Conclusion

Abstract

This last chapter uses the analogy of a cognitive, information matrix to describe the properties of an idea system. It first conducts an academic recapitulation by stating a few unfinished, synthetic, essential observations from the past chapters about the nature of idea systems. Following this, it conducts a humanistic recapitulation in light of the complex situation we face in the contemporary world. The latter part culminates with a discussion of “fair-mindedness”—a virtue and principle that can be considered to mitigate the worst atrocities identified in this book.

This book has journeyed into intense episodes of manipulation and mayhem connected to idea systems. All along we have borne in mind two questions. Why do people end up doing what they do? Why do things happen in society the way they do?

A summary of the answer is this: many human events are not planned or intended by any particular actor. Outcomes in social dynamics unfold over the course of idea systems’ activation. After they emerge, they could often no longer be tempered because of the efficacy, and sometimes because of the general state of malfunction pertaining to idea systems.

Here, idea systems must not simply be equated with ideas, and the focus must not exclusively rest on contents. Contents themselves, even if flawed, are often mistakenly identified or presumed as the primary motivators of social actions. However, such contents are hardly sufficient in driving the manifold unfolding entropy. For example, seemingly extreme beliefs about magic, the Devil, or liberation plans may indeed be responsible for social turbulence, but they also exist in numerous other more tranquil social settings.

Idea System as a Matrix

Our cases have presented a driving cause that seemed to be combinative and synergistic, always involving a structurally driven social and cognitive dynamic. In the scenes of social disasters which we have visited, the key instigators seemed to be those who were exceptionally capable of utilizing programmatic modes of codification to influence the unfolding of social events. The strength of the idea systems (or idea programs) conditioned, though not absolutely determined, these instigators’ powers. The more promising and sound an idea system is (the more informational merit it possesses), the more it has been refined, polished, and tested by intelligent minds, and the more extreme are the results it can produce.

Aided by such idea systems, these actors interweaved a discourse in the form of a cognitive and informational matrix.¹ Such matrices were capable of creating semiotic transformations comparable to those in Greek mythologies: time, space, and events could be extravagantly manipulated; beings could be readily transformed into wolves or pigs, flowers or stone, or even a river or an echo. Unlike these mythologies, the means and methods we encounter in this book are human ones, and the events of semiotic transformation unfold in slow successive motion, often “rationally.” This book has unpacked the basis of these transformations by examining the detailed codification processes involved.

Some transformations were predictable; they were enacted in a manner according to the build and design of an idea system. In such an arrangement, the human agency of thinking and social subjects is suppressed; most subjects are limited to particular corners and activities in the matrix. As they themselves are steered away from possible exits, their discourses reinforce a structure that entraps others in the matrix’s algorithms. Such occurrences are exemplified by our case subjects, who could manufacture identifications of witches, counterrevolutionaries, and terror associates—as well as facts, arguments, narratives, and extrapolative ideas—efficiently, as supported by the facilitative mechanics built within an idea program.

Idea systems have also engendered behaviors and social outcomes—including transformations—that were utterly unpredictable. Unregulated or ill-regulated human minds are dangerous. For all the ills that it can bring, a refined idea system regulates people. Conversely, a defective idea system can act like a defective software program suffering from frequent glitches or crashes. The more destructive potentials of the idea system can be unleashed as a consequence. After all, those who regulate the matrix also work within the matrix; when the dysfunctional matrix is open for multiple social actors to recondition the code, even skilled system programmers could lose control of the processes. Under such conditions, two child-witnesses who knew how to embellish an event with fitting details about witches could transform the lives of everyone in their community, in ways not even initially comprehended by the children—and ultimately resulting in their death. Comparatively, revolutionary youths could be made to condone actions far exceeding the initial vision of the Revolution in China; Mao himself was entrapped by the matrix and had to repeatedly terminate the process by force. Less is yet known about the aftermath of the U.S. War on Terror. However, the unfolding of unpredictable events over the past two decades has continuously begged these questions: Can this “war” be decisively “won” or “ended”? Has it created more or fewer terrorists? Is the destruction caused in Afghanistan and Iraq justified by the liberties gained by the people in those locations? Given the economic costs and soldiers’ casualties for the United States, is the “price of freedom” ever too high? Coherent answers seem missing, with the architect of the War on Terrorism script having faded from the political front stage. The matrix seems to be hibernating, except in sporadic moments when new global terrorists appear in its wake.

