Putting Descartes Before the Whores

We've Seen This Movie Before...Over and Over Again for Hundreds of Years

When I was a little kid—and I mean, really little, like two years old—my Dad decided to use me as a prop for a little high brow comedy. He wanted to impress his friends, mostly fellow scientists, with how smart his tiny first born son was and, by extension, what brilliant parents that child had.

As some of you who have followed my writing here know, my Dad was a research psychologist who did a lot of early work at the intersection of how human brains work and how modern technology could help. He got his training in educational psychology and so was well familiar with all the techniques that had been developed for teaching dogs (Pavlov) or, to pick two more examples, rats and pigeons (Skinner). So what he knew was perfect for training a creature like me.

His approach was this. For a number of weeks before a dinner party to be attended by a several of his colleagues, he put his finger to his temple in a thoughtful pose and taught me to say “Cogito Ergo Sum.” Ya, ya, I know, it was way too contrived and precious. But these are the trials that made me the crumpled, yellowing ball of waste paper I am today.

Each time I would say the phrase correctly after getting the cue, he would give me some form of positive reinforcement. Like the treats the dogs, rats or pigeons would get in prior experiments.

Finally, the big day came. The friends gathered. I climbed up into my booster seat to join them. And then, when the crowd was appropriately hushed, my father said, “What did Descartes say?” and then he touched his index finger to his brow, waiting for me to respond.

I however, was unfamiliar with the twist in this game that involved mentioning the French philosopher and mathematician (whose works I had barely started studying at that time.) So, when he asked the question, I tried to figure out what “What did Descartes say” meant. And so I responded with two year-old insight, “Meow.”

At first my father (and perhaps everyone) was disappointed. But, then he realized that I was actually listening to him and had deciphered what he meant in his Austrian-accented English as, “What did the cat say?” And the rest is family history.

This is Not About Me, It’s About You

Now, family history for the most part is best left for family Thanksgiving table discussions, but in this case the story crossed my mind because later in my life, I attended a college, Columbia, that focused heavily on what was then known as “the core curriculum,” a series of course requirements—many more requirements than most other top schools at the time—that were intended to teach us the building blocks of (mostly Western) thought and, more importantly, critical thinking skills.

Not surprisingly, reading Descartes and the other philosophers that shaped the Enlightenment was an important part of the coursework. There, I learned the context in which the expression evolved. In 1637, in “Discourse on the Method,” Descartes originally presented the idea (but in French). He expanded on the idea in a variety of ways in subsequent books, culminating, ultimately, in a volume published after his death, entitled, “The Search for Truth by Natural Light.” In this expanded explication of the idea, he asserted that the statement “dubito ergo sum” (I doubt therefore I am) is the same as saying “cogito ergo sum” (I think therefore I am.)

It is with these arguments that Descartes, and “Discourse on the Method” in particular, are cited for having ushered in what we now know as “The Age of Enlightenment.” While his argument—that by doubting our existence we demonstrate that we think and that by thinking we prove that we exist—is just one of his many contributions to this age, it could not be more relevant today in multiple respects quite apart from whatever core philosophical truth it contains.

What resonates with me now are two things. First, that one of the foundational requirements of enlightenment is having the courage to doubt, to challenge our own perceptions of what we see, our assumptions about what we know, and, as importantly, the assertions of others as to what actually is. In an age of monarchs who claimed their power was absolute because it flowed from God and of a Roman Catholic Church that asserted that its own leader, the Pope, for similar reasons, was infallible, doubting is both the ultimate subversive act and the only path to freedom and independence (of people within each state and of states from the dictates of the church.)

The Enlightenment saw a flourishing of thought that shrugged off edicts that came from on high and that embraced doubt, skepticism, a search for core truth, a search for proof. Descartes was also a scientist and helped usher in the broader embrace of what we now know as the scientific method. That in turn has led us out of the dim eras of superstition and faith-based interpretations of the universe and to the revolutions in insight that have fueled the revolutions in medicine, chemistry, physics and technology of the past four hundred years. (From Newton and Leibniz to Darwin and Einstein.)

