Mass Belief

Common Sense does not provide an indication of what is ultimately true. It was once "common sense" that atoms were indivisible, that the Earth was flat, that the sun orbits the Earth and that Gods get drunk and mate. But so many things are overturned by subsequently discovered evidence, that what is "common sense" must only ever be trusted as an instinctive guide to practical life, and not a guide to reality or truth. That "everyone believes it" is not a good reason to believe in something. All things must be made subject to rationality and methodical logic, otherwise, popular untruths will flourish. Many things that "everyone believes" turn out to be cultural, subjective and wrong.

It is not only in the physical sciences where the beliefs of the masses have turned out to be wrong. Mass morality and popular religious beliefs are both equally susceptible to change. It was once assumed that slavery and sexism - both defended and upheld by every historical world religion [Thomson 1993, Momen 1999] - were both natural and correct aspects of Human behaviour. Women and slaves were inferior and could not be trusted to be freed, nor did they have the intelligence to be independent. Now we know that such things are cultural, subjective and wrong. Now the opposite is obvious. Things that we think are obvious - things that "everyone believes", will almost always be overturned. Only modes of thinking that allow new evidence are wise.

Conformity

Social experiments by Sherif and then Asch provided much of the backbone for research into social group conformity. Members of a group who are asked to make judgements frequently conform to the group's average opinions: Even when the experiment is set up so that the group is clearly wrong! Peoples' instinct to conform in areas of opinion and judgements of facts can be very strong [McConnel, p666-667]. Research shows that the more public and open a persons' statements are, the more they will conform to social norms. Obviously this has ramifications for the concept of social mass belief, because social norms will override intellectual judgement even when individuals are presented with clear facts. However, the Adaption-level Theory of Blake and Helson correctly added the role of personality to the list of factors that effect social behaviour. Indeed, it was found that some people consistently conform negatively. That is, they go against social norms as a rule of thumb. They are under the control of the social group and behave predictably, just like most other people. Such people are therefore no more suitable for shedding cultural factors and arriving and objective, studied opinion.

The solution to this dilemma is education: When people study particular theories and the evidence for and against them, they can arrive at opinions which are then not controlled by subsequent social pressure. Ultimately, all opinions are under the influence of social cause-and-effect and eventually of the deterministic physical sciences that belie any free will. But, if academic study precedes public examination then opinions are more likely to be logical, rather than conformist.

The False Consensus Effect is a Result of a Weak Will

David Myers describes the "false consensus effect" as "the tendency to overestimate the commonality of one's opinions" [Myers p61]. Sociological research has shown that most people think that their own opinions are more prevalent than they are. The universalisation of your own beliefs is a psychological projection from the weak ego. In Satanism this is called "the sin of solipsism", the sin of believing that everyone else is similar to yourself. This is different to philosophical solipsism, the belief that the self is the only real conscious being and all others are imaginary. A strong-willed person does not care if "others" believe the same things as themselves. The strong do not need mass support, whereas the weak can be convinced that something is true simply because other people believe it, with no further criteria required.

The Scientific Method

Given our history, it is foolish to accept something just because everyone else believes it. But what are the grounds of reasonable knowledge?

"All Human thought is subjective and fallible. Cultural norms and assumptions disrupt serious attempts to search for truth. The scientific method minimizes Human error. Any system of thought that proclaims itself to be "ultimate" or beyond correction is dogmatic and wrong: The best theories are the ones that happily give way to better theories. The worst are the ones that do not budge and refuse to admit new evidence that disputes them. They become stagnant and outdated. Science is revolutionary because it accepts new facts, new evidence and new thought. New knowledge acquired from the scientific method frequently changes society with technology and ideas. It is refreshing, challenging and above all the scientific method continues to dynamically improve its description of the world."

"The Scientific Method" by Vexen Crabtree, 2006