This book has offered a framework and set of vocabularies to study idea systems, closely analyzing complex cognition and language use. In this conclusion, I will first conduct an academic recapitulation by stating a few unfinished, synthetic, essential observations from the past chapters about the nature of idea systems. I will then conduct a humanistic recapitulation in light of the complex situation we face in the contemporary world. The latter part ends with a discussion of “fair-mindedness”—my choice of principle to mitigate against the monstrous human conditions identified in this book.

Academic Recapitulations

Following each of the case studies, we have assessed the respective idea system using a five-tier model. Several points warrant additional discussions: (1) the cyclical dynamics that seems to be engrained in idea systems, (2) the basic, functional mechanisms common to all idea systems, and (3) the logic and limitations of our typologies.

A Three-Stage “Life Cycle” of Idea Systems

A generalized pattern that can be observed from our cases is a cyclical dynamic manifested by idea systems. Without indulging in the abstraction of dialectical theories, the biological analogy of a “life cycle” is heuristic in describing the unfolding trajectory of idea systems. I separate the life cycle into an initial Settling Phase, an intermediate Unsettling Phase, and a third Resettling Phase.

In the Settling Phase (Stage 1), an idea system is largely in a state of controlled manipulation. Those who control the system have disproportionate knowledge and expertise over other actors in society pertaining to the idea system. They take an active part in making an idea system believable, resilient, and adaptable, subjecting it to controlled development and ensuring that it is easy enough to use. The activation is guided and directed by relatively few actors. The first ten years of the Mao era, where the Party devised innovative campaigns to transform China’s societal institutions, represents this Settling Phase of the idea system.

In the Unsettling Phase (Stage 2), an idea system is noticeably less stable in quality. Its use and activation are no longer controlled by the initial developers’ intention. The source of this change comes partly from the fact that many actors have become familiar with the codification techniques, so in some ways they are more empowered to become creative and inventive on their own, deviating from the initial models and guides. There are also those who mis-activated the idea system inadvertently, and their acts were not monitored or corrected. As more diverse models become available in society, social members are also more likely to take influence from novel models and techniques.

Perhaps even more importantly, the broader institutionalization over time yields many small-time manipulators. These skilled actors, with varying degrees of power, could make fundamental changes to the initial models. In this scenario, the idea system goes beyond a state of diffusion into one of significant mutation. They could make up new codes or introduce new information, even merging ideas together or putting in unusual idea-catalysts or de-catalysts. The idea system becomes truly unsettling when the act of manipulation is conducted by too many parties, creating climatic schisms and contradictions that clearly undo the belief in the idea system as one cohesive entity. The height of the Cultural Revolution’s chaos, characterized by the moment of Mao’s intervention at Tsinghua University, exemplifies the idea system undergoing an Unsettling Phase.

In the Resettling Phase (Stage 3), an idea system has concluded the unsettling dynamic and arrives at a new state that is more settled, albeit in a new form. Often, the potentials of the initial form of the idea system have reached a state of exhaustion, even after repeated adaptions. The system of ideas and the style of codification have been “tested” so that their limitations are commonly recognized. The events and mutations related to exhaustion thus become part of the “data” shared by many members of society. A sense of fatigue and disillusionment, or even illegitimacy, becomes a common response.

A state of rebalancing is also possible in this phase. Even if the idea system may not live on as before, it can be rebalanced so that only the problematic parts and processes are trimmed off, and the idea system can exist in a viable or even realistically functional form. Or, in the case of a decomposition, an idea system may become like a species of weed that seems to “die off” in the wintertime. The cohesive form is no longer present, but its vestiges may remain visible. Yet, an important point is that while the species has decomposed into the ground, this does not mean that the species has become extinct. People’s knowledge and experience with a once-institutionalized idea system can be fused with a society’s memory and cultural repertories—which one day could be reorganized and then reemerged into new forms and compositions.² The steady waning of the revolutionary aura during the last few years of Mao’s life, transitioning into Deng Xiaoping’s era of governance over China, signifies the Resettling Phase of the idea system.