Politically and socially, doubting the right of one man or one family or even a group of aristocrats to assert power over the lives of individuals triggered further massive shifts in views and upheavals.

From Descartes to Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau and then on to the thinking of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, from the evolution of the idea of the rights of the individual, of the relationship between the individual and society to the exploration of the most just interplay between citizens and their governments, the power of these new ideas was so great that it remade the world.

And yes, I know that I am choosing a Western and Euro-centric set of examples here and that there are many others that helped the world evolve. And yes, while we may be optimistic or net positive about the direction in which the course of history bends, we also know that there have been many missteps, half-steps, and steps backward along the way.

Indeed, if you read of the response to the Enlightenment, you would find, however distant 17th and 18th Century Europe may be from your own experience, that there were many echoes with what we are seeing happen around us today. Political leaders and clusters of political philosophers soon began to argue that society needs and is better off when the church and religion are empowered, that science and scientific method are inadequate to explain the mysteries of the universe or to limn the sort of understanding we need to be the best people we can be. They argued for monarchs and strong central governments. They made the case that promoting questioning doctrines was dangerous and subversive. Some of those who made, in one way or another these cases (Vico, Herder, de Maistre and Hamann for example) became part of what was characterized in retrospect by modern philosophers such as Isaiah Berlin as the “counter-Enlightenment.”

From de Maistre to Trump is a Straight Line

Sounds familiar, right? An emphasis on faith, attacks on science, and on the benefits of leaving governance to an elite or even one individual. These ideas…sometimes taken together…sometimes embraced in parts…often twisted to meet the needs of individual autocrats or champions of aristocracy…have been embraced by fascists of old and by the neo-fascists of the current era including those in the MAGA movement.

Now I am not for a moment suggesting that Trump has the slightest idea who these people are—or for that matter that any of the thugs in his immediate orbit do. But, I do want to make the point that the battle between empowering individuals and collective forms of government based on ideas of rights and equity and concentrating power in the hands of the few who seek to assert their views on society as a whole (whether because they believe them or because it simply makes it easier to justify their lust for control or their impulses toward other more venal forms of corruption) has been going on for a long time.

We may want to say, “Oh, this began with Reagan or Newt Gingrich” or “blame Putin and Orban” but that would be a mistake. The world has for centuries been in the throes of a struggle between greater freedoms for individuals based on a clearer view of our objective reality on this earth and one that seeks to exploit or dominate most people for the benefit of just a few. (Yes, the entire world. And yes, to reiterate, not just since the Enlightenment…but since pre-history as different approaches to governance and the social contract have been introduced, tested, discarded and replaced by new ones.)

Which brings us back to why Descartes has been on my mind recently. (And not just because I was programmed to have him there ever since my days as a lab rat.)

In many respects, the greatest danger to those who seek to impose their will on the rest of society—either via religion, monarchy or other authoritarian model—is doubt. If the public doubts what leaders are saying, if it doubts teachings that are foundational to the social order or the political hierarchy of a moment, it becomes first restive and then dangerous. This is because people who think for themselves are less likely to accept having others do their thinking for them.

For this reason, autocrats have long sought to eradicate the doubters and skeptics among them and by extension, those who teach ideas, facts and methods that lead to such doubt. The seek to both impose “right thinking” and penalize or eliminate “wrong thinking.” They do it through propaganda, through promoting lies, through suppressing freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association and assembly, and the ideas they find dangerous. They seek homogeneity and intellectual submission…and regularly, as we have seen in our country recently, they do so under the guise of doing just the opposite. (See the hypocrisy and toxic policies and approaches of the so-called “free speech absolutists” among our “leaders.”)

From Hitler to Stalin to Mao, from Putin to Orban to Erdogan to Modi to Netanyahu to Millei to Trump, that is why despots and dictators have conducted massive wars on knowledge and truth. To create the only environment in which their lies and twisted misrepresentations of reality could be embraced they have attacked the very well-springs of knowledge and independent thinking in their societies—the press, schools and universities, scientific innovators, artists, independent jurists, dissenting domestic political and philosophical voices.

