belief (or, the philosophy of horton hears a who)

Belief is a funny thing. Some people need an arsenal of beliefs to be able to function in the world with any semblance of sanity. Others, like philosophers, toy with the idea of fundamental beliefs until everything becomes a “why?” or “what if?” (guaranteed to turn the brain into a tangle of noodles, believe me. Yeah, pun intended).

Why is it so many people get worked up over someone else’s beliefs? If that’s what gets them through the day, what harm is it to you? Unless their belief is that they should immediately harm you, I guess.

I started thinking about this after a post from a fellow blogger who can often be found reducing someone’s spiritual or religious beliefs down to a belief in pixies. It’s like everything is divisible by pixies with him. That right there, is his belief.

I find it fascinating how often this occurs in life – one person believes something, another person believes the opposite, both are convinced they are unequivocally right.

But here’s the problem: the word “believe” has an element of doubt woven into it. The definition is given as “accept as true; take as true; have faith” (ref: the little blue beat up Collin’s Dictionary next to me). To believe is not to know; to believe is to think something may be a possibility. As in, “I believe that’s right” – the word ‘believe’ could very easily be swapped out for the word ‘think’.

So what’s the point in attacking another person over a ‘belief’ that doesn’t mirror your own? Both of you are, in essence, just guessing anyway.

If you hold onto a stoic belief so tight you’re adamant the other person’s wrong and you’re right, and they’re on the other side holding onto an equally stoic belief that they’re right, and you’re the one who’s wrong, you’re both so closed off from what if’s, and possibilities, and maybes, neither of you will ever discover anything new in the world. You’ll never end up adding any more colour and knowledge to your life.

There’s no way to grow if your fists and mind are closed.

It’s like being on a path with blinkers on, never being able to see any of the other paths around you, some of which may actually have better bitumen, better lighting, better other metaphorical things I can’t think of right now… you get the picture.

While I was chewing over all of this, I happened to watch Horton Hears a Who and it explained what I was trying to make sense of, in full technicolour glory. This is a great movie. Dr Seuss is a legend. Go see it pronto (and then we can discuss what the tribble on acid was meant to represent…).

It’s so full of philosophy that you can google ‘philosophy of horton hears a who’ and get some pretty interesting pages out of it (albeit, not as many as ‘philosophy of the matrix’, but still impressive all the same. Hmm, given me an idea for a title…).

The philosophical grain I’m interested in though is the one posed by the kangaroo, who refuses to admit that Horton may be right and a whole world full of people does actually exist on a speck of dust. Horton asks her to consider the ‘what ifs’ – what if we’re likewise travelling around on our own speck of dust in someone else’s universe? She claims “If you can’t see, hear, or feel it, it doesn’t exist”.

Putting aside all the religious goodies in that (because otherwise this would go on forever), it highlights her close-mindedness. She refuses to accept it, and does everything in her power to make Horton refuse it too. His belief isn’t harming anyone, although she feels it’s harming the children (heaven forbid they question their own existence) and uses that as an excuse to take a moral stand and put an end to it. There’s no logical reason for her to say Horton’s wrong in his claim; her only reasoning is that her beliefs tell her otherwise. Silly kangaroo.

Letting someone else’s beliefs in for your mind to chew over can take you on journeys you might not have otherwise taken if you had just dismissed them outright. It might even lead you to a better place, and closer to the goal of not believing, but knowing.