Against Teleology

Originally, this was going to be a post on why I hate Rationalism (and things associated with it, like the New Atheist movement.) Then I realized that my problem wasn't so much with Rationalism as it was with Teleology. So now this is a post on why Teleology has to die.

I suppose I should start by precisely defining my terms in the traditionally high-handed manner, but eh. Precise definitions are so rarely actually helpful. Impressionistic will have to do. There will be sufficient high-handedness as things stand. Teleology, as I'm using the word, is essentially the set of end-states - "perfection", "truth" and "utopia" are three of the clearest examples, but any idea of a state of affairs where progress ceases altogether counts - these ideas can be found in all fields of human thought, from aesthetics to religion to politics to science (the Theory of Everything is a particularly good example). And all of these ideas, without exception, are destructive.

Take truth, for instance: truth is an idol worshiped by many, held up as the ultimate aim of human thought, as the only thing worth pursuing, but its true nature is this: truth is the sacrificial altar where thought dies. Imagine actually knowing the truth - isn't it self-evident that nothing more can be thought once the truth is known? There is no questioning, no wrestling with problems, no change, no growth. Truth is stagnation. Truth is not a state of existence that any living mind could participate in, for no living mind could fail to change or to grow. (Consider also the behavior of those who claim to know truth. It's bad.)

Or look at what the idea of "moral perfection" does to people. Instead of feeling limited and specific guilt for actual moral transgressions (that is, the sort of guilt that is actually useful for motivating you to improve), many of us have been taught by our parents, by our religions, by our teachers, to compare ourselves to this unrealistic standard of moral perfection - which, of course, we fail to live up to, causing an increasing build-up of unresolved guilt and self-flagellation. The same pattern can be observed at the macro level, where - at least in the United States - the sharp contrast between the idealized version of the country (with liberty and justice for all) and the one that exists in reality (the one built on slavery, with Trayvon Martin, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and an absolute inability to ever achieve the moral high ground in any conflict (listen, World War II was a once-in-a-millennium opportunity to actually be the Good Guys for once, and then we dropped two nuclear weapons on civilian centers.)) results in the twin responses of outright denial and desperate, misguided, guilt-driven activism.

With that kind of cognitive dissonance, it's no wonder people turn to eschatologies and savior narratives. It doesn't matter whether you're waiting for the Revolution, the Rapture, the Singularity, or just Someone to do Something - what you have, in effect, said, is "We can't fix this by ourselves. We have to wait until it becomes, magically, alright." You have capitulated to Teleology, and unless you recant, you will wait for Something to happen until you die, having accomplished nothing.

Well, fuck that. Teleology has to go. And not just fundamentalist beliefs that "This is truth (or perfection) and this is how we get it," - no, we also have to get rid of the idea that truth or perfection is unattainable, but that the point is to get as close as we can in a sort of asymptotic striving. "Of course we can't actually achieve truth," they say, "but we can get as close as we can, and isn't that something, perhaps even noble in its own way?" Well, no, it's not.

And here's my second point: not only is Teleology destructive, it is totally incoherent. The ideas of Truth or Perfection are not just contradicted by all of human experience (we have absolutely no empirical reason to believe these sorts of end-states have any reality, conceptual or otherwise) - but they are completely inconceivable. This is why Christian authors have had so much difficulty dealing with the concept of Heaven (I am thinking particularly of C.S. Lewis' two attempts, in The Great Divorce and in The Last Battle, both of which portray Heaven as an infinite journey toward Truth and Perfection, since actually portraying those states of existence is impossible). Go ahead, try to imagine a state of absolute moral perfection, or a state of absolute truth. The mind recoils, or else edges around it with comfortable and meaningless religious platitudes.

"Inconceivable? Ridiculous! The ideas of truth and perfection are not only very much conceivable, they are necessary! And what's more -" Listen, hypothetical (and apparently indignantly British and heavily moustached?) interlocutor: these ideas are not necessary. They are merely entrenched. Heavily entrenched, no doubt - these Platonic absolutes curl around our brainstems, but if Stargate has taught me anything, it's that these parasites can be removed (as Wittgenstein reclaimed language from Plato with the idea of the "family resemblance", grounding language in similarities, approximations, and the way people actually think - rather than the Platonic (and entirely bullshit) idea of the essential thingness of a thing).

The idea that truth or perfection are necessary for progress - scientific, philosophical, moral, or otherwise - is purely a figment of the Platonic infection. To think that progress necessitates some sort of absolute metric presupposes Teleology. But look at how people actually think: we know (or can figure out) what one step better than here looks like. Progress means "better than here", not "toward some ideal". Maintaining that distinction is the first step toward living and thinking progressively, rather than teleologically.