Indeed, what we are seeing here in America today is not only the most egregious example of such a war on truth that we have ever seen in America but one of the fastest examples of the onset of such a form attempted national thought-policing we have seen anywhere outside of the Taliban or Hitler. Yes, we have had the Red Scare and efforts to create false narratives that suited past “leaders” (see the promoters of “The Lost Cause” in the wake of the Civil War) but we have never seen so many sources of independent thought so harshly and sweepingly attacked than we have under the past two months of the current U.S. regime.

An Unprecedented War on Truth and Knowledge

Every day, there are new examples. The campaign against DEI in the government is one example, but the penalizing of those who embrace ideas as bold as teaching the truth about American history or celebrating the achievements of Americans of color or women has extended far beyond the government. Media outlets are intimidated by law suits and denied access for failing to parrot administration lies (about for example what to call the Gulf of Mexico). Scientific researchers are fired and defunded by the government. Web sites are scrubbed of offending words. Grant proposals must use only approved language. Universities are targeted. The entire Department of Education is effectively being eliminated even as on a state-by-state basis books are banned and certain subjects can no longer be taught to children. The federal agency promoting libraries and museums is being shut down. One promoting peace is being shut down. The Kennedy Center has been taken over to prevent it from presenting unacceptable forms of artistic expression. As I mentioned in a column last week in the Daily Beast, in the Executive Order, targeting the Smithsonian and the National Zoo (!), it was specifically asserted that their programs and initiatives must not contain or promote “improper ideologies.”

Improper ideologies? This is the language of totalitarianism and completely against the founding principles on which this nation was established and against the thinking of the vast majority of those who helped progress forward by ushering in the Enlightenment.

People are being denied entry into this country when their cellphones contain content critical of the president. Universities are being denied funding not because of their practices regarding anti-Semitism (this is an obvious sham given that it comes from an administration led by white supremacists and containing more than just a few actual neo-Nazis) but because they have dared to allow views to be expressed that are contrary to those of the right-wing, ethno-nationalist, anti-democratic government of Israel and its supporters here. (Yes, the government’s threats and actions are not to defend Jews but rather to enforce the worldview of a small group of extremist Jewish racists. But no surprise there. The desire to promote “meritocracy” and to fight “wokeism” in the government is nothing of the sort. It is an effort to reject and even erase all ideological and political views that do not conform with those of the racists who run our government.)

We need to see these things for what they are both in a contemporary sense but also in a historical sense. And where possible, we need to take lessons from history.

One such lesson is the importance of doubt, independent thinking, and enlightenment to progress and to truly understanding and improving the state of the world. Another is that those who seek to reverse progress, while they argue that are doing so in defense of “better” traditional ways of thinking clearly do not even believe this themselves otherwise they would not always seek to suppress the knowledge, facts and ways of thinking they know put the lie to their approaches. Finally, if they do not believe what they are saying and fear the truth, we must ask why they do what they do and it always comes down to self-interest. They are invested in defending the status quo because it benefits them personally. They fear that change will dislodge them from power or carve away at their sources of wealth. And, related to both, they see that maintaining power for as long as they can will ultimately bring more benefits them.

Further, we also know that many who know better agree to go along with them because they believe in so doing they too will be able to profit or at the very least preserve and defend what they have already got. (And they do this despite the fact that history also shows that their capitulation to autocrats often results in their further exploitation or worse by those atop the power pyramid they’re defending. Why? Because greed and ambition are mind-altering drugs.)

As a consequence, even when we understand that doubt is the root of enlightenment a knowledge of the past tells us we also must understand that there are always a substantial number of people who possess wealth and power in any society who will sell their souls to autocrats in exchange for protecting their bank accounts, their noble titles, their beachfront homes or their access to the corridors of power. (Hence, the title…with apologies…of this essay.)