“Skepticism relieved two terrible diseases that afflicted mankind: anxiety and dogmatism.”

Sextus Empiricus

If life as we know It and the earth, sun, and planets evolved out of stardust, we might conclude that there are no rules besides the ones that nature follows. Is e=mc2 the same as “thou shalt no steel”? Both are expressions of groups of humans about their truth, but one corresponds with a reality, and the other does not; the other is a mere opinion or dogma.  

Being a skeptic forces you to ask these kinds of questions all the time, and if you do this, consequently, you will soon realize that there is not much in life that is a force of nature but coined by humans. But even the most thorough skeptic will soon realize that it makes sense to call a table a table and wood, wood. Just because we named these objects arbitrarily doesn’t mean we can’t do like the Romans when we are in Rome. But eating a pizza in Rome of the 1920s like they do is something else than approving the fascist regimes just because you moved to Rome.

The reason why we have a democracy is partly because of this fact; truth in politics is not much more than an opinion. No party or political direction can claim to be the truth, though they often like to do so. No law guided by nature tells us to be a communist or a capitalist; non of these directions can be correct as a law forever, at most for a short time, in a group of like-minded people.

For a true skeptic, politics is not much more than a deadly game played by immature children. The realist might say that you must play within the rules of the time you live and choose your side, but I don’t understand why you must play this game to the bitter end. I am pretty sure that the people we have chosen to be in charge play world politics as a game that is real and not like a game of Risk or Monopoly; for them, it is so real they will take a life, many lives to prove it.

We all make up the reasons why we do what we do, and it is hard to imagine a world where politicians, for instance, sit around the table and start the meeting by saying that they don’t know and that their customs are just that, customs. But for me, it is just as easy to think of a world like this as the world we live in; both are not grounded in reality, so why do we choose the ugly route and not the one where we all wonder?

“The skeptic, being a lover of his kind, desires to cure by speech, as best he can, the self-conceit and rashness of the dogmatists.”

“It is probable that those who seek after anything whatever, will either find it as they continue the search, will deny that it can be found and confess it to be out of reach, or will go on seeking it. Some have said, accordingly, in regard to the things sought in philosophy, that they have found the truth, while others have declared it impossible to find, and still others continue to seek it. Those who think that they have found it are those who are especially called Dogmatics, as for example, the Schools of Aristotle and Epicurus, the Stoics and some others. Those who have declared it impossible to find are Clitomachus, Carneades, with their respective followers, and other Academicians. Those who still seek it are the Sceptics. It appears therefore, reasonable to conclude that the three principal kinds of philosophy are the Dogmatic, the Academic, and the Sceptic.”

Sextus Empiricus