21st-century Christian Philosopher

The Emperor’s New Clothes

In Hans Christian Anderson’s satire The Emperor’s New Clothes we’re often told up front that the clothiers are crooked. We never get the impression that the boy or any of the adults know this. And we’re pretty darn sure that the Emperor or his staff does not know. It’s something that only “God”, Anderson, and we know. It sets up the story, it lays a somewhat probable motivation to drive the story in the direction that Anderson chose.

Literature critics call this an “omniscient” viewpoint. In order for the story to make sense to us, we need to be told details that might not be as well understood from the limited vantage point of the characters. So Anderson gives us that bit of information to give his highly implausible story a gloss of understandability.

However, we know how the story doesn’t end. It doesn’t end like this. 1. The people admired the Emperor’s new clothes 2. A boy cries out “But he’s not wearing any clothes!” 3. Pro and anti-clothes factions spring up and start arguing in the streets. 4. The End.

No, this is how it ends: The boy shouts his observation unfettered by social custom, the people when hearing the truth, blink and realize he was right. Wikipedia’s recount of the story includes “This was whispered from person to person until everyone in the crowd was shouting that the emperor had nothing on.”

In the story we know that the Emperor was naked because 1. the clothiers are crooked and 2. everybody agrees with the boy’s assessment regardless of whether or not it was their first take. We’re not subjected to an ambiguous story where we don’t know why the Emperor thinks he has clothes, one boy cries out–for an unspecified purpose–that the Emperor’s naked, and then subjected to the ambiguity of pro-naked and anti-naked factions. It just wouldn’t say anything as a story.

Now, factor in that it’s not some recorded event in history. It’s a fairy tale, and so it would serve as a iffy picture of human nature, even if we did allow for the sake of argument that Anderson possessed a keen insight into human frailties. In other words, we don’t have a case of knowing that what human nature is like because those events were documented to happen. Believing that it is somehow a reliable picture of human behavior would have to rest on our assessment that Anderson has above average intuition into human character.

Now I say “above average” here, because if it were more common, and more of us could make up a story out of our wit that was true–despite having never happened, then “skeptics” would be out of a important weapon in their arsenal. The idea that judgments cannot be made on the basis of insight alone, and need to have a factual basis to maintain them.

The Courtier’s Reply

Now, why did I write this? Why am I dissecting our vantage point in the story? Why am I specifying what did not happen? Why do I need to state the blindingly obvious fact that it is a fairy tale and not a historical event? What’s up with me?!?

Because some people believe they’re living in that world. They believe that the interactions in this world come close enough to that story that they can invoke that story as explanation in itself. They believe in a world where Anderson could make up a story like ENC, this non-event explains the inability of people to see things as they see it. Reliance on the inner truth of a moral fable is enough (if they like it). PZ Myers has to answer no more than two words: “Courtier’s Reply”.

That’s the title of his post where he likens criticisms of religion-bater Richard Dawkins in his book The God Delusion to the reactions of a pro-clothes sophist. God hasn’t got any clothes–nor any being to put in them, so objections that you mishandled your treatment of religion are so much like a psuedo-erudite defense of the Emperor’s clothes, that it needs no explanation.

You can scan down the page to the comment section to see the whirl of high-fiving fervor of “skeptics” who suddenly believe their own worldview. “The Emperor really DOES have no clothes,” some affirm on the subject of religion, and we’re too blind to see it.

So it’s kind of like that time in that fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson when nobody could see that the Emperor was naked…

Except It’s Nothing Like That, Really.

Not only is the reference event fictional, but the detail is ripped out for consonance with the prevailing anti-religious worldview. Again in the story it is clearly established by omniscience (which “skeptics” don’t have any reason to believe exists) and consensus, which the “skeptics” reject anyway, and doesn’t really apply. That’s all we have. We don’t have a epilogue of Professor Thinkenstein proving forensically that there was not a trace of fiber on the Emperor’s body at the time in question. What Anderson gives us is what we take as credible proof that the Emperor was not wearing clothes.

Anderson’s story is not about how a group of people can be gulled into thinking something for centuries. It’s really not even about the new interpretation put on it, that nobody wants to break the status quo. The operating force is really even highly pointed to in the story: Pride.

The crooked clothiers make a point of saying that only those people who are not worth their station cannot see it. It hints at a sort of universal insecurity that everyone tries to pretend that they are alright and actually see it. See, how did it get to be status quo to be the status quo? How did it achieve the momentum which the people dared not disrupt? It starts by the Emperor sending his best men to look at the clothes, they don’t want to give credence to the idea that they are unfit for their station, so they claim to see it.

If the king’s best men see it, and you don’t–and it’s important to maintain your image, are you going to say you don’t see it? No. So it’s played out with the exaggerated case that nobody cops to not seeing it. And it’s exaggeration for effect. The boy has no station to lose. No station to be unworthy of, so he’s not really under the pressure, and can tell it like it is.

Taking it out to the real world there are all sorts of weak points: would men chosen for their shrewdness by the ruler really be taken in so easily by con men? Would an Emperor really parade around in nothing? Would nobody be able to ascertain that? One can imagine that if this were a credible story of human behavior it would a historical incident and not something that somebody had to make up in the 19th century.

So it gives a curious reference point to say that The Emperor really does have no clothes. We lack either of the devices of the story. Forget about omniscience, but we also don’t have enough consensus about what went on to conclude that the Emperor really did have no clothes after all. We have a self-consistent, self-reinforcing contention from a single faction that the Emperor really is naked and since we know this we can conclude that the clothier’s were likely corrupt to maintain or start this lie.

But that’s part of the same piece as seeing the Emperor as naked. In the story he is naked, and again Anderson makes it clear (less the story lose its impact) that the Emperor was naked. But in reality we just have one faction convinced that the Emperor has no clothes and that the fairy tale is an adequate expression for the delusion they see around them, despite that the story doesn’t fit the mold they’d like to press it into, and they really don’t like fairy tales.

What’s really interesting is that the particular target of The Courtier’s Reply isn’t people who in their view persist in the illusion of the Emperor’s clothes. Instead, their target here finds it likely that the Emperor has no clothes. He’s an atheist, who as other atheists have done, criticizes Dawkins for his shallow treatment. Pressed into the context of the fairy tale, they might suggest that it’s not at all as simple as the story. They disagree that it is so obvious that the Emperor has no clothes. And they disagree with the way that a member of the pro-naked faction seems to blithely ignore the way that pro-clothes position doesn’t fit Dawkins’ model of it.

But to Myers and his crowd, it’s been established to their satisfaction that the Emperor has no clothes. So it makes it just like that story where it’s obvious, except it’s really not. However, given the disagreement in the pro-naked faction of whether or not it was obvious, they maintain the now almost non-existent parallel with the story as reason enough.

And for that, they are told that it doesn’t matter because it’s just like in that fairy tale and since no reply would need to be given (in a situation where everybody confirmed the fact) no more effort needs to be given than in that highly fictional case of something that never happened, regardless of whether even the pro-naked proponents believe it’s that bleeding obvious. And that’s an intellectual basis for an argument about something going on in this world.

How uncritically this very flawed–not to mention anti-intellectual–argument is received belies the exceptional critical facility that they otherwise claim for themselves.