Life in the Arational Space
The Paradox of the Believer: The Disciple vs The Zealot
While everyone develops problem-solving attributes in each of the four intelligence quadrants of the Human Intelligence Map, all territories are not developed equally. Because we tend to be residents of one territory and tourists in the other three, we naturally become much more skilled in the intelligence attributes of our home territory. If the individuals in a society are evenly distributed across all four territories, there is a greater likelihood that the group will develop a wide range of integrated intellectual skills. On the other hand, if the bulk of the population resides in one territory, the intelligence skills of that quadrant are likely to predominate over—or even trample—the development of the other intellectual skills. When this happens, the overuse of one set of skills can become a seriously limiting factor. Unfortunately, this appears to be the case today because it’s apparent that the vast majority of people have a strong preference for the Arational quadrant.
This preference is driven by two pragmatic observations. The first is derived from Kahneman and Tversky’s three decades of research, which provided substantial evidence that the overwhelming majority of people rely heavily upon System 1 thinking and rarely engage in System 2 thinking. The second is that, in solving the practical problems of family living, work interactions, and community relations, we spend most of our time navigating social reality and tend to take physical reality for granted. As a consequence, the most prevalent intelligence archetype is the Believer.
Beliefs
The centerpiece of Arational intelligence is belief. Beliefs are feelings of trust, faith, and confidence in someone or something. They are products of emotional intelligence and are often reinforced by personal experience. For example, there are many whose belief in God is rooted in an intense personal circumstance where they could feel the presence of a superior being looking after them. Because these feelings can be so profound, Believers do not require empirical evidence to support the validity of their experience. A recording is not necessary to convince Believers that they have heard the voice of God.
In social life, beliefs are the foundation of people’s thinking in two key areas: religion and politics. These two institutions of social reality are heavily influenced by ideology. Because social reality is subjective and essentially a shared set of norms that bonds social groups together, words are the building blocks for the construction of ideologies. In religion, words provide the ingredients for the creation of myths and narratives. Words are the context for the various scriptures among the world’s major religions. In politics, words are the elements for producing constitutions, edicts, and laws. They are also vehicles for developing the ideas that are the foundation for the construction of political systems, such as democracy, capitalism, socialism, and communism. Without words, it would be impossible to construct social reality.
Arational intelligence is both useful and necessary because, no matter how much we learn or know, we are finite beings in what feels like an infinite universe. Life is full of ambiguous mysteries, many of which will eternally elude us. The universe is massive and far beyond our capabilities to explore its entirety. In fact, we are not even sure if there is only one universe or many universes.
Human beings don’t like ambiguity and uncertainty. We prefer clarity and surety. Beliefs provide this lucidity and furnish us with a path to more confidently navigate the workings of an otherwise mysterious world. Beliefs often equip us with the tools to do the best we can in the face of limited—sometimes very limited—information. There isn’t single person who can operate without beliefs because none of us is omniscient.
However, as necessary as these tools may be, they must be used very wisely because, although Arational intelligence is a gift of nature that contributes to the overall superior intelligence of humans, it is, nevertheless, the lowest form of intelligence that we enjoy. We can get into trouble if we overuse these tools, and given that the large majority of people are Believers, this is a real danger. Whether or not that danger materializes will likely depend on how well we resolve the inherent paradox that is part of the work of this and each of the other archetypes.
The Disciple
Each archetype has a luminous and a shadow character. The healthy resolution of the paradox is a strong preference for the luminous over the shadow character. The Disciple is the luminous version of the Believer. For Disciples, faith is the center of their lives. They tend to belong to one of the major religions or a political party, and participation in a religious or political community is often a focal part of their lives. Like all Believers, Disciples experience the tension between good and evil. For them, this is primarily a personal issue that involves constant vigilance to assure that they are leading good lives. They see themselves as participants in the ongoing narrative story that serves as the basis for their beliefs and defines the scope of their existence. This narrative provides a sense of both reason and certainty.
While reason is an attribute that is important to the inhabitants of both the Rational and the Arational territories, this importance is for very different purposes. For the Scientists in the Rational territory, reason is the power of the mind to think and form judgments by a process of logic. It’s the capacity to embrace and answer questions by employing the scientific method. For the Believers in the Arational territory, reason is the belief that there is a cause, explanation, or justification for why things are the way they are. Believers may not understand what that reason may be, but they can be confident in the knowledge that some metaphysical force is acting with purpose. They also feel certain that by following the precepts of whatever faith or ideology they embrace, they will be leading a good life. This certainty extinguishes whatever doubts they may feel or that others may raise. Although there may be many mysteries that they will never understand, they feel a sense of inner peace that comes from their belief that there is a superior intelligence that knows what it is doing, even if they don’t. This is often exhibited as a profound sense of trust in a benevolent superior being.
