‘HERESY’
CAERS Substack Article #83
You have likely heard the word ‘heresy’, although it is used rather infrequently today compared to 150 years ago. It is interesting that its English definition is ‘a belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious doctrine’ despite its Greek origin meaning a choice or to choose. Heresy sounds more ominous or threatening than simply making a choice.
It is reminiscent of another rather uncommon word, ‘blasphemer’, someone who speaks of holy things in an offensive way. For many of us both words may conjure up images of the Middle Ages when witches were burned at the stake as blaspheming heretics. It is said that every generation has its own witches; but certainly, that cannot be true for us today, can it?
Unlike the two words mentioned above, the words ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ are commonly used nowadays, especially since the onset of the pandemic. The former is defined as information that is false or inaccurate that is used to intentionally deceive. The latter has a similar definition but focuses more on the use of false information as propaganda to deceive rival opponents.
With regard to true and accurate information, as compared to false or inaccurate information, there is a tacit assumption that the truth is known absolutely. Thus, anything that does not fit with the accepted understanding can be labelled as misinformation since it clearly can only serve to deceive. Furthermore, there is one and only one authority that knows the details of, and is allowed to control the communication of, said truth, and they must not be challenged. Does this idea of misinformation bear any resemblance to heresy? Would one consider those individuals who promote misinformation to be blasphemers? Although we may not label them as such, do we essentially have our own witches today?
Challenging authority or the accepted wisdom of the majority has always involved risk and the potential for paying a price, including social isolation and even torture and death. Yet at the same time, we only make progress by questioning and critiquing our present understanding. In particular, this is the very essence of the scientific process. Which means that we walk a fine line between information and understanding that we accept at the moment to be accurate and true, versus tolerating or even encouraging alternative perspectives that may or may not end up being more accurate and truer in the long term.
Humans find change scary—we feel much less safe venturing into unknown territory than we feel by sticking with that with which we are already familiar, even if it is not completely correct. However, when we insist that all that we presently understand is utterly true, we have a tendency to label anything the least bit contrary as misinformation; and if it is very different, we may even refer to it as heresy. Once we do that, it is not that big a leap to then engage in our own brand of witch-hunts.
There is a legitimate concern, of course, that there are people who will purposefully spread ‘information’ they know to have little or no legitimacy in order to trick and deceive us, and in the process destabilize our way of life or even harm us. There are two opposite approaches to dealing with this: 1) we can simply ban any information that does not align with our present beliefs, or 2) we can allow for the unfettered transmission of all information (completely uncensored free speech). However, between these two extremes of the spectrum are many other possibilities. These often focus on improving the ability of members of society to critically analyze information that is presented to them. For example, teaching people to demand that all sides of an argument be presented and explored; helping people to recognize good justifications from not so good ones; critically evaluating the quality of ‘evidence’; learning to control immediate emotional reactions, especially fear and anger, when exposed to new ways of thinking about issues; enhancing our ability to recognize ‘information’ whose primary aim is not to advance understanding but simply to incite conflict and hatred.
I doubt that any process or set of rules or guidelines can ever prevent dissemination of all maladaptive information in a way that will never at the same time restrict genuinely productive creativity and courteous exchange of new ideas. In other words, gray zones will likely always exist, but regular monitoring, respectful skepticism and legal accountability can help to minimize their magnitude. Legitimate Information seeks to provide a greater understanding of issues in the world by promoting more love, respect and fairness. When information severely fails these criteria then considering some form of warning, or even restriction, is likely justifiable.
People have the right to see the world differently than we do, and to interpret ‘truth’ differently than we do, without automatically being labelled as heretics or blasphemers, or having their perspectives referred to as misinformation. Have you seen or experienced intolerance to reasonable alternative viewpoints during the pandemic? Have we bordered on identifying our own witches?
Or instead have we learned more about the healthy, and helpful, exchange of different perspectives and information during the pandemic? I hope that we have, because it would be encouraging to know that we are progressing as a species and not repeating some of our horrific mistakes of the past.
J. Barry Engelhardt MD (retired) MHSc (bioethics)
CAERS Health Intake Facilitator