A Rationalistic Society

A rationalistic society would scarcely resemble the ideological wasteland filled with philosophical assumptions leading in every direction that Western culture ultimately reduces down to.  Western society is sometimes called rationalistic because of the philosophically erroneous on scientific progress [1], but reason is distinct from, beyond, and above science, so rationalism and science are in no way identical.  A culture immersed in rationalism would look very different than what many elements of contemporary Western life and philosophy look like.

A rationalistic society would not be one of scientism, relativism, or tolerance, and it would be composed of many individual rationalists who all look to reason itself instead of cultural norms and popular concepts (of course, there would still be conversations about philosophy that might help guide some of them towards certain truths, but even then they would look to reason instead of merely accepting the claims of others).  In this regard, it is simply a society where the number of rationalists is exponentially increased and where consistent rationalists are not in the minority.  It would also be a cauldron of forces that would orient otherwise irrational people towards rationality.

Even people without any philosophical initiative, those who would never gravitate towards philosophy out of subjective interest or its all-encompassing importance, could be pressured and manipulated into embracing rationalism to some extent.  If someone is intellectually weak enough to let others decide their worldview, a rationalistic society would simply redirect their ideological path towards rational conclusions.  The person being molded by society would not be choosing a rational worldview for sound reasons, but others could avert an even worse outcome.

Perhaps they would wake from their apathy or unintelligence and reason out familiar and new truths themselves, but, even if this never happened, at least the damage they could inflict on their culture would be minimized.  There would not be scores of individuals blindly following dozens of non-rationalistic ideas at the prompting of conflicting cultural forces.  Instead, there would be an overarching rationalistic tendency in the culture that philosophically competent individuals would endorse out of their own genuine rationality and that many philosophically incompetent individuals would support or resign themselves to simply because their culture says to.

Observing and talking to others generally reveals immense evidence that almost no one is a rationalist, and social conditioning is very often an unintentional but chief factor.  It would be ideal for every individual person to become a rationalist on their own, of course, and only when a person either becomes a rationalist strictly due to their own initiative or deconstructs and analyzes every culturally popular idea they have assumed to be true can they have a sound worldview.  Short of this extremely unlikely scenario, the rationalistic people in a given society can still exert an influence over those who intentionally outsource their worldview formation to others or fail to construct a valid worldview out of sheer laziness.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/12/how-western-culture-overestimates.html