Basic Mechanisms of Idea Systems

Idea systems could be drawn from or embedded in the worlds of art, sciences, politics, or religion. The logics that tie an idea system’s components together can be as diverse as the ways that humans can think. Structurally speaking, the following set of mechanisms are fundamental for an idea system to operate.

The first is coherence mechanisms. These mechanisms work to maximally integrate differing ideas, voices, data, as well as information coded in different formats—irrespective of their abstractness or concreteness, their similarity or diversity. This mechanism includes the effort to correlate multiple kinds of data, to fit data into specific kinds of codes, and to draw equivalences between concepts. A strongly coherent idea system avoids excessive diffusion and “diversity” that may lead to a convolution of meanings. For example, when the interrogators of witch-suspects attempted to create convergent accounts through manipulative questioning, the effort was to minimize the mismatch of information that could appear in the final confessions.

Defense mechanisms work to deflect and weaken the forces attacking it. Filtering out unwanted voices by institutional means is one technique. Sanctioning those acting outside of the parameter is another. Enlisting supportive epistemic authorities is yet another. One option actually works on the public’s deep thinking: it is to put out defensive, alternative potential explanations that orbit around the core propositions. The threshold for creating these potential alternative explanations is rather low. Many of them could be rapidly created and circulated. Thus, the amount of work and resources to refute them would correspondingly increase. Generally speaking, a strong set of defense mechanisms could raise the threshold of conversations; as more authoritative experts take part in them, it becomes harder for a common person to question or challenge the idea system. In the case of witch hunts, we could see skeptics being entrapped in highly uneven epistemic battles, for, without information, expertise, or the support of social authorities, it was virtually impossible to penetrate the defenses erected by zealous witch prosecutors.

Adaptive and development mechanisms deal with changes, including modification, adaptation, extension, and development. From the point of view of a strategic manipulator, regulating the pace and the magnitude of these changes is very important, and changes in content are intricate activities. These activities encompass exact decisions to make stepwise inferencing, including measured, selective, and legitimate speculation. This also encompasses scrupulous revisions upon an old doctrine or metaphor, as well as introducing thoughtful intermediary ideas that bridge unconnected concepts during critical junctures. Ideally, these activities should all be well choreographed, but the processes of change are often nonlinear and turbulent, and sometimes spiral out of control, especially when there are diffused or conflicting forces shaping these adaptive and developmental changes. The Roman Catholic Church took actions to raise the difficulty of persecution and curb the overuse of torture; the purpose was to slow down and control the momentum of idea development. Mao, too, did the same when he criticized the vulgar behaviors of the Red Guards, and even the manipulative behaviors of his wife Jiang Qing.

Communicative-cognitive mechanisms involve linguistic and other cultural resources. At one level, these mechanisms make ideas easy to understand, create, use, and circulate. We have seen from the discourses in the book that the simple forms of codification could be used by illiterate people, and even by children, in an everyday context. On another level, a version of ideas also needs to be applied in sophisticated institutional contexts. Generally speaking, each institution—legal, scholarly, religious, or scientific—has a set of codification formats and requirements to which ideas need to conform. Communicative-cognitive mechanisms help to ensure that ideas can be smoothly processed in accordance with the linguistic-cognitive “registers” of these institutional spheres. Demonologists, many of whom were also judges and jurists, were the ones familiar with epistemic nuances and could recode information into formal, standardized language admissible for legal and bureaucratic purposes.

Typologies and Mixtures of Idea Systems

Using the classic social science method of “ideal type,” this book has opted for cases showing the differences between idea systems that are driven by an evidentiary versus an ideational mode of codification, and then it has added a third case to show how actors could selectively integrate these two types of processes in a hybrid manner.

By no means does this book assert that the idea system that shaped each case’s events was exclusively based on one mode without the influence of another. Instead, the typology is meant to highlight some characteristic differences, which then allows us to analyze their characteristic features. ³

An idea system principally based on empirical, evidentiary codification, such as witchcraft, has certain distinct dynamics. The goals of the activators of the idea system trying to generate specific ideas were to demonstrate, with as much clarity as possible, clean, unambiguous empirical relationships. Many mechanisms—like physically fabricating witchcraft phenomena or verbally narrating a witchcraft incident—revolved around this dynamic.

