Theos-Talk Archives (May 2005 Message tt00084)

Mr Gholap's mindset has for a number of months aroused a variety of 
responses from many of us ranging from utter incredulity to outright 
hostility. It certainly has a powerful effect on our sense of 
fairness, justice and common sense. What appears blatantly obvious to 
many of us is either denied or avoided by this extraordinarily 
programmed mind.
For some time I have wondered whether he is an actual person or a 
pseudo-character invented by someone wishing to demonstrate the 
extreme danger of the blind faith, leader/follower, 
pseudo/theosophical mindset of Bishop Leadbeater and Mrs Annie Besant.
Whether a real or invented mindset, the following article, albeit in 
a slightly different context by Nelson Hultberg, might be of interest.

"There is a strange incongruity, observable throughout the 
intellectual history of man, that never ceases to amaze me. Why is it 
in the field of ideas that dramatic new visions of truth are so often 
met with vehement opposition from a society's intellectuals -- the 
very men of the mind who are most dedicated to the pursuit and 
demonstration of truth?
How can the intellectuals of today's era -- so acutely aware of 
humanity's bigoted resistance in the past to Galileo, Semmelweis, 
Pasteur, and other radical discoverers of history -- succumb to the 
same blind obstinacy in face of the new truths confronting them? 

There are several reasons why this propensity for intolerance to new 
thinking has prevailed throughout history among intellectuals. As the 
physicist Fred Hoyle tells us, scientists are human. They are, far 
more often than the lay public perceives, victims of dogmatism and 
the tendency of all humans to argue from pre-set ideas.
Despite their much-heralded pledge to objective inquiry, scientists 
are quite capable of bias and suppression in order to preserve their 
long-standing beliefs. When a large portion of one's life has been 
passionately devoted to the validation of an idea, it becomes most 
difficult to accept the invalidity of that idea. Therefore truth, the 
most highly prized goal of all, is often forsaken to protect fragile 
egos and support previous convictions.
This tendency of scientists to be obstinate in the face of new truth 
manifests itself through the paradigm shift...
A paradigm is...an all-inclusive Big Picture based upon a fundamental 
premise in a field of study that undergirds the "why of things" in 
that particular field. Even when false, a paradigm often prevails as 
accepted truth for a long period of time because the prevailing minds 
and methodology of the era are inadequate to grasp reality more 
clearly. 
But falsity persists as truth also because humans fall prey to 
inertia. They seek mental comfort and choose paths of least 
resistance, which leads them to settle into a certain paradigm as if 
it is inviolable. For example, even after Copernicus made it obvious 
around 1500 AD that the Ptolemaic concept of the universe was a 
fallacy, it still prevailed in intellectual circles for another 180 
years until Galileo drove the final nails into its coffin.

Herein lies one of the great human dilemmas: 
Once a "way of viewing things" is entrenched in any given field, even 
when new knowledge comes along to refute such a paradigm, it becomes 
practically impossible (because of the flaws of human nature) for 
most intellectuals to think outside that paradigm's constraints. They 
will defend the entrenched view even when its basic conception is 
shown to be foolish and impossible, especially if they have devoted a 
vital part of their lives to the teaching and promotion of that "way 
of viewing things."
This is presently our situation in many intellectual fields. Like the 
medieval dogmatists, today's academic community also clings to 
irrational paradigms in face of overwhelming evidence that their 
views are as untenable as the flat earth theories of old."
Nelson Hultberg, 2003.