When I was reading C.S. Lewis' article entitled "Bulverism," the only thing I could think of was politics. How often will a politician in debate actually attempt to disprove the other politician's idea? The main source of political debate is bulverism. This is a tragic idea. People, rather then searching for truth, slander the name of their opponent. People try to discredit their opponent so much that the audience will think that they are the more credible source. This should not be. The pursuit should be of the actual truth. C.S. Lewis hit this right on the head in his article when he said, "Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the national dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall."
All who are reading this, do not think you are off the hook simply because you are not a politician. Everyone who has ever advocated for a decision in government, or any decision anywhere, has played the role of a politician. And the sad truth is that many of us use bulverism as our primary tactic of getting people to decide with us. Rather then searching for truth, we are desperate to make the consensus to be in our favor. We often slander the names of those around us. Things as simple as when you are trying to decide what movie to watch, "remember last time he picked out the movie?"
C.S. Lewis went on to make the point that if every idea was discredited because of the source it comes from, then every idea must be discredited, including the idea just mentioned. Then there would be no ideas anywhere that could hold true, there would be no truth.
Let us put aside our pride and our prejudice (no reference to the movie intended) and search for the actual truth. Let us not simply search to prove correct the ideas that we have, but let us rather search for the truth about the ideas we have.
In Christ,
Ben
It is so easy to let ourselves think that searching truth is as easy as opening up a newspaper or checking the single website we've chosen to follow. C.S. Lewis (and I pause to remind myself we've all decided he is brilliant and do not need to state that again), wrote this artical in 1941. I think it is frightening to think that socially we have continued to allow Bulverism out among us. Small scale, such as your movie choice example, is one thing, but when the lives of people are at risk based on a decision that was decided by the religious affiliation or person character of one person? I find that to be the most worrisome of all.
ReplyDeletePersonal Bulverism (your movie choice for this evening) is an internal battle that we all face grappling with. But I think that large scale Bulverism is something that people need to get together and call out into light.
Maggie,
ReplyDeleteI have to correct you. Nobody's Bulverism began when they were at the point of making a huge decision. Like everything else, a good life is lived in the "small" things. A person does not one day decide to rape and murder a girl. It starts with "smaller" sins such as lust, then pornography, then sleeping around, prostitution, molestation, then it could get as far as rape and murder. There is a progression to these things.
And the reason that large scale Bulverism happens is because when these leaders were young, they were using small scale Bulverism. It went unchecked and has developed in their mind as the right (possibly the only) way to argue.
Also, my example was intended not to slant the importance of abolishing large scale Bulverism. It was showing how simple and early Bulverism starts.
Actually, Bulverism has been named before. In philosophy, it's a fallacy called "ad hominum" which refers to an attack on the person's character, rather than the argument itself. So...technically, it was named.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you in how, while we like to blame politicians for their use of Bulverism, we regularly use it also. Now that I come to think of it, I use Bulverism with almost everyone I debate with, no matter what the topic is.
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