain, isn't it that you are shutting your eyes in the face of doubt?" – [my eyes] they are shut.
For Wittgenstein there are some things that we take as certain that do not need the type of support that we normally require, that do not need evidence or proof. Sometimes a statement is just grounded in the rules of the game itself – in order to play in the game we must just assert the certainty . . . and believe in it. These are assertions of faith. They are fundamentally different from empirical statements that can be proven. Assertions such as: "there is an external world," "there are other minds inside other human bodies," to doubt these things would be to break the rules of the game of our existence in which we are operating, in which case everything else collapses and we can no longer play.
Doubt is necessary for us to identify what is real. Reason and proof are the tools that we use in this process. Yet a small leap of faith is necessary for us to move outside of our own consciousness and assert that the world is real. I think, therefore I am. Without this conviction, meaningful action is not possible.
It is through the use of human reason that we are able to understand our world and ourselves.
Our understanding of truth, what is real, emerges out of our own experience and our shared understanding of the experience of others.
Our understanding of our human experience is enriched by studying philosophy, art, literature, music and religion. Our experiences of family and community further enrich our human experience. These human undertakings help make us who we are and contribute to our subjective understanding of what is true and real.
However, existence is more than subjective opinion. I believe that there is something beyond our subjective experience that contributes to our understanding of reality.
That something comes from our human ability to use reason. That something is Science.
Science is a way of knowing that attempts to explain the natural world using natural causes.
Science is methodologically materialistic: matter, energy and their interactions are used to explain nature.
Science requires testing of explanations against the natural world.
Through Science human beings have designed an evolving model of nature. This model is limited and partial, yet the model of reality produced by Science gives a complete enough picture of how the world works to allow us to travel in space and cure terrible diseases.
The Scientific model of reality is subject to constant refinement – continuous improvement through research, through doubt. Occasionally, this produces radical shifts in our understanding of how the world around us works. This fallibility, this uncertainty, is the strength of Science.
Science has yielded useful models of the world around us, the cosmos, and our human nature as well.
Science provides an objective truth, as true a picture of reality as can be produced.
I believe in the truths that we find through Science. But it doesnít really matter if I believe in Science or not, for the objective reality identified by Science exists independently of my belief in it. There is a real world out there that is independent of my beliefs and experience.
To summarize my ideas so far:
Doubt is a virtue that allows us to ferret out the facts and come to our own conclusions. We use our experience, reason, and our understanding of the experiences of others to develop our own models of reality.
A certain amount of faith is necessary for us to accept our experience as more than just internally subjective. We must have faith in the reality of the world and our ability to act outside of ourselves.
Reason and Science are ways of understanding the world around us, and our human selves as well. We use reason and science to test and expand our understanding of reality – to identify what is objectively true.
This is all right, as far as it goes, but where do we get our guidance for moral actionsÖ our rules about how to relate to other people, to nature, and to understand our life experiences?
Science, in and of itself, does not give us moral guidance.
We determine our values and express them in how we relate to others. Our ability to act morally in the world requires other foundational assumptions, other assertions of faith.
How do we make these determinations?
To illustrate this I will present a case study of someone who through reason experienced doubt, someone whose experience of doubt led to a renewed faith in human worth, someone whose faith in human worth founded a movement.
The subject of this case study is Felix Adler, the founder of the Ethical Culture Movement. This case study will examine only one of Felix Adlerís ethical premises: Belief in Human Worth.
After the Civil War, Felix Adler was sent to Germany to study to become a Reform Rabbi to succeed his father at New York Cityís Temple Emanu-El. In Berlin and Heidelberg he was drawn to philosophy.
In his study of philosophy he was particularly attracted to the ideas of Immanuel Kant. Adlerís studies caused him to first doubt, and later reject, the religious faith of his youth.
Through the exercise of his reason, Adlerís concept of a personal god had vanished. In a journal he wrote:
The curtain that had intervened between my eyes and the world, on which was painted the image of an individual man-like God, slowly drew aside, and I looked upon the world with fresh eyes.
Looking on the world with fresh eyes was not a joyous experience for Felix Adler.
He mourned the loss of his religious faith and felt uncomfortable in a world without a moral foundation.
This feeling of alienation was captured by Jennifer Michael Hecht who wrote in her book Doubt:
We live between two divergent realities: On one side there is the world in our heads – and in our livesÖ and that is the world of reason and plans, love, and purpose. On the other side there is the world beyond our human life – an equally real world in which there is no sign of caring or value, planning or judgment, love, or joy. We live in a meaning rupture because we are human and the universe is not.
Felix Adler felt this meaning rupture. He was concerned with establishing Human Worth in an indifferent world.
Adler looked to his moral intuition. His innate sense of what was right and true. He looked deep inside himself, into the core of his humanity, and found compassion – a connection to all of humanity. He wrote:
...there is a spiritual power within us, namely, a power which so unifies our lives with others, that these others come to be regarded as other selves.
What Adler found was an inviolable faith in the importance of each person – Faith in Human Worth.
Adler reified this idea of human worth. Adler saw human worth as an inherent part of reality. Human worth was part of our very nature, and a real part of the universe as well.
Adlerís intuition caused him to find a force for moral goodness in the universe.
In one sense, Adlerís response to the meaning rupture, the gap between our human experience and a cold, purposeless universe, was to humanize the universe – to introduce belief in a natural force for moral goodness.
Adlerís compassion, his Faith in Human Worth, drove him to work to improve the human condition. It led him to found the Ethical Movement – and our Ethical Religion.
Felix Adler believed in Human Worth, but he also believed in Science. He wrote:
What is the way to get a religion? We know, at all events, what cannot be the way. It cannot be to prostrate our intellects before the throne of authority; to bind the Samson within us, the human mind, and deliver him into the hands of the Philistines; to abjure our reason. Whatever religion we adopt must be consistent with the truth with which we have been enriched at the hands of science. It may be ultra-scientific – indeed it must be; but it may not be anti-scientific.
I have studied Felix Adlerís ethical philosophy and I find that I do not personally share Adlerís reification of Human Worth, but I donít have to – and that is one of the beauties of Ethical Culture. None-the-less, I do share Adlerís Faith in Human Worth.
I have Faith in Human Worth because I choose toÖ and for me this is the point – choice.
I attribute worth to others because if I want to be treated with worth and dignity it is necessary for me to extend worth and dignity to others.
I attribute Worth to others because it enriches my experience of life – it gives my life greater meaning and purpose.
Like Felix Adler, my Faith in Human Worth allows me to see beyond myself and act for good in the world – to improve the human condition.
My Faith in Human Worth is an essential part of my Ethical Religion. This faith is a foundational assumption that I make – a leap of faith – that motivates me to contribute, in my small way, to making the world a better place.
I invite you to share this assumption, to make this small leap of faith and affirm a belief in Human Worth – to find purpose and meaning through attributing worth and dignity to all people – to act to support this Faith in Human Worth by working for human rights, equality and justice.
I am pleased today to talk on Founders Day about Felix Adler who founded the Ethical Culture Movement in 1876. Often I am amazed, not that this movement has not caught on like wild fire, but that we are still here at all, some 129 years later.
I am pleased to have taken a turn at this stage in my life and studied to become an Ethical Culture Leader. It has greatly enriched my life.
I am pleased to be here this May Day to:
Extol the virtues of doubt;
Claim the truth of Science; and
Proclaim my humanist faith, my Ethical Religion – my Faith in Human Worth – and pay tribute to Felix Adler who continues to be a source of inspiration to me and, I hope to us all.