Is loyalty always admirable? Is faith always a virtue? Perhaps not.

An Antebellum era (pre-civil war) family Bible.
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Loyalty has long been prized by leaders of every kind, from business moguls to politicians and church leaders; to be disloyal is typically seen as an obviously negative trait. Yet too much emphasis on loyalty can cause real problems, like stifling dissent, dulling people’s willingness to tell the truth and blunting their creativity. If no one is willing to rock the boat by pointing out problems or suggesting new ideas, how many opportunities, mistakes or instances of questionable practice will be missed? When does loyalty become misplaced?

It’s a problem of balance. Too much disloyalty is disruptive and destroys trust. Too much loyalty — especially of the unquestioning kind — means important questions may be ignored or suppressed until it’s too late. Should you put loyalty above ‘outing’ misbehavior or dishonesty? Should you stay loyal to a polticial party, a candidate, or a point of view even if you now believe they have it all wrong?

What about patriotism? Is ‘my country, right or wrong’ an admirable attitude — or one that prevents nations from making the changes they need to protect the very values they claim to stand for? What if my country is wrong? Isn’t it more loyal, in the true sense, to stand up and say so, than keep my mouth shut out of misplaced qualms about what others may think? Continued

Most people today strongly advocate sincerity. Here’s an opposing viewpoint

I recently came across this challenging viewpoint in an article on a British blog called “Stumbling and Mumbling” (“Against Sincerity” ). The writer bases his point on the idea that what’s true is true, regardless of what anyone else believes about it. Taking the argument round the other way, what’s false is simply false, even if you believe it to be true.

I can’t help agreeing that there’s altogether too much emphasis being based today on personal belief — faith, if you like — as the basis of correct actions. It’s obvious that even the strongest belief can be mistaken, where truth is always true (if it’s mistaken, it’s no longer truth). Using belief as justification absolves people from the need to seek further after what is factual. It erects emotion as a sign of correctness (belief is, after all, as much or more emotional as rational). It removes much of the need to find firm evidence to support what you assert. Continued

What does it mean to be human in an age of electronic mob fashions?

I was intrigued by an article on Huffington Post, written by Andrea Learned (“Question External Expectations”), which questions why so many people seem blindly to do what they feel they should should over doing what they really want.

A good deal of the article is about the way the Internet is reshaping social contacts. To me, this is less important than the writer suggests. It’s easy to blame technology for things we maybe don’t want to face up to in ourselves: our sheep-like willingness to stick with the herd, rather than go it alone and state our views openly; our tendency towards finding it easier to let others do our thinking for us, rather than make the effort ourselves. Continued

I guess most of us have become used to the constant efforts by the media to induce mass hysteria over some minor topic. I had come to think of it as little more than marketing, on the basis that disaster stories always sell better than good news. Then I found this article by Robert Skidelsky and realized that such apocalyptic thinking has a very long history (“The apocalyptic mind”).

He says that, “classical apocalyptic thinking is certainly alive and well, especially in America, where it feeds on Protestant fundamentalism, and is mass-marketed with all the resources of modern media.” Even scientists are not immune, expressing probabilities as certainties and attacking dissent as some sort of heresy. Continued

It’s common for young people, especially young women, to claim that they “can’t do math.” Of course, it’s not true. It seems to be more a perception that math “isn’t cool” — or whatever the relevant expression is nowadays. It’s for nerds and geeks, like most intellectual pursuits. And while my guess is that this attitude is more prevalent in the US than most places, it seems to be common throughout much of the world.

That’s why this article in The Guardian “Comment is free” section intrigued me (“Geek + nerd = ?”). Ian Stewart, the writer, comments on the power of stereotypes to replace actual knowledge and how, once they are in place, they become hard to change. On the topic of geeks and nerds he writes:

The real problem, I suspect, is not confined to mathematics. The words “geek” and “nerd” were both coined in the USA, where they reflect a general tendency to despise all types of intellectual activity. Any interest other than television or sport is viewed as weird, be it collecting fossils or writing poetry. And when children encounter something difficult at school - such as mathematics - a natural defence mechanism comes into play. It is much easier to denigrate the topic, and make fun of the students who can handle it, than it is to admit to your own inadequacy.

I have to say that I view the thoughtless denigration of intellect in favor of ‘being practical’ with some alarm. Continued

Nowadays, we’re fairly used to the idea that people’s state of mind affects their physiology and biology. The ‘placebo effect’ happens when people believe something is doing them good, and report improvements accordingly, even though it’s just a sugar pill. In another study, patients told that their ‘treatment’ (another placebo) cost double the price of an alternative reported faster and better ‘healing’ as a result.

A report in the Canadian paper, The Globe and Mail, points to a Swedish study of whiplash injury patients as further evidence of the power of positive thinking (“Whiplash heals faster with positive thinking”).

For the study, the researchers recruited 1,000 Swedes who had recently suffered whiplash. The volunteers were asked to rate their chances of making a complete recovery. Six months later, they were given questionnaires to determine how much the lingering pain from the accident limited their daily activities, ranging from doing household chores to engaging in social activities.

“The lower their expectations [of getting better], the higher the disability,” said the lead author of the study, Lena Holm at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.

Continued