Can a Leopard Change its Spots? Worldview Conservatism & Adjustment

Can a Leopard Change Its Spots? Worldview Conservatism and Conversion

In my past few blog posts, I have noted the influence that worldview exerts on us through confirmation bias, experiential accommodation, the pool of live options, and life motivation. A logical conclusion from the noted influences of worldview is simple and straightforward: once a worldview is in place within the individual’s heart, the individual tends (all other things being equal) to preserve that worldview. That is, worldviews are inherently conservative. Individuals spend their formative years developing their worldviews through a complex interaction of sociocultural influences—for example, family, education, religion, and economic situation. A worldview may develop with some intentionality and choice, or it might arise and grow entirely unconsciously and unintentionally. Either way, once worldview is established, it is firmly entrenched and exerts tremendous influence on how a person thinks, wills, and acts.

Core worldview presuppositions tend to be stubbornly held. A small amount of contrary evidence does not convince someone to abandon one worldview and adopt a different one. In other words, worldviews are not changed unless they have to be. In the 2009 movie Race to Witch Mountain, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson stars as Jack Bruno, a taxi driver who unwittingly drives two alien “teenagers” around Las Vegas. Weird things start happening right after Bruno picks them up—the teenage boy stops a pursuing car by letting it smash itself on his body—but Bruno does not immediately conclude that the teens are alien beings. After all, Bruno is convinced that aliens do not exist. Such beliefs do not change easily.

Nonetheless, worldviews (and components of worldviews) are not unalterable. If they were, then without exception individuals would adhere to their parents’ religious worldviews. There are simply too many counterexamples of individuals who have moved from one worldview to another to believe that worldviews are cemented in place. [E.g., C. S. Lewis (from atheism to Christian theism), Antony Flew (from atheism to deism), Bart Ehrman (from Christian theism to agnosticism), and Michael Shermer (from Christian theism to robust atheism).] Worldviews change in two ways: adjustment and conversion. Today, I want to look at worldview adjustment. 

Worldview Matters V - Race to Witch Mountain

Why Does Worldview Matter? The Impact of Worldview V – Race to Witch Mountain

Worldview is the conceptual lens through which we see, understand, and interpret the world and our place within it. Worldview develops in and flows through the heart, the center of the human person, and necessarily involves answers (propositional or narrative) to four questions: What is our nature? What is our world? What is our problem? What is our end? Every person possesses a worldview that provides an answer or set of answers to these core worldview questions, but these individual worldviews can be compiled under broad categories.

But why does worldview matter? How does worldview affect us? Why bother learning about it as a concept, and one’s own worldview specifically? What does it have to do with life? Simply put, worldview matters because one’s worldview affects everything that one thinks and does, through confirmation bias, experiential accommodation, the pool of live options, and life motivation. We can see the impact of worldview displayed clearly even in popular culture: for example, consider the 2009 film Race to Witch Mountain.

Contemporary Cultural Worldview Meditation.

Race to Witch Mountain—How About Them Aliens?

In the 2009 action flick Race to Witch Mountain, Las Vegas cabbie Jack Bruno (played by Dwayne Johnson) is an alien skeptic in a town of gullible people. The movie opens with Bruno driving alien-believer Dr. Alex Friedman to a UFO convention. His next fare happens to be two normal-looking teenagers, Sara and Seth—but these are no ordinary teenagers. Instead, they claim to be alien visitors returning to Earth to collect scientific data that might just save their home planet and thereby prevent the impending invasion of Earth by their people.