Blasphemy

 

George Bernard Shaw is credited with the quote, "All great truths begin as blasphemies." It's an old-fashioned word usually invoked in a religious context, as in speaking ill of God will get you smote. But I argue the sentiment of the term, and of the quote, is more universally and certainly contemporary.

It's good to feel strongly about things. But it's also dangerous when you stop keeping an open mind to the possibility that you are wrong and need to change, even worse when you feel so righteously that you consider that those who disagree with you are not only wrong but should be punished and damned. 

Much of our current discourse - not just the culture wars but political issues and scientific matters - is being conducted with high religious zeal, such that opposition is shouted down as blasphemous. I'm not arguing that we should be pushovers or not hold fast to any beliefs. I am saying that any progress - as a person, group, and society - depends on giving room for disparate viewpoints, even those that feel blasphemous.

I always think about how in the future the current present will be the past. Meaning that, think of how outdated it would feel to be transported to 150 years ago, and how little we knew back then relative to how much we know now. Well, 150 years from now, today will feel similarly archaic. Some of what was heresy back then is now accepted fact. So it will be today, someday. So we must not always shout down that which we find offensive. Innovation, scientific breakthrough, even societal survival may depend on our working through the heretical to get to the truth.