Inner peace is an important value for the Disciple because it is the foundation for a sense of certainty in an expansive universe. Faith in a religious system or a political worldview obviates the need to pursue questions. All the Disciple needs to understand is that the answer to any of life’s issues are contained in the words of the narratives that form the architecture of what is experienced as a comprehensive belief system.
While they are willing and even eager to share the specific beliefs that are the source of their personal strength with others, Disciples recognize that there are many paths to inner peace. While they may believe that their worldview is more intelligent than competing belief systems, they are respectful of those who believe differently, especially if they can see clear evidence that alternative beliefs are supporting virtuous lives. It is this tolerance that distinguishes the Disciple from the shadow side of this archetype, the Zealot.
The Zealot
The Zealot is the least intelligent and the most dangerous of the archetype characters. This dark side of the Believer archetype is driven, if not consumed, by emotion. Their mantra is “I feel, therefore I know.” Because Zealots are a manifestation of Arational intelligence, there is little or no attempt to reconcile their feelings with reason. On some level, either consciously or unconsciously, they believe their feelings are the ultimate arbiter of truth. They tend to be exclusive System 1 thinkers. This means that they are very likely to be linear thinkers who are driven by unconscious biases and prone to an undeserved righteous sense of overconfidence.
While a firm set of beliefs shapes the lives of Zealots, these beliefs are not necessarily religious or altruistic. While some may profess a belief in a superior being or a commitment to building a better world, the Zealot is often highly narcissistic. When you strip away the rhetoric of their narratives, it often becomes clear that the locus of Zealot worship is themselves. This narcissism often causes them to confuse control with intelligence. Accordingly, Zealots have an insatiable need to control both the social narrative and social behavior. Because Zealots are often very effective at seizing control, they consider themselves to be far more intelligent than others when, in reality, the opposite is closer to the truth.
For Zealots, being a Believer is not about embracing practices and rituals that support personal development and leading a good life; it’s about extinguishing the voices of those whom they feel are the purveyors of evil. When you feel you are inherently on the side of the good, preserving the faith is less about doing good and more about destroying evil by extinguishing the voices and the influences of those who believe differently. Zealots accomplish this through censorship or employment termination in civil societies and imprisonment or execution in noncivil societies.
The recent mismanagement of the Covid pandemic and the related censorship campaign is an example of what happens when Zealots seize control of the reins of social policy. There are many people who lost their jobs because they refused to take a novel biogenetic therapy that was called a vaccine, whose long-term risks were unknown, and, as it turned out, did not stop either the acquisition or the transmission of the virus.
Resolving the Paradox
The healthy development of each of the intelligence quadrants is not about choosing the luminous character to the exclusion of the shadow character, but rather a balancing of both characters with a strong preference for the luminous character. Healthy Believers prefer to be Disciples by putting into practice the virtues espoused in the particular religious or political narratives that shape the direction of their lives. They appreciate the wisdom of John Kennedy’s exhortation, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” They are also capable of experiencing the inner peace and the sense of grounding that comes from following the precepts of a benevolent religious practice.
At the same time, healthy Believers recognize the world is populated with people of many differing perspectives. While many who hold different beliefs and values are capable of finding common ground to build communities that welcome and respect different pathways to common goals, there are Zealots who are intensely intolerant of any beliefs other than their own. If these Zealots are unchecked, their censorious, oppressive, and punitive tendencies will define the dynamics of daily living. When this happens, it becomes incredibly difficult for people to reach the farther reaches of human nature both individually and socially. To assure this doesn’t happen, the healthy practitioner of Arational intelligence develops some of the characteristics of the Zealot by making a commitment to become intolerant of the intolerant. They take firm stands against censorship and any attempt to deny people of the fundamental rights of a free society: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of assembly.
While healthy Believers exhibit the Disciple character to the fullest extent possible, they are also discerning enough not to let their bias for benevolence be weaponized by those who are heavily invested in controlling what people think and what they say. When they recognize the malevolent intentions of committed Zealots, healthy Believers are intelligent enough to know those rare instances when intolerance of the intolerant is necessary, and they are courageous enough to seize the reins of power and control for the time needed to preserve the fundamental liberties of a free society. Most importantly, once the danger has been thwarted, healthy Believers return to their preference for the Disciple character, assuring this lowest form of intelligence continues to be used wisely.
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Excellent information and very well explained!
Keep up the great work, Rod!