I attended the Honeywell-Nobel Laureate Lecture at Georgia Tech a week ago on November 4th 2009. The speaker was Sir Harry Kroto, and he gave a rapidly paced and entertaining talk entitled Science, Society, and Sustainability. The middle portion of this talk, the part dealing with society, dealt to a large degree with the tension between science and religion, and, in particular, his views about intolerance and dogmatism among many religious people.  

During this section, he raised an interesting question. To paraphrase [hopefully largely in accordance with his intended meaning], the question was: ‘How many people think that parents should be able to raise their children to believe whatever they choose?’  To which I was one of several who feebly raised hands. There was then a follow-up about whether the view was maintained in the face of the fact that people were teaching their children that those who believe in evolution [he might have put it in terms of being atheist and /or agnostics] would end up in hell. While I’m not certain of his exact phrasing, the jist was that “non-believers” [however people who deem themselves qualified to make such determinations define it] would end up being punished in some form of eternal afterlife.

Now, if the question is whether it is an unconscionable thing to teach a child, I would have to say yes. Furthermore, if the question is whether people should decry such lessons in intolerance, I would agree with this as well. I would even go as far as to say that one should use any influence one has as respectable forthright citizen to set a good example about how one should properly address differences in worldview. However, the “should be allowed to” indicated the potential for a more ominous meaning in the form of the state using its monopoly on legitimate force to somehow try to regulate and /or over-ride parents. I don’t mean to imply that is what Professor Kroto meant, as he did not get into any detail and I had to leave during the Q&A. However, if the question is should people be allowed to teach there children bad ideas, I would have to answer yes – because there is no alternative that doesn’t result in a greater bad.

However, given that children learn lessons from parents not only from explicit teaching statements but through observation of all manner of daily conduct, to try to control these lessons would be akin to trying to control thought-which is a slippery and treacherous course. If the question is whether the state should use its monopoly on legitimate force to try to control what moral, ethical, and normative lessons parents teach their children, then I think that would be a sad idea. I, of course, am not just speaking  of the state using force directly, but through those mechanisms that are enforceable by force such as regulations or dictated curriculums for private and home-schooled children. 

Should one try to undermine a parent? First, I would suggest one consider whether undermining a parent’s legitimacy in some areas is not undermining their legitimacy in all areas? If so, what is the result of society in which children are put in the middle of a tug of war between what parents say and the state’s suggestion that a parent cannot be trusted to be correct. In some sense, we should all try to undercut bad thinking, but the idea that there would be a formal mechanism of the state to try to undermine what parents teach is a little disturbing to me.  First, it is not likely to be effective because parents have the benefit of primacy in a children’s learning experience. Mao tried to override parental education during his Cultural Revolution, and it failed. Second, and more importantly, regulating thought is not a route to a more peaceful society, but to perennial war.  

While we should strive to be as virtuous as possible in thought as well as deed and to set good examples, it does not follow that one can control the thought of others. If a person cannot be free in their own mind, in what manner can he or she be said to be free? Where people act and move about, they have the potential to hinder the free action of others, but, in their minds, they may think as they please, and through thought alone, cannot adversely impact  the lives of others. This is the crux of the issue. While there is an important role for the government in negating the use of force or fraud between citizens, there is greater damage to be done in trying to regulate and control thought than there is in the many sad and despicable ideas that exist in the world.

If one wants a peaceful world, regulating thought is the kind of activity that one should like to avoid. The path to peace is, first and foremost, followed by setting laudable examples. This means that we all have to avoid the tyranny of certainty – that is, thinking and acting on certainty in one’s own life with regards to those things about which one cannot possibly be certain. This certainly applies to homo religiosis (religious man) who preaches that those who don’t believe as he does will be damned for an eternal afterlife, but it also applies to scientists who call people with religious beliefs deluded. The former thinks he or she knows the mind of his god – typically in contravention of his or her own belief structure that indicates god is more vast than man can understand, and the latter has achieved certainty based on his or her interpretation of an inductive process in contravention of the logic of science.

Why do I think that “soft power” is the only way to challenge bad ideas? By this I mean to say that the state (or others using force illegitimately) cannot force anyone to believe anything, but, at best, individuals can spread good ideas through exemplary thought and deed and at the expense of bad ideas. I think of the root of conflict in terms of an intangible construct that I’ll call “societal burden”. This burden exists wherever control is exerted over the autonomous thought, movement, and action of individuals. Where such burden exists and there is no other means to relieve it, people will engage in conflict. This burden is the root of conflict, and, as such, the object should be to minimize this burden. I am not advocating anarchy, of course. Optimization by way of minimization of societal burden is not achieved by a lack of government. With no government, the strong and amoral may exercise control over the weak,and this may lead to a proliferation of societal burden. Government, while it takes the role of exerting some control, also, by maintaining a monopoly on legitimate force, is able to keep the strong and immoral from preying on all others. Over the centuries an important feedback mechanism has developed by way of democratic and republican systems that allows the governed to exert force back over the government- and this feedback keeps government from going hog-wild in exercising force  over the citizenry as is seen in dictatorships and authoritarian systems. A second key tool is a blind rule of law that applies universally, but is not subject to arbitrary modification except with the consent of the governed.

It seems we have evolved a pretty good system for minimizing societal burden as well as for gradually pushing bad ideas out of the marketplace of ideas through soft power, and, hopefully, our systems will continue to move in the right direction. However, there are no short-cuts and one cannot speed up the pace.