In contrast, an idea system, primarily operated on ideational codification, places much more emphasis on the internal integrity of an ideal. Its heuristics focus on determining and debating whether or how particular objects, situations, and people “fit with” or “match” certain quintessential, idealized constructs. Intense debates were waged over whether people fitted the broad categories of left or right, as well as the various subcategories, in the Mao-era case study. The many—almost endless—uses of creative, highly visual idioms and “aggregated facts” (which serve visualization functions) were indications of the need to successfully stabilize a certain fit between raw reality and ideational constructs.

I describe their characteristic difference in this way. Obviously, the evidentiary mode of codification of witch hunts has abstract theological narratives. But no one could state that an incidence of witchcraft was an actual, empirical happening, or a particular person is really a witch, without reference to a corpus of purported evidence that can be traced to very specific empirical relations. Judges had routinely acquitted witch-suspects based on evidential weaknesses and inconsistencies. With the exception of the extreme cases of power abuse, if all the empirical relations in the evidential corpus were demonstrated to have resulted from deliberate fabrication, then an accused person would most likely be acquitted.

This process is characteristically different from an ideational mode of codification that starts with an integral set of ideals as if such ideals are already a valid truth (that is to say, a moral truth). The discourses about whether someone fits certain revolutionary categories and conceptions are a little like whether a child fits the conception of a “good kid” or a “bad kid.” There are “facts” involved in the assessment, but, first of all, the validity of the ideals is independent of those facts. Regardless of whether a child has actually unjustifiably disrespected others, the idealistic distinctions between a good and bad kid are not altered. Second, the facts involved tend to be nonexclusive. Many other facts could be entered into a holistic assessment regarding whether the same child fits the ideal of good or bad. The kinds of “facts” used in the Revolution, such as a luxurious lifestyle or history of corruption, were similarly not of an exclusive nature. Other “facts”—including “aggregated facts”—could be entered or taken out of the process of holistic assessment. Third, much more subjectivity is presumed, and related to it a much higher degree of empirical ambiguity. Idealized constructs are not very concrete or unified in form. Whether a particular fact actually fits or should fit an idealized construct—and the extent and manner in which such a fit is to be articulated in a certain situation—is generally understood to depend on the subjective decisions of a thinking agent. Many battles thus lie in interpretations and depictions. And it is precisely because a judgment is not just a matter of disembodied fact but also a matter of creative interpretation that it can make so many disagreements unresolvable.

These two modes of codification can be exercised in many cases of current social, religious, and political movements. The idea systems proffered by UFO groups, for example, noticeably rely more so on the testing of empirical propositions, than mainstream churches, which aim to classify and guide the world correctly according to an ideal.⁴ In social movements, there are those who rely almost exclusively on science-based appeals to transform societies by exhaustive research, and there are those who seek to move societies in the broad direction of an idealized image—even if that image may be futuristic, unattainable imperfection, or grounded only in subjective appeals.

The different modes of codification may operate together to an extent, but they do contain different lines of operational logic, and the principles of one could contradict those of the other. Randomly mixing modes of codification could result in the weakening of an idea system.

Our third case that examines the legitimation of the War on Terrorism aims to show an instance of a masterly act of mixing such modes of codification. The designers of the idea system selectively, creatively hybridized the two kinds of codification processes, sometimes relying exclusively on one set, and sometimes judiciously intermixing the two modes. We see a hyper-propagation of idealized constructions as well as extensive mobilization of empirical-pattern building, depending on the moment. When the two modes were integrated, they were done so in a complementary manner. For instance, ideational constructs helped to “form” empirical facts on a more basic level—they determine what questions and problems to “look for” and what objects to “look at.” The work of empirical pattern-building did not primarily revolve around the revelation of definitive facts; the main activity was the transformation of otherwise ambiguous information into organized, uncertain signs—and ideational elements were indispensable to this.

