When we hear the concept of “sacred belief,” we naturally think of religion. Yet moral psychology shows that everyday beliefs can be sacred as well. A belief becomes sacred when a person refuses to question it due to deep emotional investment and a strong sense of personal and group identity built around it.
The psychological machinery behind sacred beliefs is motivated reasoning. We hold on to a belief, regardless of its empirical defensibility, by filtering out contrary evidence, consciously or otherwise. The antidote is simple to state but difficult to practice: critically interrogating precisely those beliefs we hold most dear. Doing so is essential to epistemic humility, something I learned the hard way.
Despite the title of my blog, I wasn’t always “post-tribal.” I spent my young adult life identifying avidly with the progressive left. I worked for labor unions and community organizations, and had a few jail stints, one in Mexico, for getting into “good trouble.” Years of activism prolonged my Ph.D., and the low pay of social justice work left me paying off college loans into my 40s.
My passion for social justice arose from compassion, anger, and guilt over the world’s stark inequalities. In my sociology courses, I came to see these inequalities as products of history and power relations, a legacy I had unwittingly benefited from simply by being born white and male in a wealthy nation. Years later, I recognized that my embrace of progressive explanations stemmed less from their accuracy than from how deeply they resonated with my emotions and identity.
Here are a few of the sacred beliefs of my youth:
- Apart from geography and luck, nothing intrinsic to Western culture or institutions explains their success. Western wealth came from stolen resources, continuing today through exploitative global arrangements.
- The United States is not remotely a meritocracy. Ability and effort are trivial for social mobility, which depends decisively on family resources and connections.
- Gender inequality endures due to centuries of exclusion by men; any observable differences between men and women in ambition, aggression, nurturance, and career choice are due strictly to socialization, not biology.
I now see these views as one-sided: partially accurate, but not the whole story. I began to change my mind only after identifying the emotional and social needs these beliefs fulfilled for me. Then I started asking myself some questions. Might certain features of Western institutions contribute to their success, but not necessarily translate to other cultures? Might differences in ability matter much more for social mobility than I had assumed? And might average psychological differences between men and women influence their occupational and other choices?
I don’t have settled positions on these questions. But they warrant open discussion, not impassioned dismissal.
How my worldview cracked
The first crack came years ago from an anthropology colleague who challenged my tabula rasa outlook on gender. “Are there any known societies where men’s chastity is rigorously safeguarded while women are encouraged to be sexually libertine?” he would ask. Or: “Can you name any society without sexual jealousy or male concern for paternity?” I had no answer. (“Didn’t Margaret Mead prove something like that?” I wondered.) Steeped in Marxist and feminist theory, I took a purely structural view of behavior, seeing people as marionettes enacting cultural scripts.
The second crack came from the reactions I encountered when I began exploring evolutionary psychology. For most sociologists, evolutionary theories are little more than rationalizations for capitalism and patriarchy. Yet as the chasm widened between my colleagues’ zealous opposition and the evidence-based arguments I was reading, I was forced to confront my own motivated reasoning. It was painful. Pursuing a fuller picture of human nature alienated me from valued scholarly networks. Yet in that pain I learned a lesson: Our preferred theories are often far more than analytic tools; they are deeply integrated into our sense of self and how we find meaning in the world.
I recently saw this dynamic play out over lunch. My colleagues and I were discussing the Vanderbilt Report, which argues that left-wing bias is eroding objective research and standards in the humanities and social sciences. A skeptical colleague asked for an example. I offered gender inequality in work roles: “Sociologists emphasize socialization and sexism as key factors shaping the occupational landscape,” I stressed. “But is it plausible that women and men also have, on average, psychological differences that play a role in nudging them toward different career paths?” I saw her hands clench tightly. “I don’t agree with that biology stuff,” she snapped.
Motivated Reasoning Essential Reads
I recognized my colleague’s knee-jerk stance, as I once held it myself. The speed and heat of her response suggested a belief being defended rather than examined.
Readers may suspect that my story is another trite example of a liberal coming to embrace conservatism in his later life. Yet my views refuse to align neatly with any political team. I remain as troubled by climate change as I am by the erosion of meritocratic principles in our institutions. My only commitment now is to put truth over tribe.
None of us is immune to motivated reasoning. So what can we do?
Three habits that may help open our minds
- Ask what evidence could change your mind. If the honest answer is “none,” you have found a sacred belief.
- Notice your body. Clenched hands, a flash of anger, or a sudden urge to change the subject can signal a sacred belief under threat. They can also signal ordinary irritation or a good reason to disagree, so treat them as a cue to look closer, not a verdict.
- Separate “this is wrong” from “this is threatening.” Entertaining a hypothesis is not endorsing it.
Epistemic humility is uncomfortable. But if we aim to find the truth, we must be open to being wrong. So ask yourself which belief you would find unbearable to revise. That’s probably the one to examine first.