An old story whose origins are unknown to Google is about a relatively newlywed couple who wanted to divide chores evenly having weekly arguments about whose turn it was to mow the lawn. Other household tasks weren’t a problem. The husband had his responsibilities, the wife had hers, and each was comfortable with the assigned tasks with the exception of lawn mowing. They had agreed to take turns but had trouble tracking whose turn it was from week to week. After months of arguing about whose turn it was to mow the lawn, the wife blurted out, “In my family, the father always mowed the lawn.” After a moment of stunned silence, the husband said, “In my family, the mother always mowed the lawn.”
Families of origin are the principal source of what people believe to be “right” and “wrong.” When you think about the values your parents taught you growing up, you may recognize that most of your beliefs about right and wrong and how things should be done were highly influenced by—if not determined by—what your parents believed to be right and wrong and how they did things. And guess what … they learned what they believed to be right and wrong and how to do things from their parents. It has been this way for thousands of years. It made sense when humans lived in small, relatively isolated tribes. You learned what you needed to know to survive from your parents and other adults in your tribe, and then you passed that knowledge on to your children. When the tribes grew in numbers, things got messy. People kept bumping into those from tribes with different beliefs, and that often led to war.
One of the books I’ve read lately, Sacred Choices: Thinking Outside the Tribe to Heal Your Spirit, by Christel Nani, reminded me of the lawn-mowing story about the way wives and husbands need to reconcile differences in “tribal” beliefs if they are to live in relative harmony. The possibilities for conflict diminish when people are from the same “tribe,” which is the source of the warnings about marrying those from a different religion, culture, or race. The “sacred choices” that concern Nani center on choosing to follow one’s own path even when it conflicts with the accepted beliefs of one’s family or “tribe.”
The Biblical prophet Elijah equates the “still, small voice” of inner direction with the voice of God. I am more inclined to think of it as “inner guidance” than an external God (however you define God). Especially when you consider how often some leaders have been “guided” to do some truly awful things, that voice is likely to be earthly rather than divine. The French and the English, for example, were following their rulers’ “inner guidance” when they fought the Hundred Years War, and the Bishop of Beauvais was following his “inner guidance” when he was arranging to have Joan of Arc burned at the stake. The Pope who declared Galileo’s theory of a heliocentric universe heresy was following his inner guidance and doubtless thought he was doing “God’s will.” But we don’t have to go back in time to find those who claim to be following their inner guidance who are doing things most of us would agree are awful.
I suspect that the single most important thing we can do is contemplate the origin of our beliefs, especially those that influence the way we treat ourselves and others. Does a belief make good, logical sense—does the evidence available support it? One of the things to remember about “science” is that the scientific method is an ongoing process. Understanding can always be improved. Copernicus and Galileo got the main idea right: the Earth orbits the Sun. Getting the specifics of the orbit right, however, required better instruments than were available in the sixteenth century. Because something new always remains to be discovered, science can never be fully settled. The flip side of this coin is that even those trained in science often succumb to what’s often called frozen evaluation, the sense that they come to believe that the final answer is known and will never change.
One of the problems here is that once people are trained to do a certain job in a certain way, they tend to assume that the way they do the job is the best and only acceptable way of doing it. They have a tool, and they are determined to use it. A well-known saying is that to the person who has only a hammer, every problem is a nail. In medicine, physicians naturally gravitate to their specialty. In some ways, that’s a good thing. If you need heart surgery, you would do well to find a surgeon who has a lot of experience doing heart surgery. It’s not always a good thing, however. If you see a surgeon when what you really need is a change in diet, a new supplement, or more exercise, you may end up having surgery you don’t really need and which may not help. This wouldn’t necessarily be the surgeon’s fault, as he or she would simply be applying a learned skill.
A prime example of following a tribal belief is the reaction to homeopathic remedies. Most physicians in the States say that homeopathic remedies can’t work because “there’s nothing there.” It’s true that a homeopathic remedy is based on diluting a substance until virtually nothing is left, except for the vibration of the original substance. If it weren’t for the frozen evaluation of thinking that homeopathic remedies can’t work, they would be tested in controlled studies, and their widespread use in Europe—especially in Germany—would be taken into consideration. It doesn’t make sense that a remedy that works in Germany wouldn’t also work in the States.
Tribal beliefs were originally established because behaving in certain ways led to the survival and wellbeing of the tribe. The problem is that beliefs often outlive their usefulness. If a tribe believes that a river will always provide sufficient fish to feed the tribe, what happens when all the fish are eaten or the river runs dry? What’s the truth about vaccines? There’s certainly enough evidence to conclude that they have greatly reduced the prevalence of some diseases, yet there’s also evidence that some people react badly to them. Are vaccines “settled science,” or is it possible that we still need to learn more about them to ensure that they are safe for everyone? What would be the harm of studying those who have responded badly to vaccines to find possible sources of difficulty? It’s always worth asking who profits from certain beliefs and behaviors, and then “follow the money.”
Who profits, for example, from having pizza and French fries count as vegetables in school lunches? What evidence procedure did those promoting the vegetable status of pizza use in preparing the supporting legislation? In the old days—the very old days—the tribal elders would enforce violations of tribal beliefs with banishment, which was tantamount to a death sentence, as it was virtually impossible for an individual to survive without the protection of the tribe.
The issues we are facing at this time in history seem to be asking (and perhaps even demanding) us to set aside tribal beliefs that are no longer in our best interests, including global warming (global climate change), extreme poverty and wealth distribution, air and water pollution, disease, the possibility that regional squabbles (such as what’s happening with Russia, Ukraine, and Crimea), and religious squabbles (such as differences between Sunnis and Shiites) will prevent positive action being taken on the other issues. The major issues of our time seem to require an honest evidence procedure for examining the issues and selecting a course of action. A song from the 1950s, Let there be peace on earth / And let it begin with me, emphasizes our individual responsibility for reviewing our beliefs and deciding whether the evidence supports them.
