The Test of Consistency

How can we judge the comparative worth of ideas? Can we find any common means for comparing them? Confusion on this point is probably a major reason why so many people seem to have decided ideas don’t really matter. They may suggest otherwise when they argue, but when it comes to the way they live their lives, it often seems that their ideas do not inform their actions. Nor do their experiences necessarily inform their ideas. They hold widely varying and even conflicting ideas in mind from one context to another, and rarely pursue connections between them.

One guiding concept would resolve the situation for ideas which can be applied and tested empirically (that is, evaluated in practice). I also believe it would shepherd quite a few individuals with haphazard ideas to appraisals of the world very similar to those I approached when I embraced this guiding concept, through the methodology I used to get there (more or less). I speak of the principle of consistency.

To those who are interested in making an effort to live their lives consciously, I offer this suggestion for a really enlightening experiment: test your ideas in practice. But don't simply try your ideas — try your ideas consistently. Here is a basic method for the exercise:

First, ask yourself, what ideas do I think I live by, or believe? Make a list. But do not worry if at first you cannot make a long list. Your understanding of your own operative ideology need not be comprehensive at first, and unless you are already adept at knowing yourself and doing philosophy, you may not be able to isolate more than a few ideas. (For an exercise in beginning to notice your own ideas which you may take for granted, read the article Stuck in the System: Noticing Our Own Labyrinths and Tracing Possibilities, especially the Note on Further Brainstorming.) Do not worry if you are not sure about some of the ideas that come to mind. You’re about to find out whether you really do live by them, and give them a solid test in practice.

Second, select one of the candidates you list. Perhaps it is an idea you've chosen at random, but more than likely you'll be more interested in one idea than the others. Ideas you may have some doubts about, or ideas you think you already live by consistently for their reliability are both informative and sometimes revelatory choices.

Third, whatever you choose, really test that idea, and evaluate it. Try it conscientiously, and thoroughly. Do not limit it to the exclusive, and quite likely speculative and abstract place which it has occupied in your mind and behavior so far. Perhaps you think of it during academic discussions. Or maybe this idea is keyed to action for you, but only by a select string of events. Or perhaps it remains typically unexamined in your mind, but you realize that in the course of your daily habit you assume it. But now, act according to the idea consistently. Try assuming it, absorbing it, and applying it to any context that presents itself. Remind yourself to live it, look for opportunities, and keep track of the results.

If you do this conscientiously you will soon see the ramifications of your idea, not as you would like them to be, but as definitively as you can ever evaluate anything realistically. You would have to fool yourself quite actively to mess with the results. In the vernacular, you will soon see whether your idea is any “good” or not.

Remember, if following your assumption to its logical conclusion seems about to get you into trouble, such as producing a dangerous or unwanted situation, it’s time to stop the experiment. Likewise if your idea in conscious practice is producing results quite different from what you wanted or expected, you can conclude the experiment. Your idea may have failed the consistency test, in which case you have learned something quite valuable. As Ludwig von Mises remarked, “There cannot be too much of a correct theory.”

This is not to say that every “correct” theory must apply well to every sort of context encountered in life. For your idea to pass the consistency test, it need not work in absolutely every situation, or describe everything. On the contrary, an accurate theory should accommodate realistic limitations for its applicable context.

Limited problems in your consistency test may not demonstrate the utter failure of your idea, so much as they indicate more realistic provisions for its profitable application in the future, suggesting how you might redefine your idea as a limited principle fitting for a certain use, or as a model descriptive of a particular context. For example, an understanding that the practice of war generally causes destruction, loss and misery might also allow for reliance upon fighting in strict cases of self-defense. (In a more inclusive sense of all violence, some may recognize this as the “libertarian” non-aggression principle). And, deliberate personal optimism as a remedy for depressive thought patterns might allow for reasonable self-evaluation, rather than lobotomized perkiness, without compromising itself. And, a policy of polite, gracious treatment of other people might allow for stern rebukes in certain conditions, such as when dealing with a manipulative person.

