Belief In Something Just Because You Want To Believe It, Just Doesn’t Cut It
Belief should always be sensitive
Let’s be honest here and get to the point. Many of us have belief systems that are simply inconsistent, contradictory, or flat out erroneous. Furthermore, and far more dangerous is the motive for holding on to insensitive beliefs — that is devoid of any active reflection (prior) or introspection (post) to calibrate such beliefs.
First, let’s narrow down this topic as beliefs are a wide ranging phenomenon. Eliminate the most basic of beliefs that require little to no persuasion: humans require breathable air and consume edible substances on earth for their basic survival. For this we can utilize all of our senses as validating proof. We can take it a bit further and assume that gravity is an invisible force that keeps most of the atmosphere (of lighter mass), and gratefully us humans (of heavier mass) from being carried out into space. We don’t need to calibrate this belief — unless something incredibly catastrophic occurs — as it is substantive enough with empirical study which further reinforces this belief.
Every belief should have a degree of sensitivity to it to account for contexture, new information, and or changes in environment. Beliefs should be malleable to such revelations. Beliefs usually start on a hunch, thinking outside of the box, or even on what may seem like an absurdity. However beliefs are sustained on a contextualized reinforcement of its measurable validity and its copious applications. The previous examples of beliefs I mentioned earlier lack emotionality — they are not based on, nor is susceptible to intense feelings or emotions. It just is.
Our belief systems in the social realm are primarily based on the whims of emotionality. While feminine and minority groups are deeply interested and concerned about their social location within the social hierarchy, most non minority groups feign ignorance and show no inclination to understanding the implications of such an insensitively constructed belief system. Some of the emotionality embedded in their responsive or lack or responsiveness — fear, resentment, skepticism, guilt, or desire allow uptake failures to take hold as these issues fester — becoming maligned, and going unaddressed. This overwhelms the senses to a detrimental fault and are highly insensitive to calibrating beliefs in this regard. It leaves little room for correction. This societal belief consortium of emotionality lends itself to disconfirmation bias and is hard to pin down. These emotively hardened beliefs are what most philosophical experts call propositional attitudes. It is when mere statements take on the appearance of a valid but subjective meaning based on the attitude ascribed to it, which presupposes an assertion or claim.
Taking a knee is a sensitive belief being cultivated in pledging allegiance to the American Flag
The ceremonial stand during the Star Spangled Banner at professional sporting events are a mark of symbolism for pledging allegiance to the flag. The pledge of allegiance is considered an American patriotic vow.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
The president conflates the “Stars and Stripes” as a metaphysical representation of the country, therefore if one doesn’t stand for the flag during the ceremonial singing of the Star Spangled Banner — every time, under any circumstance, then one doesn’t have love or respect for the country, and therefore, is unpatriotic and worthy of penalty, punishment or expulsion. This qualifier is mired in fallacious and dubious reasoning.
The United States has long enacted laws that enable its institutions to erroneously apply its own democratic principles in markedly inconsistent fashion, and in starkly contradictory terms on its fellow citizens. A citizenry that runs the gamut of identities and are beholden to an idealized American spirit of core values.
An aspect of the spirit of core values in Americanism is the right to peaceful protest against a perceivable and occurring threat to being…
… “indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”.
This seems lost on many Americans, particularly those belonging to or placating a group that has ingratiated themselves with insensitive beliefs of being atop of a social hierarchy and therefore privileged by location and history. An insensitively constructed belief that had once constitutionally determined that women had no legal standing to vote, — provocatively warrants peaceful yet vigorous protest.
An insensitively constructed belief that constitutionally deemed slaves as three-fifths a person, and made Blacks ineligible to be counted as one full vote or to fully engage in the democratic way of life, relegating them to second class citizenry — via segregationist, discriminatory, unequal and unjust treatment and murder — provocatively warrants peaceful yet vigorous protest.
An insensitively constructed belief that prompted a nation of immigrants to place unduly harsh and restrictive immigration policies in place on further immigrants — a concept that convincingly and indubitably made America a great country to begin with in the way it diversely mirrors the world — provocatively warrants peaceful yet vigorous protest.
These insensitively constructed beliefs are fraught with emotions that posits a disingenuous presentation of views within the white frame of false narratives in history, the irrationality of identity politics, and its corruptible persuasions.
The insouciance towards calibrating certain insensitive beliefs and doing away with erroneous ones tend to create an atmosphere of anxiety and despair, coupled with distrust and divisiveness. As a country we have sabotaged ourselves with silly inapplicable beliefs that don’t hold an ounce of water.
To substantiate beliefs based on a premise of what the Founding Fathers had intended or implied is a weak argument mired in irrelevance and falsehoods. The inconsistent, contradicting and erroneous method of evaluative reasoning here isn’t conducive to understanding why the abbreviated form of the Star Spangled Banner — whose resentfully sympathetic to the confederate cause author in Francis Scott Key, who was as anti-black, and proslavery as they come— had become the National Anthem over a hundred years later. Most whites have no incentive to question its faulty reasoning when juxtaposed against the pledge of allegiance. Either it is blindly followed or corruptively subtle towards the promulgation of insensitive beliefs presented in this wayward social construct.
To ignore this incessant bit of cognitive dissonance would be a means to actually contributing to this motivated ignorance. As disturbing as it is to have to hash through, it is necessary that beliefs surrounding the matter are calibrated— from its origins, inference and intentions surrounding the symbolism of the American flag. Clearly, what it represents as an established belief is more so a distinction within a hierarchical order amongst its masses, rather than a more applicable distinction of equality amongst a nation of immigrants. The emotionality of it all has me and quite possibly millions of others disillusioned by the disunited states of America’s system of beliefs.
