Dogma

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Maybe this stock photo priest isn't dogmatic don't make assumptions

Dogma and its cousins Ideology and Metanarrative get a lot of hate in modern philosophy, despite the fact that they have provided significant incentives for humans to do very big things in the past. Sometimes great things, sometimes not so great. But most of the really big things had an ideology driving them.

"The new spirituality will step away from dogma, will step away from 'We're right and you're wrong.'" -Neale Donald Walsch

See utopia for more on how the drive to make things perfect inevitably makes things worse.

Modern Resistance to Definitions

Most secular and progressive people are inherently resistant to any established belief system due to the fact that once you establish one it becomes dogma. And once you have dogma you have hierarchy, resistance to change, and the truth leaves you behind. This is understandable, but it puts them at quite a disadvantage when it comes to appealing to those who are seeking out a belief system and don't really want to have to figure everything out for themselves. [1]

This represents a postmodern philosophical framework that prioritizes the subjective nature of truth in an attempt to counter cultural superiority complexes in the wake of global war and genocide. If nobody is better than anyone else, that quells the will to subjugate. This has been the dominant framework for most of the humanities academia for the last 50+ years, and has had a significant influence on progressive identify politics.

By revealing the power structures behind most metanarratives, deconstruction inadvertently primed us for modern authoritarian misinformation and conspiracy theory campaigns. Rather than using deconstruction for its intended purpose of revealing the hidden motivations and incentives that influence the stories we tell, it caused many to take the cynical view that all information is subjective. This has caused the public to doubt all assertions of objective truth and retreat to their in-groups, believing only what those on their team seem to agree with. This makes it much easier for authoritarians and grifters to take advantage by simply donning the uniform and lingo their target.

How can we resist the rigidity and superiority complexes that arise once you make any claim to objective truth? How can we create a shared reality space that is not dependent on in-group identity and beliefs? How can we spread these ideas to people of many cultures and generations if we can't define them and say that they are somehow better than the alternative?

The Meta Definition

metaculture avoids this issue by putting science and the scientific method at the core of its ideology. This means that the only dogma is that there is no dogma. That is something that secular progressives can believe in and say that they stand for, because it will always be true.

This is similar to the Paradox of Tolerance that requires us to be intolerant of intolerance. We must be dogmatic in our resistance to dogma if we hope to prevail.

If you have spent a lot of time in the JP and JC spaces of YouTube, you can say something similar but with ideology. In this case it's a bit more nuanced, since ideology does not necessarily have the implication of rigidity that dogma has. And the goal isn't to resist all ideology, just the ones that are rigid or authoritarian. It would be more like The ideology of self-correcting ideology.

The Peterson problem is more generally a problem with Gurus. By creating an anonymously authored wiki, metaculture creates a Guru without Gurus. A virtual guru that represents the collective wisdom of many different experts instead of a single know-it-all, and avoids the temptation towards grift and audience capture that the guru cult of personality inevitably leads to. The Decoding the Gurus podcast is a great way to learn about all of the problematic guru grifters that have taken over the Internet and are brainwashing a generation, especially young men.

Dogma of no dogma. Ideology of self-correcting ideology. Guru without gurus. All of these concepts use the self-reference technique perfected by Gödel to provide a dogma, ideology, and guru that offers certainty through method rather than faith in authority.

No Dogma, No Gurus. What Next?

Of course, beyond this base assumption of no dogma is all of the knowledge and evidence that science and religions have gathered over the course of human history that must be taken into account when developing a belief system, documenting best practices, and making life choices. metaculture creates a malleable, self-correcting dogma that makes recommendations based on the best of our current knowledge, and stays up-to-date when new shit has come to light.

Fight Ideology With Better Ideology

Proponents of fundamentalism and the right-wing manosphere have very well thought out and slickly presented belief systems that they are actively pushing into the newsfeeds of the next generation. To act as if secular progressives don't also share a belief system by refusing to define it is to disarm yourself in the battle for our minds.

Kevin Smith Made a Movie About It

Does reading about Dogma make you long for Kevin Smith's heyday as a filmmaker? If so you're in luck!

Neil deGrasse Tyson on Dogma


What is Dogma?


The Pervert's Guide to Ideology - Slavoj Žižek

And a reaction/criticism from Decoding the Gurus

Dogma (1999) Full Movie


The first rule of Dogma is that there is no Dogma.

Every First Rule of Fight Club Reference. Ever.


Ministry - Jesus Built My Hotrod