Reading the many passages articulated by Bush administration officials has revealed just how well-choreographed their acts of intermixing codification were. Many intricate actions were literally done “between the lines”; other intricate actions were done between the documents, across a period of several years. When we move from a close-up view to take a broad, longitudinal view of the whole discourse, we can see the additional works that were executed to build connections between different pieces. Sometimes the works were divided between separate agents, where each of them played a specific role in the larger act of hybrid codification. Their separate actions, each manifesting a degree of epistemic discipline, were coordinated into a cohesive effort to build, activate, and sustain an idea system.

Humanistic Recapitulations

The situation today emanates evermore dangers resulting from the abuse of ideas. Scientific and rationalist mentalities are often absorbed into the abusive apparatus. Fair-mindedness—a cognitive style, virtuous character, and form of competence—is an important barricade to the worst abuses.

Intensified Vestiges from Past to Present

“Revolution” and “witchcraft”—the two topics listed in the book title—seem to evoke impressions of the distant past. But their vestiges are ubiquitous in current public discourses over social and political issues. People today occasionally like to evoke the phrases “witch hunt” and—more so in Chinese-speaking locations—“Cultural Revolution” to vaguely reference certain recognizably dangerous cognitive dynamics, which we have established as resulting from codification styles. As our third case study illustrates, these codification styles have been activated by the Bush administration in ways that are hybridized and intensified—intensified due to the aid of technological, informational, and expert infrastructures controlled both by the government and by the mass media. In the early-modern era, verbal tricks combined with physical means of fabrication (sometimes physical coercion) were the basis for building evidence. With the capabilities developed now, powerful institutions can create a long list of correlating vivid, extraordinary events in today’s world—often catalogued in organizational reports with an intimidating length.

Beyond elite and professional circles, many sensational, extraordinary events can now also be rendered by the masses. The populace can certainly “rehash” what was systematically developed for them, adding a humorous or scornful remark of originality. But with communication-technological thresholds lowered, much smaller groups and agencies can learn to execute manipulation themselves—co-constructing mediatized spectacles in the era of “‘massification’ of the media/journalism”—“via thousands of camera-wielding participant/partisan journalists/protesters.”⁵

The modern-day manifestation of older-day techniques is widely practiced in contemporary communication processes, by young people who have extensive experience manipulating them. Suppose there is televised footage of a basketball game. It is the prerogative for the do-it-yourself, self-styled sportscaster favoring the home team to:

• Report only the most vibrant moments of the home team;

• Use close-up angles on a player from the home team;

• Give a home player much richer, more amiable, detailed contextualization than an opposing player;

• Make a creative “story” by cropping and recombining videos;

• Magnify a possible violation of an opposing player, giving it ample speculations as to its motive and damage, while ignoring or reframing the many dishonest actions committed by the other team;

• Reverse the order of events slightly to make one player into a constant initiator of actions and the opposing player a responder;

• Make the actions of the home team coherent while making the other fragmented;

• Use memes, headlines, captions, subtitles, voiceover, soundtracks, and comments to simulate what actually occurred in the game;

• And so on.

Such capacities to creatively produce a “reality” based on another similarly produced “reality”—as Jean Baudrillard wrote in Simulations and Simulacra—have become everyday business. Youths and adults, and to an extent the rich and poor alike, generate and condition many “realities” that seem to really exist on a daily basis.⁶ For the most part, social actors could afford to concentrate on interacting with particular “realities” that they preferred and staying away from the ones they disapprove of. Speech and conduct are no longer regulated by a strong, unified set of norms or one shared sense of normalcy in society, aided by a unified set of social structures.⁷ Afforded by the social structure and new technologies, diffused norms and senses of normalcy are produced by numerous networks of shifting social actors who produce, circulate, and validate premises, ideas, data, or even “facts” and “events” pertinent to various inhabited “realities.”⁸

In summation, we see both the intensified form of idea abuse emanating from centralized sources and much more diffused networks—all interacting with and often colliding onto one another in today’s public political discourse.

The Limitation of Scientific and Rationalist Mentalities

Intuitively, the inadequate reasoning ought to be guarded against by a more stringent rationalist mode of thought and scientific knowledge predicting on the tradition of logical-empiricism (or logico-positivism). But practical circumstances complicate this solution—and in some selected contexts the imperfect application of scientific and rationalist mentalities can worsen social outcomes. This section highlights several complicating factors, following which we will reflect on possible solutions.

