On a recent trip to Amarillo, Texas, I saw a woman driving a car with a bumper sticker that said, "Born OK the First Time." West Texas is a hotbed of born again Christian fundamentalism. It was an act of courage and honesty for that driver to assert that she felt alright about herself without being part of the "born again" herd.
We often have trouble listening to the truths we tell each other about our lives, preferring instead to project our own ideological thinking onto one another. Fundamentalism and other inflexible ideologies plays a big role here. Fundamentalists and ideologues frequently won't listen to and take seriously the religious experience of people from other faiths or no faith, and they also frequently dismiss our current scientific theories. Whether it is the big bang theory regarding the origin of the universe, the notion that abstinence-only education is the best way to stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, or the fact that some people have different personal experiences around religion, the overarching preference for ideologues is to accept ideology over evidence.
In order to build a saner society, we need to learn new ways of speaking and listening to one another. This requires that we become seekers and providers of evidence. We need to cultivate the courage to tell each other about the truths of our experience, and we need to do this in as specific a way as possible. We also need to listen carefully. When people speak from their own experience (which is a form of evidence), we need to be especially cautious about dismissing what they are saying. When the discussion veers away from being evidenced-based to being ideological, we need to be disciplined about asking where the evidence is for the expressed views.
Of course, not everything can be based on evidence. Many acts of creativity require speculation and non-evidential thinking. But I believe that if we can base more of our common life on seeking evidence and honesty in our speaking and listening, we'll build a much better future than any ideology could give us.
