Other voices

My mindbrain has been got at. I have known this for some time. A song I wrote in 1970 contained the lines:

“There’s a voice inside you, it’s the voice of other men,
It’s the voice of people dead and gone
Whose preaching makes the world go on or off.”

Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) is notably dead and gone in the flesh. But on the 31 October 1517 he nailed his “Ninety five Theses” to the door of the main church in Wittenberg in Germany. This was the first of a series of writings rejecting many of the beliefs and practices of the Catholic Church. 

A particularly vile practice was the selling of indulgences. In essence – if you give money to the Pope he will arrange with God that you get a place in heaven. Also for a fee the Pope could arrange that family and friends who are already dead can avoid Hell and Purgatory. 

Luther led the Protestant Reformation which amongst other things had the Bible translated into the common languages of Europe and made it possible for individuals to read the word of God for themselves.

Many individuals carried the movement forward. Notably amongst these were John Calvin (1509 – 1564 - French) and John Knox (1513 – 1572 – Scottish). Various brands of Protestantism evolved. The Scottish brand was essentially sour faced Calvinism as interpreted and preached by John Knox. It was not, and is still not a bundle of laughs.

Max Weber (1864 – 1920 – German sociologist) wrote an influential book about the link between “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”.  He reckoned that sociological, economic and religious viewpoints are mutually reinforcing and co-create the mind sets of the callous elites and the mass of wage slaves and consumers.

SO - some voices of other men from the past – Luther, Calvin, Knox and Weber. Women are not thought of, or included in, the list.

The preaching of the dead and gone grows old and irrelevant eg flat earth; heavier than air flying machines; God exists and is female;  the sun orbits the earth; the pope chats with God; Kings have divine rights.

Thomas Samuel Kuhn (1922 – 1996) was an American physicist, historian and philosopher of science whose controversial 1962 book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” was influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term “paradigm shift”, which has since become an English-language idiom.

The current and ongoing paradigm shift is rooted in evolutionary psychology and brain science (neurology).  There are working hypotheses rather than truths, and progress is made by multidisciplinary teams. 

E O Wilson (born 1929) is an inspirational exponent of the new way of thinking. He championed “sociobiology” but dropped the label and he now talks of “consilience” which is the principle that approaching the same problem by different methods should produce the same result.