Wednesday, June 01, 2005 AD
Don't ask, don't tell, just keep digging
While pressing my nose to the window of the Boars Head Tavern the other day, I came across a link to an essay called Why smart people defend bad ideas, by Scott Berkun. Berkun argues that:
All this probably goes some way to explaining the Church of England's absurd proposal that priests may enter into same-sex "civil partnerships", provided they give their diocesan bishop an assurance that they will abstain from sexual activity with their "partner".
The problem is that Rowan Williams is a very smart person: indeed, he is an exceptionally intelligent and thoughtful man, but like many exceptionally intelligent and thoughtful men he can display a certain naivety that makes it possible for less sensitive, more politically minded souls to run rings round him.
You can see how ++Cantuar and his fellow bishops could have persuaded themselves that this proposal makes sense, looking at it in a total vacuum. There is nothing sinful about two men (or two women) living under the same roof. And as far as I know, the new law on civil partnerships, while only available to two people of the same sex, does not require evidence of sexual activity, or of the intention to engage in sexual activity. So in principle, two persons of the same sex are free to enter into a civil partnership (and enjoy the attendant tax and inheritance benefits) in a way that involves neither sexual immorality nor deception.
The Church of England's bishops are also a very homogenous group, who pride themselves on the number of decisions they make unanimously (seeing it as evidence of their "collegiality"). They perhaps lacked someone who could take a step back and say, "Y'know, while this sort of makes sense on one level, on another more basic level this is completely ludicrous. We all know that the only people who will actually enter into these partnerships are people in active homosexual relationships". (Perhaps this is the best argument yet for women bishops...)
In other words, to return to Berkun's essay, they may have been smart, but they lacked wisdom. As Berkun puts it:
The problem with smart people is that they like to be right and sometimes will defend ideas to the death rather than admit they’re wrong.This manifests itself in a number of ways. First, smart people are often very good at basic debating and logic skills that can prove successful at defending ideas (however bad) against less-skilled proponents of rival ideas (however good):
If you learn a few tricks of logic and debate, you can refute the obvious, and defend the ridiculous. If the people you’re arguing with aren’t as comfortable in the tactics of argument, or aren’t as arrogant as you are, they may even give in and agree with you.Secondly, smart people tend to group together in a self-selecting way that encourages "death by homogeny". Peer pressure works on our psychology rather than our intellect, which means it applies to smart people as much as it does to everyone else:
Just because everyone in the room is smart doesn’t mean that collectively they will arrive at smart ideas.Finally, smart people may simply be thinking about the wrong things: finding brilliant ways to solve problems no-one actually cares about, or analysing the short-term in detail without considering the longer-term impact.
All this probably goes some way to explaining the Church of England's absurd proposal that priests may enter into same-sex "civil partnerships", provided they give their diocesan bishop an assurance that they will abstain from sexual activity with their "partner".
The problem is that Rowan Williams is a very smart person: indeed, he is an exceptionally intelligent and thoughtful man, but like many exceptionally intelligent and thoughtful men he can display a certain naivety that makes it possible for less sensitive, more politically minded souls to run rings round him.
You can see how ++Cantuar and his fellow bishops could have persuaded themselves that this proposal makes sense, looking at it in a total vacuum. There is nothing sinful about two men (or two women) living under the same roof. And as far as I know, the new law on civil partnerships, while only available to two people of the same sex, does not require evidence of sexual activity, or of the intention to engage in sexual activity. So in principle, two persons of the same sex are free to enter into a civil partnership (and enjoy the attendant tax and inheritance benefits) in a way that involves neither sexual immorality nor deception.
The Church of England's bishops are also a very homogenous group, who pride themselves on the number of decisions they make unanimously (seeing it as evidence of their "collegiality"). They perhaps lacked someone who could take a step back and say, "Y'know, while this sort of makes sense on one level, on another more basic level this is completely ludicrous. We all know that the only people who will actually enter into these partnerships are people in active homosexual relationships". (Perhaps this is the best argument yet for women bishops...)
In other words, to return to Berkun's essay, they may have been smart, but they lacked wisdom. As Berkun puts it:
[N]o amount of intelligence can help an individual who is diligently working at the wrong level of the problem. Someone with wisdom has to tap them on the shoulder and say, "Um, hey. The hole you’re digging is very nice, and it is the right size. But you’re in the wrong yard."And that's a very good analogy for the Church of England, because if ever any group of supposedly smart people needed to take to heart the basic dictum, "When you're in a hole, stop digging", it's the House of Bishops.