The wisdom of making such modifications and exceptions depends on the results you observe. The performance of ideas is the standard of judgment, not their over-simplicity, which some mistake for "purity" of ideals with implicit overtones of truth. Remember that consistent ideas need not mean overly rigid rules or simplistic principles. The point here is to get the results you desire from the things you believe, not to simply follow ideas. Make your ideas work for you. After all, individuals should have ideas to serve their needs and interests, not simply to follow.

Some assumptions of context for the application and limitations for the play of certain ideas must be made in order to venture ideas at all. (Such assumptions are known as axioms, in mathematical terms.) But, consistency remains a most valuable guide for finding reliably advantageous ideas — the Great Ideas, or at least the ideas great for one’s individual needs. Within a context, we can judge what works, or what describes that context accurately. Our own experiences offer us a very reliable and convincing framework of "case studies" for guidance, provided we approach them consistently.

If you follow the life practice of consistency over time, you will begin to internalize it as a habit. You will no longer have a need to formalize consistency testing in order to make sense of your ideas compared to life. It will simply occur to you when you're taking some action that diverges from your usual principles in life. You will take notice of experiences which challenge your typical interpretations and impressions of the world around you. You will live according to your ideas naturally, test them continually, and update them to take account of changing feedback from yourself and your environment.

Of course, an open reading of history provides many such case studies, including those we cannot personally try, in vast numbers and in a variety of contexts, providing us with instruction well beyond the significance of our own tests. The unique value of personally-conducted tests rests in their applicability to us personally, and their persuasive power. But history saves us time and extends our scope beyond shortsighted limitations of personal sense information, and the biases of isolated judgment. Can we expect centralized planning to run an economy, or ruin it? No need to debate abstracted theory — read history. Has American foreign policy more consistently supported democracy or autocracy? Leave moralism behind and look at the record.

Certainly one must read history which does not omit facts providing important context, and in which the historian's bias and inevitable predisposition to interpret does not also edit out the value in the information; one might have to read differently-biased historians for a parallax view. But accurate history, history which reflects the pitiless tests of practice in the apparent world of phenomena, is replete with innumerable practical case studies of human experience. These are useful for supporting or debunking cherished theories, and sometimes inspiring their invention. (For a brief exploration of useful history and one case study used in this way, see An Easter Parable. Unfortunately, this and other examples from history show that people frequently do not stop their grand experiments with ideas simply because of dangerous situations.)

What the macrocosm demonstrates, generally the microcosm will also, and vice versa (according to induction). That is the assumption behind much experimental science, and common intuition. However, the wider scope has advantages that estimating from personal experience does not offer. A person only has spare, limited experience personally dealing with, for example, the repercussions of central planning (if one is fortunate), and while that experience may lead one to conclusions about the principle’s worthlessness similar to those obtainable historically, clearly history furnishes the scope to more easily appreciate the failure of central planning. This is particularly the case because an individual will usually not be trained to recognize the sort of subtle ramifications which nonetheless reverberate extensively throughout society, for example, widespread increases in relative costs of doing business or buying necessities. That the individual may evaluate from a distance others’ experience with trying an idea, including potentially very dangerous or troublesome ideas, provides us with a great tool of consistency testing. We need not enroll personally with socialized economies or industries, any more than the extent to which we are already forced to deal with them.

In effect, consistency testing, whether personal or historical, offers us a bulwark against our own delusion. But even more so, it offers us a great guide to our own happiness and success. To a great extent, our lives consist of our ideas and their application in practice. The errors we live by spoil our chances for happiness and success, and work against us. Additionally, even our most advantageous principles cannot help us if we do not follow them as much as we might. By rooting out the erroneous assumptions we have made in our daily lives or in our more abstract theories, and replacing them with more reliable ideas in word and deed, we can come that much closer to consistently realized living.

page created on August 13, 2005
page updated August 23, 2005 22:41 EST

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