As the
saying goes, ‘everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.’
Producing
around 100,000 chemical reactions and 50,000 thoughts, the human brain, the
command centre of our nervous system, is a natural wonder. With this titanic
processing power, we tend to believe that our judgement would be vastly precise,
but that’s far from the truth.
We have
long been curious about the circumstances in which it’s right to believe. The
key source of this allurement is the desire to believe something for which we
have inadequate evidence.
What gives
you the right to believe whatever you want to believe? What gives you the right to
believe that climate change is a hoax, or you’re racially and morally superior
because you’re white, or the Earth is flat? Such right to believe is a negative
right. If your mind is closed, it’s not open for learning.
‘It is
raining, but I don’t believe that it is raining,’ as G E Moore, an English
philosopher, in the 1940s, said, concerning absurdity. Moore's paradox
emphasises on our unwillingness to acknowledge of ourselves that we occasionally
believe false things. Our pride grooms us into wanting to be correct at all
times.
We know we’re wrong when we choose not to
believe in the vital goodness of, and the truth about, humanity but, frankly, we
don’t care, because it helps us to be content or happy by believing in what’s
wrong.
