.:. WitNit .:.: The God Game, Part 4

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February 20, 2005

The God Game, Part 4

his post completes this portion of The God Game. You should have already read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

The Satan Manuever

Here's my favorite picture of Satan:

I first noticed the Satan Maneuver some years ago while watching a televised interview of an evangelical minister. The minister claimed that the earth was created 6,000 years ago. The interviewer asked the minister about scientific discoveries of fossils that were undoubtedly millions of years old. How could the minister account for those age-old fossils? The minister replied simply, "Satan put them there."

We can imagine the nonplussed look on the face of the interviewer. Where could he go from there? It is important to understand what the minister accomplished with this answer. He had introduced a magical explanation into a forum that was assumed, up to that point, to be one where arguments were supported by evidence and reason. By introducing this Satan Maneuver, the minister destroyed that forum and replaced it with one that precluded, by its very nature, any argument based on evidence and reason.

In fairness to the minister, he may very well constantly dwell in a forum based on magic and faith, with no desire to ever be involved in a forum of evidence and reason. However, scholars and others who enter into a debate that implicitly promises a forum of evidence and reason have an obligation to avoid any introduction of any form of Satan Maneuver?that is, any explanation that introduces a magical explanatory element that negates arguing from evidence and reason, especially when they become uncomfortable with evidence and arguments that threaten to weaken or overthrow their closely held arguments or positions.

The Satan Maneuver appears in Shakespeare studies. When confronted with internal evidence that Shakespeare may have had a high-level education, whether in law or the classics, some scholars produce a rabbit out of the hat by falling back on Shakespeare's genius, or some other form of magical aptitude based on nothing but sheer speculation.

For example, A. L. Rowse in his Shakespeare The Man explains Shakespeare's comprehensive and wide-ranging experience with classical and contemporary literature and history thus: "He had a marvellous capacity from the outset for making a little go a long way; his real historical reading came later ? he was very much a reading man, and he read quickly."

How he has grasped Shakespeare's "marvellous capacity" or knows his reading ability, Rowse does not say. But his meaning is clear; Shakespeare gleaned his incredible wealth of knowledge by having a capacious mind that magically (through the mystery of "genius") grasped knowledge quickly and easily.

British Shakespearean scholar Allardyce Nicoll makes a similar claim in his book Shakespeare: "In the wonder of his genius he was able to grasp in lightning speed what could be attained only after dull years of work by ordinary minds."

Thus can scholars magically explain away the lack of high education and the absence of leisure that would seem to be needed for a writer of Shakespeare's accomplishments to refine his skills and accommodate the range and depth of his accomplishments.

By introducing such statements, these scholars destroy the possibility of presenting arguments in favor of a university education, or the kind of experience and access that comes with the aristocratic and noble classes. The forum of reason, argument, and evidence dissolves. Genius in the form of a quick mind and capacious memory explains all, the magical ability to immediately and photographically apprehend everything, sans education, sans experience, merely from reading books.

Another form of the Satan Maneuver is the "Universal Tavern of Second-Hand Knowledge." When confronted with the enigma of Shakespeare's knowledge of law, Italy, foreign languages, or anything else that could possibly require unusual study or physical access, some may argue that "Shakespeare would have picked such things up by visiting a tavern and querying travelers or lawyers or multilingual scholars or?" fill-in-the-blank.

Again, such an argument based on the second-hand acquisition of knowledge would harm any ability to rely on evidence and reason to make a case that the plays show the kind of knowledge that would require direct experience.

Rationalist skeptics commit a Satan Maneuver with the mind when they invoke its power to explain away out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, and the like. "We know the power of the mind to produce powerfully real hallucinatory experiences, and that's all that is happening. It's just chemicals in the brain."

Again, something that can explain anything explains nothing, when it comes to working scientifically.

Just like the evangelical fundamentalists who magically invoke Satan to explain away evidence and reasonable arguments, the rationalist skeptic falls back on the mind to explain away any reported experiences that may lead one away from purely materialist explanations for the nature of human experience. The mind is the skeptic's Satan.

Now, if you haven't already done so, go to 1. How the Mind Works, which continues this series.

*** Me... a skeptic? I trust you have proof...

***The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good. Robert Graves

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Posted by witnit at February 20, 2005 7:09 AM