Dangerous dogma

AS society huddles closer together in smaller houses and bigger cities, more rules are necessary to maintain reasonable order and safety. The world is becoming overpopulated. One of the most dangerous places to be is in a crowd, especially if it represents hysteria.

Panic and attempted flight are easy to start, but difficult to stop. I'm talking about a physical crowd, a mass of people pushing and shoving to see or flee. If you've felt the press of uncontrolled bodies making their way to nowhere, you will know what I mean. It scared us as children; it scares us even more as adults.

Rules are good?

Rules are good. They should be used as sensible guides to behaviour and practical thought. The intelligent person interprets them in the light of the circumstances in which they are to be applied. Like anything that is done to excess, rules can become dangerous.

How many lives have been lost by the door marked "to be locked during the performance"? How many have died from friendly fire induced by the instruction to "take the easy shot quickly"? What damage is done daily in the name of "men at work", posted to absolve the management from responsibility for accidents? "Dangerous bridge" signs have left many drivers struggling to escape from a locked car under water.

A current example of a strange rule is the China Covid-19 lockdown policy. As the rest of the world gets on with living again, it seems China is trying to make sense of isolation for little more than a cold. They may, of course, be ahead of the game and know where the next pandemic is coming from.

Dogma used to be associated with belief in the afterlife. Religions describe their beliefs as dogma. Such belief is at times so fervent that it has to be protected by the law - protected and controlled. Politicians are rightfully wary of getting in the way of their constituents' beliefs. A mob is frightening; a divinity gathering can be much more so.

But surely a quiet place to say a prayer is no threat to the ordinary person? That depends on who the prayer is to and what the prayer is for, or is intended to achieve. So what is a prayer? It is said: "A prayer is a kind thought followed, where possible, by a kind action."

At least, it should be. You do not have to believe in God to pray. Prayer is believed, by me and others who have no religious faith, to be powerful, for its effect on the person saying it. It may or may not be effective for the object of the prayer. We do not know, but we may believe.

Believe when you don't know

By definition, if I believe something, I do not know it. I personally believe enough to say prayers for other people when they need love, help or forgiveness. Once you are in the realm of belief you choose your beliefs.

Can they then be any belief at all? Of course they can, but we were given a brain to reason, to learn and to understand. If our beliefs are unreasonable we are misusing the talents we have. Since belief is unproved we must moderate our doctrines to be compatible with the society we live in.

Belief is not exclusively religious. We believe concepts that are political, and ideas that are futuristic, that have yet to be invented.

We believe we can achieve things others cannot. In fact, due to the limit on our time and our willingness to be educated, we have to believe a lot in life, testing it as we grow older either to refine it or to change it. The self-discipline of our character should ensure that we use our beliefs moderately and with humility.

The business I built in Singapore initially had 1 product. The profit margin on it was exceptionally good, so the management before me had believed exclusively in that product. With very high gross margins, it seemed the obvious thing to do. All effort, all promotion was devoted to it. People forgot that the world is constantly changing - it was, even then.

Proof of concept, advertising claims, competition, alternative products all potentially posed a threat. I started a whole raft of new products. They were not as profitable but they proved the value of the business when it was sold 11years later for 25 times earnings. My caution in building a wider-range business, while still paying attention to the big earner, turned out to be right. The belief of my colleagues had not been wrong; it had been wrongly applied.

In business we spend much time forecasting. It is essential to get our timing of raw material input and finished product output right. The best forecaster in the world could not have predicted the Putin War, the successful Ukraine resistance, and the growing feeling that World War III is already upon us in the form of cybernetics.

What could have been forecast is that the rush to globalisation was inevitably going to present supply problems since countries are still independent, competitive units, with their own political arrangements and their own beliefs. To globalise, the world must agree how to handle the different ideologies in such a way that we live in reasonable harmony.

False beliefs

Unfortunately, the explosion of mass media channels with their ability to propagate false information has presented the world with new weapons of mass media and personal intellectual destruction. We are learning quickly how to fight with these but we can't yet reconcile them to make a world of common sense.

If the other team plays rough ball, we must play rough ball too. What gives rise to this is a competitive challenge. If only we could find rules to level the field. The competition, however, is not merely material or skills-based, it is ideological and dogmatic. And, for the mass of voters, these are quickly stirred into challenge and war.

We are who we are, and our leaders are in place whether we like it or not. The best we can do is look to the future and begin to establish a different world where more decisions are supranational.

You may say it cannot be done. But the amazing advance in communications has barely started yet. When it really gets going we will have the opportunity to communicate and educate in a way that is appropriate to the needs of modern living. We are still some way from that. Indeed our educators appear to have barely recognised the need for a completely new form of teaching. It is something of a surprise that a number of our clients need to be taught the very basics of communication even though they have reached senior positions.

The armed services were always known for obedience and discipline. These were taught as essential aspects of a workable army. With simple strategies, primitive weapons and, it has to be admitted, largely uneducated rank and file such simple rules were unequivocally clear.

It is said that Earl Haig, the head of the British Army in World War I, and his aide-de-camp attended a meeting with the most senior French officer in which neither side spoke or understood the other's language. On being told the problem, Haig is reported to have said: "The most important thing about this meeting is absolute secrecy".

As communications and armaments developed it has become essential to devolve decisions further down the line. Business has been slower than the armed forces in this respect and the current problems of recruitment and retention are partly a result of this.

Dangers of dogmatic beliefs

Our educators could start by teaching that dogmatic belief is a serious danger to our world. We have enough difficulty dealing with the news already - real and fake. To have to accommodate dogmatic ideological beliefs as well is asking too much of our limited minds and wavering characters. Life wasn't meant to be easy but it wasn't meant to be that difficult either. Let us learn what we can of the new technologies.

Human institutions are fallible, subject to the whims and follies of our flawed nature. That is why they must never be dogmatic. Firm, vigorous and practical belief in dealing decently with other people is wholly desirable. When it becomes dogmatic it loses the compass of reason and starts to do harm. Can we hold firm beliefs and avoid becoming dangerously dogmatic?

Theodore Rubin put it pretty scathingly: "There are 2 ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking."

I prefer to think that humility to admit that you may be wrong is the tool to fight dangerous dogma. It needs to be employed whenever the word 'belief' is used. Perhaps Andre Gide put it best when he said "Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it." Amen to that.

• The writer is founder and chair at Terrific Mentors International