A. Bounded rationality and expertise. The first complication is that rationalist and scientific mentalities are constrained by people’s abilities and by practical contexts. Even if people commit themselves to apply scientific and rationalist mentalities to the maximum extent, they are inevitably “bounded” by the biological limits of the mind, the availability of time and information, and various material and practical constraints. In a competitive university, some students struggle to pass a regular science or logic course, while others fail to pursue their preferred careers because of grade performance. The test errors made by these students are painstaking manifestations of people’s limits.

“Thinking like a scientist” regarding sociopolitical affairs over a broad range of sociopolitical matters is a respectable attempt. But a member of the general populace is not an expert, an academic, or a scientist. Even those individuals who are tend to have a delimited circle of expertise. Thus, when the populace applies the rationalist or scientific style of codification on a diverse range of matters, it is inevitably in the form of a scientific or “satisficing” answer or simple rules of thumb. One exemplary form is applying a very general “scientific mode of thought,” such as the emphasis on logic and argumentative coherence. Another way is to emulate one or two standards or procedures they know, such as the model of controlled experimentation. A third way is to trust and cite opinions by experts and epistemic authorities. Yet another is deferring ultimate judgments to the competitive processes in public discourse. These “fast and frugal heuristics”⁹ (or “heuristic shortcuts”) came to characterize the actual exercise of scientific and rationalist mentalities in public political discourse. They can still be constructive, but they are not at the same standard, or even the same nature, compared to the mentalities applied by actual scientists or logicians who work on well-defined problems within professional institutions and subcommunities.

Tragedies can happen precisely in this space where the amateur applications of scientific and rationalist mentalities depart from the idealized conventions and standards. This book has demonstrated that, alongside “ignorance,” there was also a diverse mix of organized “knowledge” and “rationalities” that contributed to the worst social phenomena. Witch-beliefs were driven by scientific and rationalist mentalities, as was the Great Leap Forward campaign. Witch believers in Europe witnessed various “experiments” and “empirical” observations—like the search for the Devil’s marks, and the Chinese masses and political leaders alike were exposed to numerous photos and reports to affirm theories that were “scientifically sound.” Not knowing the “boundedness” in their own scientific and rationalist mentalities, social actors ended up making ideas with inappropriate confidence and acted zealously, beyond what their abilities and resources actually afforded. These actors only became aware of shortfalls of their epistemic processes after enough counter-information surfaced, and by that point it was too late.

B. Manipulative mimicking of scientific and rationalist discourse and procedures. Idea systems’ designers and manipulators could deliberately structure “boundedness,” setting up elaborate conditions that systematically misdirect people’s exercises of scientific and rationalist mentalities. ¹⁰ Prevalent in our current society are packaged or semi-packaged bodies of information, facts, ideas, or even authorities that mimic the methodical discourses and practices associated with idealized notions of science and rationality. These works may be performed by professionals trained in public relations or various fields in social sciences and the humanities, reinforced by sophisticated think tanks, academic units, and government agencies. These forms of “mimicking” encompass professional vernaculars, reasonable attitudes, and meticulous documentation in evidence that may match or even exceed the same elements observed in “regular” scientific or rational conventions (which themselves are not free from impurities).

Take the War on Terrorism as a guide. Most Americans did not have the basic expertise in chemical and biological agents, nuclear science, missile delivery systems, historical relations between multiple religious and political factions within the Middle East, the basics of foreign relations, or the institution of American intelligence.¹¹ But government agencies could amass a well packaged, digestible set of ideas and information, releasing these materials incrementally in bits and pieces.

Far from hyperbolic, my study has engaged with several such documents that resemble an unadulterated informational source: the reports released, leaked, or authored by Colin Powell, Hans Blix, the 9/11 Commission, Antonio Taguba, the International Red Cross, and Charles Duelfer. These reports appear to cover an extensive amount of non-extraordinary (ordinary) facts, and are therefore referenced as if they are primary sources, which “peers” or “the public” could examine.

