Amathia, or: How I Lost Respect for My Father
Alack then, Alcibiades, for the plight you are in! I shrink indeed from giving it a name, but still, as we are alone, let me speak out. You are wedded to amathia, my fine friend, of the vilest kind; you are impeached of this by your own words, out of your own mouth; and this, it seems, is why you dash into politics before you have been educated.1
We are prone to thinking the problems of our modern age are unique. A cursory study of history would disabuse us of such a foolish notion. We are a ridiculous species.
Succinctly defined, amathia is willful ignorance. It has nothing to do with intelligence. In the quote above, Socrates isn’t calling Alcibiades stupid; he is accusing him of embracing falsehood despite being smart enough to know better.
Thanks to social media, we see amathia play out on our screens every day, from political figures to preachers to influencers. Sometimes it’s malicious, and other times it’s just a symptom of the human condition.
Dear Old Dad
I think the concept of amathia goes hand-in-hand with the idea of epistemic collapse, or the breakdown of a shared reality caused by the inability to distinguish what is true and what is false. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that the latter is a consequence of the former.2
When people cling to ideas or beliefs without a rational foundation, or even worse, hold them closer in the face of conflicting evidence, then we lose the ability to communicate. Truth becomes relative and accountability loses all meaning.
And it’s one thing to discuss this topic while it’s comfortably at arm’s reach, a problem with society at large, but it’s a different beast when it appears in your own family.
Put simply, I’ve lost my dad to religion. He was always a religious person; he “found Jesus” during a crisis and felt something resembling peace. But now, in his dotage, he has fully embraced a MAGA/Christian Nationalist identity. Fox News is too liberal; it’s all about OAN. Demoncrats deserve to be shot in the street, along with gays. He blames most of our societal woes on the Marxist-Islamist-LGBTQIA+ cabal.
Over the years, his theology has morphed in strange and radical ways. He is convinced of an unseen cosmic war between Elohim and Satan. He expounds at length on the complex eschatology and our role in the conflict. Any attempt to push back is met with accusations of not being redeemed. See, if you had “the spirit,” then you would know what he says is true. If you disagree, it means you’re bound for hell.
Retirement only made things worse. Now he has all the time in the world to argue online and convince himself that it’s him versus the world.
We no longer exist in the same reality, and it’s incredibly sad. The man who once could do no wrong in my eyes has been reduced to a bitter, mean recluse, full of hate masquerading as Christian love.
I think we all reach a point in our lives when we see our parents for what they really are: fallible humans like ourselves, just trying to make ends meet. It’s just unfortunate that the fall-off had to be so dramatic.