Monday, May 21, 2007

Felling the Idols of the Tribe

Today I came across an article series that says quite well what I have tried to say in the posts "Anger and the Cause" and my thoughts on FairTrade. The article begins with Francis Bacon's term "idols of the tribe" (groups erect belief systems with little evidentiary standards) and queries whether our idols standup to a truth standard. This in a nutshell is what I wanted to say with Anger and the Cause -- that we establish a gold standard and then judge everything else according to that standard without determining whether the original product meets the criteria that we really want. This prevents us from moving forward, just noting back and forth who's right/who's wrong.

Read the articles!

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