But, as illustrated in previous chapters, these seemingly “raw” sources are often already filtered and encoded, and their rawer forms are not subject to open examination. This characteristic is applicable to the myriad of publicly released reports authored by think tanks, NGOs, government agencies, special commissions, and so forth—involving numerous “experts” or credible people. Even if they may not always match the idealized standard of science, they have enough rigor and resemblance that discourse participants are often emboldened to use them to back up their interpretation of existing situations—even using them for so-called fact-checking.¹²

For an ordinary member of the public enveloped in dozens of circular debates with the participation of a myriad of voices, or caught up in the busy mundanity of everyday life, the real is difficult to distinguish from the fake. Generally, though, a few quintessential differences may be discerned between the look-alike and actual enterprise of scientific, rationalist institutions that people expect (when they are free from being corrupted by power). For example, on the issue of finding repetitive, correlative patterns, the mode of idealized natural science would supposedly pay considerably more attention to non-extraordinary (ordinary) facts. In regard to resources, people, power, and publishing venues, some norms of fairness and openness would have to be respected, even if they cannot be perfectly enforced. The original informational database would ideally be presented to “peer” scholars so that some form of replication or alternative interpretation could be conducted, and the results published without problems.¹³

However, in situations where the fake is too real, or in situations where corruption (by money, politics, and miscellaneous social factors) affects the authorships of even the most respected scientific or academic institutions, adjudicating between the real and the fake might not be realistic for even the most disciplined rationalists.¹⁴ And simple rules of thumb such as acting based on the best of information can be destructive and detrimental especially when the sources of idea pollution are widespread.

C. Zones of epistemic ambiguity (empirical and ideational uncertainties). The third factor limiting the power of scientific and rationalist mentalities is dangerous ideas that precisely crop up in certain interesting zones of epistemic ambiguity—not within the domain of solid certainty achievable by current means of science and rationality.

Some uncertainties are empirical in nature. In the Iraq case, the zone of ambiguity includes the discrepancy between the numbers of produced and allegedly destroyed weapons. In the case of witchcraft, the zone includes symptoms of illness, such as black urine or strange coincidences. It is within such zones that many interesting signs fall into patterns that proponents of a particular position use to support a single “best” explanation. While absolute certainty was unavailable, enough evidence warrants speculative ideas to develop, rather than relegating the explanation to random chance.

Ideationally, a vast zone of epistemic ambiguity exists in the matching of codes and information. The acts of speaking about worldly affairs using metaphors, dictums, image-codes, aggregate facts, and abstract categories are common modus operandi in public political discourse. Asserting that one is gaining or losing ground in the War on Terror—or in the Revolution—is an interpretation instead of a strictly empirical statement that can be straightforwardly verified or falsified. Neither are efforts to label things or the use of elastic categories—such as the forty-something elastic categories in Mao’s time, or the various -isms and similar categories of our own time, across the political spectrum. Technically speaking, one event can be labeled within multiple, elastic categories, and many ideas are likely to be supported by aggregate facts or a rich array of information.¹⁵ “Resolving” such ambiguity may entail making decisions in finding one valid, fitting category among many—not simply conducting an experiment or making a mathematical calculation.

The line that separates certainties and uncertainties is often mistaken and ambiguous. “Known uncertainties” and “unknown uncertainties” are not clearly demarcated. Sometimes experts and rationalists can have a sense of what they know they do not know (“known uncertainties”), and therefore adjust their levels of confidence. But other times they can completely misjudge what they think they know. Many controversial political issues—such as the origin and medical course of viruses, the possibility of ballot manipulation, personal testimonies of egregious events, or the identification of precise sponsors behind uprisings and coups—involve many known uncertainties and unknown uncertainties. Many honest errors in judgment can thus be made in such an epistemic space.¹⁶

D. Outside of the strength of science or rationality. Lastly, while scientific and rationalist mentalities excel at handling certain epistemic needs, this is not necessarily the case for others. If we look into our own cases, we will discover many rich, substantive topics that ignite ideas beyond “cold” facts and reason. Visual imageries, fantastic stories, and powerful verbal expressions are not simply data but also carry certain moral, cultural, and aesthetic force in unique, situated contexts.¹⁷ They may be “logical”—but such logic operates in tune with humans as being, and hence is governed by a form of “inner logic” embodied in actual beings in the world.¹⁸ Today’s media channels are similarly filled with the same elements, in the form of videos, memes, images, declarations, interpretations, and testimonies. We can attempt to use science to describe the nonrational factors to readers after the fact, mapping out their primary forms and effects. But scientific and rationalist mentalities—even if they have considerable influence—do not constitute the entirety of such rich formations, which seem to articulate and influence humans as being. When these semiotically constituted mentalities are not on the same plane, one cannot necessarily be used to understand the other, and attempting to use the logic of one to make sense of the logic of another can quickly hit a limit. Whatever solution that could counteract these formations would need to be more inclusive.

Fair-Mindedness as a Thought Ability, Attitude, and Principle

A cornerstone of the new convention we should emphasize, I suggest, is one of fair-mindedness. We cannot demand absolute certainty. We cannot ask persons and cultures to be “perfect.” We cannot expect elite social actors not to take part in idea manipulation and make a difference in perceptions. But, if people exhibit fair-mindedness in concrete situational contexts, within the spaces of public political discourse and beyond, then we can realistically temper the worst effects of the idea-manipulations of our time.

The worst casualties in the battle of ideas, I contend, are not simply the consequences brought forth by flawed ideational contents. It was certainly awful that individuals were prosecuted as witches in early modern Europe. But another dimension of the events’ tragedy—beyond the physical dimensions—peaked in moments when all efforts at fair-minded reasoning were eradicated from the social scene. Powerful ideas and modes of codification overtook the collective social dynamics and transformed the characters of idea-makers into certain altered thinking, emotive beings. A whole, dystopian state of humanity with a new state of mind seemed to be awakened, which then cracked and shattered healthy sociality and social relations.

Fair-mindedness is at once an attitude and an ability, exercised within a circumscribed context, and conveys a state of developed humanity. We can first conceive of it as a minimum ethic, manifested in mature social actors who have a consistent attitude to be open to different ideas and paradigms of thoughts, and information and voices of different sorts, before rendering a sincerely made judgment.

At a more advanced level, fair-mindedness is linked to an ability to think in accordance with the heuristic models embedded in different epistemological paradigms and the perspectives of various case subjects, especially the most deserving ones. This ability can be developed from an experience in operating thoughts according to multiple methods of codification and an objective understanding of the basic nature of the “politics of representation.”¹⁹

Last but not least, exercising fair-mindedness sometimes involves the practice of a high ethical standard, which involves a well-developed character. More important than knowledge and information, most pertinent here is the mentality that one will carry through different ambiguous or intense epistemic situations, a refusal to be lured by seemingly simple answers or models of action, even in the face of an overwhelming amount of evidence and social pressure. Fair-mindedness is different from relativism and inaction. In Confucian thought, there is the phrase Chung Yung (or Zhongyong) [中庸], commonly translated into the “middle, common” road or way (not to be confused with the Buddhist “middle path” or “middle way”).²⁰ “Middle” more or less means non-biased and objective; “common” means the world, or what is in synchrony with the operation of the common world. The path of Chung Yung—which regulates speech and action—is actually very difficult to achieve, and for this reason it was believed, in the classical Chinese context, that only a rare few could attain Chung Yung, rather than a mass of society being able to do it. In this spirit of Chung Yung, fair-mindedness may process all kinds of voices from all kinds of paradigms. Even in the direst situations, one would need to be committed to choosing the most substantive voices to hear, harvesting and synthesizing the most cogent materials or perspectives that are in tune with both the objective truth and the common world.

Granted, not even the best minds can reach the right conclusion if only false information and biased messages are available. During these memorable historical moments, we have seen, however, judicious, fair-minded voices went a long way to mitigate the worst effects of dangerous idea systems. These minds are shining lights during the darkest and the most tumultuous of times. Their voices and modes of thinking—often going against the grain—have embodied hope in the most precarious of contexts. Even with their imperfections, they forwarded the pace of righting the wrongs, even in minor ways. They express among the highest form of ethics. They are the real protagonists of our study.